The Ballot and Moral Questions

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 19, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 51.

The Ballot and Moral Questions

Rebecca Harding Davis, in an article in a recent Independent, with fine irony sets off the ridiculousness of deciding great and even moral questions by vote. She says: "Of course, the old augurs were ridiculous enough as they anxiously watched chickens feeding or dogs running to find some hint of the divine Will; but are we any less absurd when we find truth at the bottom of the ballot-box, and the divine Will out of the matter altogether?"

There is a chronic disease now among us. We only used the ballot at first to decide when we threw off the yoke of kings, but now we appeal to it to settle every question, from that of predestination to the fate of unbaptized infants, and to the government of a church.