Political Converts

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 24, 1882

Political Converts.

Now that the Sunday question is the leading thing in politics, the politicians are learning a new set of phrases to use in their stereotyped speeches. They speak learnedly of “the law given by Moses;” are very zealous for the “time-honored American Sunday,” and are struck with holy horror lest this “Christian nation” should forget “the God of our fathers” by not giving due reverence to certain “police regulations.” It does not seem to occur to anybody to wonder why the Christian zeal of these professional politicians has never been manifested before; why their light has so long remained hidden under a bushel. The good people who are so anxious to have the Sunday protected by law, are glad of any help they can get, without stopping to question motives.

The depth of the piety of these men may be learned from the following incident: One of the leaders in the Republican party was asked what, in his opinion, the Republicans would do with the Sunday question. Said he, “I think they will give the Sunday-law plank to the Sunday people, and the candidates to the whisky men.”

It may be that their calculations will fail in some respects, but this will serve to show how easy it would be to “convert the world” if the proper pressure were applied, and just how much such conversion would be worth.