n, over the ballot-box?
Shall we be so foolish? Let statesmen and politicians look well to the
essential elements of the nation's life, by the advocacy of reform at
this point where reform is most needed. And let Christians of every name
plead for morality as an essential qualification for a place at the head
of so great affairs as belong of right to the people of counties, states
and nation. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any
people. It is time for us to look after the moral elements of every
man's life who proposes himself as a candidate for office in our midst,
but we can well afford to be satisfied with the truth. Shall we look to
this?

While we pray as Christians for such rulers and authorities as will look
to the permanent and lasting interests of our country, let us vote as we
pray. Do we pray one way and vote another? If so, let us repent. Do we
pray for righteous rulers and for a good government and then vote for
profane, wicked men; for men of intemperate habits, men who are
perfectly indifferent to the moral welfare of our country; men who will
disregard the welfare of the nation by neglecting the elements of
national greatness? If political parties triumph in this government
through slander, trickery, whisky and corruption, and continue to do so,
the time will inevitably come when we will realize the facts of national
ruin. We might as well think of a man having good health and living long
upon the earth who takes poison into his stomach continually, as to
think of future glory as a nation if we carry out our purposes by
dishonest, illegal measures and by railing, in a slanderous and
unjustifiable manner, against the best men of the nation. It has been
said that political parties are necessary as checks to corruption, but
when parties themselves indulge in all manner of corruption in order to
succeed as parties, they are no longer checks, but abettors of
corruption.

Let the preachers, whose business it is to reprove sin, and who have
been kept from taking the risk of being shut out of Paradise, by being
kept out of politics(?) open their mouths and be heard all over this
country against all these immoral, vile practices indulged as a means of
political success. The ignorant, fossilized partisan who looks no higher
than party will perhaps raise a yell of indignation against them, but at
the same time he will continue the use of the same old argument, viz:
the pool of politics is t