The Open Church from Salina, Kansas • 9

THE OPEN CHURCH. the people, moral principles are involved, and the moral sentiments of the voters are appealed to by political press and political orator. We are assured that duty demands our protection of Venezuela, and that it condemns our forcible resistance of Great Britain that it demands our intervention for Cuba, and that it forbids war with Spain that a gold standard is dishonest to debtors and that a silver standard is dishonest to creditors that protection is due to American sellers, and that free trade is obligatory for American buyers that it is a sacred duty to prohibit the liquor traffic, and that it is a violation of personal rights to interfere with the liberty of drinking that it is irreligious to allow the saloon to be open on Sunday, and that it will bring religion into disrepute if the Church endeavors to forbid the German his beer on Sunday. It is a singular conception of the duties of the teachers of truth and duty which supposes that they alone are to be silent respecting the obligations of the citizen in a free State, while all other voices are clamorously endeavoring to lead or mislead him. The corruption of administration in municipal affairs is due, not primarily to the vicious vote, which is small nor to the ignorant vote, which is not overwhelmingly large but to the morally indifferent vote, on which bosses depend to carry through corrupt schemes to their consummation, or to secure condonation after they are consummated.

The one thing, the only thing, absolutely essential to pure government in our cities is a civic conscience a general sense among all citizens, of all classes and all parties, that they owe a duty to the city, and that this duty is superior to any which they owe to their party the consciousness that they are under a sacred obligation to study the political problems which affect their city, to acquaint themselves with the forces which are working for corruption, and to combine in a vigorous, self-denying, aggressive effort within the party or without, as circumstances may determine to secure honest men for the administration of municipal affairs. The counsel of Jetho to Moses is equally applicable to our own time Moreover, thou shall provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them. If every minister, Protestant and Roman Catholic, Chistian and Jew, Orthodox and Heterodox, would preach an annual sermon on that text, the clarifying effect would be as sudden as it would be surprising. The power of the ministry when, by spontaneous and unconscions agreement, it acts together, was shown in the effect propuced on the warlike spirit of this country by the voices of thousands of pulpits the Sunday after the famous Venezuela message. That afforded a good illustration of putting the Church in politics.

There is an equally splendid opportunity of putting it in politics against ring- 9 masters and bosses in city, State, and National politics. If Mr. Kidd is right and doubtless he is if the people of the United States lack a civic conscience, it is the ministry who are to blame. And they can acquit themselves of blame and put the Church imo potitics, without putting politics into the Church, if they themselver are able to put in their own minds principles above policies, and to value the victory of character above that of a political party. Outlook.

B. ap mills in Buffalo. Nothing is more indicative of the rapid growth of the newer conceptions of Christ and His Kingdom than the recent work of Mir. Mills, the evangelist, as exemplefied in his address in Buffalo, April 8-29. "The Mills' meetings" were a series of sermons, some of which might be termed 4 lectures, upon "The Kingdom of God." The sermons treated such topics as The Old Testament and the Kingdom of God," "The New Testament and the Kingdom," "The Church and the Kingdom," "What Society must do to be Saved," "The Teaching of Christ on the use of Wealth," The Labor Question in the Light of Christ's Teaching," etc.

The most rigid applications of the fundamental law of Cross, were confidently and fearlessly made to every region of our practical social life. The burden of Mr. Mills' message is a return to the original call of Jesus, The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." The purpose of God is not the taking a favored, chosen part of the people on earth into another world apart and so save them, but it is the filling them with His love and sending them into the world to leaven and redeem it here on earth. Those who were expecting the old-time methods so generally employed by Mr. Mills and other evangelists were disappointed.

There were no inquiry meetings, no testimony meetings, no voice beside the preacher's had a hearing in any regular gathering except in opening prayer. No personal efforts were made to lead men to decide to be Christians. The wisdom of this unusual course may be questioned, but it cannot be questioned that the most thoughtful and earnest people of Buffalo have been stirred to fresh thought and solemn conviction concerning the message which God is delivering to this generation. The results of the meetings cannot be measured by the crowds in attendance. The cards signed and hands raised have never measured a work of God.

But we are confident that many lives have through the meetings of these recent weeks, received a new vision of God which will bear fruit in most potent and consecrated Service for God and men. L. G. R. Cbc Cburcb in politics.

There is a great di (Terence between the Church in politics and politics in the Church: as much as between the Church in the world and the world in the Church; or, to use a familiar figure, as between the ship in the water and the water in the ship. Sometimes the preacher puts politics into his church; and this is a grievous error. He does so when he becomes a partisan and carries his partisanship into the pulpit; when he thinks the virtue and intelligence of the community are all to be found in one party and the vice and ignorance all in the other, and endeavors to put the weight of his church, or even his own ministerial influence, in the one party scale; when he turns his pulpit into a party platform and preaches for doctrine the principles of the Republican or Democratic or Populist or Prohibition party when he endeavors to make his church or his pulpit serve the cause of any one party as against other parties, instead of the cause of pure purposes and a noble spirit in all parties. Then he puts politics into his church and degrades if he does not also divide it. Putting the Church into politics is quite another matter.

In their antagonism to the union of Church and State many Americans have unconsciously adopted a theory of secularism which is as untenable in philosophy as it is immoral in tendency. Christianity is social as well as individual. Religion is the art of living, -and concerns life in the State as truly and directly as it concerns life in business, in society, or even in the Church. It is true that Christ and His Apostles had very little to say about political duties; because the Christians of the first century were living under a despotism and had no political duties. But the Jews, before Roman despotism had destroyed the State, and the Hebrew commonwealth still enjoyed some freedom, had political duties, because they had political liberties, and the constant theine of the Hebrew prophets was the duty which the people owed the nation.

From Isaiah to Malachi the prophets are full of the application of religious principles to civic duties. These are the examples for preachers of righteousness in a free State. The State is a religious, not a secular, institution. Its functions are distinctly religious. It determines what shall be its policies in dealing with other nations; and these are to be determined primarily by moral considerations.

It administers justice between man and man and this is a religious function. It arrests the vicious and the criminal, and undertakes, not merely their punishment, but also their reformation. This is redemption, and redemption is supremely a religious function. In the political issues which from season to season are presented to.