Show PIETY IN POLITICS THE following extracts from the episcopal address of bishop perry of iowa is commended to the attention of those who would entirely exclude religion from politics and church the exercise of the rights and privileges of american citizenship with political parties the christjan christian bishop as a bishop can have nothing to do he possesses lily his right as a citizen in common with his fellow citizens he to is bound as a citizen to exercise wisely faithfully aad in the fear of god those inestimable rights right secured to him as well as others by our forefathers but it does not become him to arraign or applaud one party or another save as the interests interest of the faith or church of god are concerned or assailed but there is a common ground above all party platforms or principles where the christian patriot may stand and where his voice should utter no uncertain sound the assertion of the right of the people to the enjoyment of liberty protected bylaw by law the maintenance of good order and equal administration of justice the repression of wrongdoing wrong doing and the curbing of vice the promotion of industry and the protection of honest dealing the provision of an independent judie judiciary alythe the recognition of the right of the people to the best beat possible civil service on the ground that a public office is a public trust and is 18 not to 4 be given as a reward for political or part izan services but is due to one who can perform its duties and meet its ite responsibilities best that the government is to be administered vot ot for the advantage f the party in power but for the people as a whole that the man who gives or spends a dollar for the purchase of a vote is a traitor to his country and a foe to every freeman in the land that the raising of money ostensibly for legitimate uses but really to secure party triumphs m h at t apy price deals trad ing for appointments to office by those who chance to be in power and all the multiform appliances of the demagogue the partisan the political trickster and wire puller all these are to be discountenanced reproved assailed proscribed by every freeman and this is what the christian patriot priest or may rightly seek to accomplish by word or deed for the sake of the country for the sacred cause of liberty that posterity may receive unimpaired that which was secured at so great a cost for us we have no hesitation in claiming that christianity is an element in politics and that its claims to be considered must be maintained and enforced the experiment oi 01 divorcing our public education from all recognition of our common christianity is not so great a success as to warrant the attempt to eliminate the christianity of our fathers from all recognition on the part of the state in other matters 1 aft our fear that we may do injustice to the unbeliever we wrong the christian who has rights to be t r specter as well as the infidel god give us the return to the purity of the first days of our dear native land god grant that we may never as a nation or as individual christians forget that thai our fathers trusted in god and ascribed to him their strength and success |