OCR Text |
Show "GOOD TO BE A METHODIST." Under this caption the Sacramento I'm'-m has a good-natured fling at President Gmnt, for meeting tlie ob jcetion of the wealthy Poatonians to the a)pointinent of Simmons, as Collector Col-lector of the port of that city, with the answer, "He is a member of the Methodist church." The Union states that tho opposing delegation jwere not without hope that Simmons i would not he confirmed till tho President Pre-sident mado that announcement, and then all hope departed. In the language lan-guage of the defeated delegation 'that was a clincher." While it must be gratifying to the people of the United States to know that tho President attends church with commcndablo regularity overy Sunday morning, and sometimes again in tlie evening, they must not tret ilt-natnrpd nt Mm irvfilirMAiis nrp.mj for noticing such a remark as is here credited to him that his nominee "was a member of tlie Methodist church." The religious antecedents of the President, before lie entered the White House, like most other public men, and especially fighting men, were never very remarkable, and that he may now be so very zealous as to make Methodism, n virtue in an officeholder office-holder is not to bo wondered at. John Gough's great forfe as a tomperance lecturer is the vivid pictures lie is able to paint before tho auditory of the drunkard's misery, taken from the realities of his own previous debaucheries, de-baucheries, and it was the apprecia-1 tion of his peculiar fitness for preaching orthodox Christianity, from the practical experience of its very opposite, that set the religious folks almost crazy when "Awful" Gardiner, a famous "rough" and "Plug-ugly," became a preacher, and of later years, when Kit Burns, " the wickedest man in New York," closed his den of the lowest infamy in Water street, and turned his " cockpit" cock-pit" into a chapel for prayer meetings meet-ings and preaching. President Grant has probably experienced ex-perienced "a change of heart" and it is very natural that he should wish all .li-mnvl h,n ir. Ua Mm i Inirn, n,.f nf the same beatification, and we see no I reason why tho Boston ians should make such a suggestivo remark that membership in the Methodist Church "was a clincher." We see no ill effects of Methodism in any of out Federal officers here. Chief Justice McKean is a Methodist: he is a very temperate man, out of tlie Court House; which must necessarily neces-sarily be too sacred to speak of he is not a brawler, nor in any way a bad citizen Govennr Woods i3 not a Methodist , but he might be one without being any worse. We do not know what are the saving tenets of the two Associate Asso-ciate Justices of this Territory; and although Postmaster Moore is a live Deacon iu the Methodist church, an excellent officer and a good postmaster, postmast-er, we also remember that Rev. Bate-man, Bate-man, the Nevada Indian agent, is a Baptist, and our own Dodge was also one; while Major Maxwell is considered consid-ered only "a swearing Methodist." It is not Methodism that hurts those of the Utah officials who have made themselves conspicuous in the anti-Mormon anti-Mormon crusade, (or tak en as a whole there isn't enough religion of any kind among them to hurt anybody; but their dcrjarturo from honest republicanism re-publicanism and their opposition to people and things here, must be set down to "pure cussed n ess" of disposition dispo-sition and a desire for notoriety, than to any honest wish even to meet the cravings of the "unco guid " and rabidly rab-idly righteous of any denomination for pious extirpation. A Methodist may be as good as any other man, and the Union should not repeat, in a sarcastic way, that "it is good to be a Methodist." |