WE mentioned a week or two ago, the plan adopted by the Sunday-law managers in Chicago, of organizing a Sunday-rest League in each ward which is to work for Sunday laws and their enforcement; and for the election of candidates pledged to their enactment and enforcement. But this matter does not stop there; the other side of the question have also taken up the work of organizing leagues in opposition to this. This is called the Personal Rights League; and it numbers already in Chicago 25,000 voters. One of the purposes of this league, is directly to antagonize the other.
We do not take sides with this league as such, no more than with the other; but it is worth while for professed Christians who form the Sunday-rest Leagues, to run ward politics, seriously to consider that matter and count the cost. Are they ready to carry that contest clear through when they enter ward politics? Entering upon it as Christians are they going to continue to be Christians, and to do in all things according to real Christian ethics? If so, how do they expect successfully to meet the political opposition which is bound by no such considerations? If they expect to conduct their ward politics in all respects upon sound Christian principles, and be successful,—they might just as well stop before they begin. And if they are not going to do this, they had better stop before they begin. In truth the latter will be their only alternative. They will have to meet political methods in a political way, and with like methods, all the time if they are going to win.
Therefore they had better stop before they begin, because religious politics is ever so much worse than civil politics; and corrupt religious politics is infinitely worse than corrupt civil politics. Every league that is formed by those political-religious bodies, will be met by an opposition league, and then the question of winning is simply a question of which shall be most successful in political scheming. Professed Christians ought to learn that it is not through politics that Christianity makes its true influence felt, nor is it by political campaigns that it wins its victories.
A. T. J.