The Spirit of the Contest.
We clip the following from a secular political paper. The object seems to be to give an idea of the present political campaign. It is only an extract from a long article:— “The whole moral forces of the commonwealth, from center to circumference, have been aroused to furious indignation—not only all the church people, but all others who sympathize with them, all who have sprung from the loins of Christian women and been baptized on the Christian Sabbath—and he who expects to be elected on such a damnable platform, especially in this county, is no less than an unreasoning fool. In this Cain-like resentment against mankind, J—— T—— has kindled a veritable religious war as vehement in its spirit as ever flamed in the glens of Scotland. Since the conflict has been begun by the powers of darkness, let the fighting go on and the forces continue to be arrayed in solid phalanx; the churches against the gin-mills; Sunday-schools against the brew-houses; Christian women against the destroyers of their households; morality against vice; God against the devil. The former may lose the battle on the Barbary Coast and other confines of hell; but elsewhere, as sure as the great stone was rolled away from the door of the sepulcher on the morning of the first day of the week, the honor of California civilization shall be redeemed.” What a climax! If such is indeed the nature of the conflict in which the political parties are engaged; if a “religious war” is kindled, “as vehement in its spirit as ever flamed in the glens of Scotland,” then unhappy was the day to our nation in which religion was forced into American politics! If this is the spirit engendered by this religious controversy, then the sooner religion is voted out of politics the better for the welfare of all people; especially the better for pure Christianity, which depends for support on the loving spirit and peaceful lives of its professors, and is always injured by the frenzied zeal of worldly-minded advocates. The conflict was begun, however, and the subject was forced into politics when it was publicly announced that no man must be voted into office unless he adhered to the Sunday Law. This was the first step toward a “religious test” for eligibility to office.