Pulpit and Party Politics

New Zealand Tablet, 15 October 1908, Page 9

Pulpit and Party Politics

We notice that the political parson is already out electioneering from the pulpit and afflicting a peaceable small town in the North Island with the din of his tin-trumpet. His reverence's statement that he ' speaks strongly because he feels deeply ' reminds us of an incident that occurred after a fight on James 'Island (South Carolina) in 1862, during the course of the great

American Civil War. A strongly-built young fellow was deafening a whole hospital ward with the outcry and hullabaloo which %.e raised over an unimportant wound on the foot. General Williams happened to be passing through the hospital at the time, visiting the wounded. ' He approached the stormy advertiser with the bandaged foot. ' Well,' asked he gruffly, ' what's the matter with jou?' 'I'm wound- d,' said the patient, pointing to hiu foot. ' Stop your noise, man! Stop your noise!' exclaimed tin General. ' There are men lying around with their heads knocked off, and they're not saving a word!' Well, there are probably men a-many in the clerical profession in this Dominion whose ' feelings,' as private citizens, are as ' deep ' and as decided on many a political point as are those of the good man who has been doing such noisy barn-storming up North. But they have the good sense to remember that the pulpit is for the Gospel and not for the pitch of party politics. A gifted American writer has well remarked that ' party politics, when not a mud-puddle, are a bull-ring, and the preacher has no business in either.'