MR. SAVAGE'S BOOKS. SERMONS AND ESSAYS. Christianity the Science of Manhood. 187 pages. 1873 $1.00 The Religion of Evolution. 253 pages. 1876 Life Questions. 159 pages. 1879 . The Morals of Evolution. 191 pages. 1880' 1.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1884 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 Religious Reconstruction. 246 pages. 1888 Signs of the Times. 187 pages. 1889. Helps for Daily Living. 150 pages. 1889 Four Great Questions Concerning God. 86 pages. 1891. The Irrepressible Conflict between Two World-Theories. Cloth. .25 1.00 .50 Is this a Good World? 60 pages. 1893. Paper 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.50 .50 .75 1.00 .50 1.00 Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in "Messiah Pulpit." Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; single copy, 5 cents. GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 272 Congress St.. Boston, Mass. 104 East 20th St., New York. SOME OF THE MORAL ISSUES OF THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN. My text I find in the fourteenth chapter of Proverbs, the thirty-fourth verse,-"Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Let me say at the outset that, in my judgment, the Church is no place for partisan politics. I do not claim the right to preach what is ordinarily called a political sermon. Under ordinary conditions it is none of my business to tell you, at least in public, how I think you ought to vote. But there are times in the history of a nation when it seems to me that any man who is silent is recreant to the highest obligations which he owes as a citizen; and those who try to stand for righteousness in public places, of all others, it seems to me, should then speak. I claim no infallibility. My judgment may be wrong; but it seems to me that I must say some of those things that appear to me clear and important. A righteous government is the most difficult thing in all the world for people to establish and maintain. A government that is free and at the same time is orderly is the last and highest result of the political evolution of the world, the most difficult thing to attain, one of the most difficult things to preserve and perpetuate. It seems to me, therefore, that every man who is a citizen is under the very highest obligation to play his part as a citizen on all common occasions even, much more in times like these. I heard a gentleman the other day, presumably honest, intelligent so far as I know, say that he had not registered, and that it was hardly worth while, for, if he did register, he should probably not vote. I cannot understand the attitude of a man who can utter words like these. We, in a republic like this, are personally and individually responsible when things go wrong, because we can at least do our little best to have them go right. If I had my way, a man who declined to vote on two separate important occasions should have the right to vote taken away from him, and be branded as recreant to his duty. And he should have it restored to him only by making public confession and promising better manners. It is our duty, then, it seems to me, to play our part as citizens of this magnificent republic of ours; and it is our duty in every way possible in a time like this to see to it that our neighbors join with us in helping to preserve the most priceless gift that has ever been bestowed upon the world. I have said I claim no infallibility: it is possible that some of you may radically disagree with opinions which I shall express this morning. I fairly and freely concede to you your right to disagree with me. I only ask you to concede to me my right to hold and express my own views. We need liberty enough in these matters to go all round, embracing the pulpit and the pew and every department of life. I shall speak with perfect freedom. I shall say just what I think. Then, afterwards, you will weigh my words, and will do what seems to you best. In the first place, I wish to touch briefly because, important as it is, I take it that I need not dwell long upon it on the matter of public honesty. I have been amazed this year at the attitude of certain men who, by virtue of character, as we have supposed, by virtue of powers of public eloquence, by virtue of their records in the past, have claimed to be our natural leaders. I have been amazed to see these men reversing directly and entirely the attitude which they maintained four years ago, and condoning at any rate what seems to me public dishonesty and threatened disgrace. I cannot understand how any man can get into a state of mind in which he shall suppose that Congress, by a vote, can create money, or can make that which in the markets of the world is worth only forty-eight cents become suddenly, in some magical fashion, worth a hundred. Things like this are possible only in fairy stories, in "Alice in Wonderland," in books like "Jack and the Beanstalk." How men with clear brains can suppose such a thing to be possible is to me utterly incomprehensible. I know that Congress has stamped certain silver-colored disks with the legend that announces that they are one dollar, and on one side that pious phrase "In God we trust "; but, instead of the piety condoning the fraud, it seems to me that it only comes very perilously near a blasphemous association of the Almighty with our own short-sighted schemes of dishonesty. We are a part of the great world, and saying that fortyeight cents is a dollar, or shall be, here in America, does not make it a dollar in London or in any other part of the world; and every man who is capable of thinking, every man who has any right to stand up as a teacher even of the smallest boy, knows that we are to be measured henceforth by world standards. The attempt to carry through these measures which threaten us is public dishonesty and private wrong. It threatens the stability of our business it is a peril to every man who is a capitalist; but it is a greater peril to the man who works by the day and for wages. lessens the amount of his income and makes him a poorer man. That which threatens public dishonor, that which threatens our commercial credit at home or abroad, that which threatens to rob the poor man of his wages, becomes something more than a financial question: it is a moral question, and from the day of far-off Sinai until now it stands liable to be blasted by the words which, it is said, were uttered in the midst of cloud and lightning,--" Thou shalt not steal." It It is simply that, nothing more, nothing less; and the man who does not know it is intellectually incapable of swaying the destinies of any part of a great people like ours. Enough for that. I wish to touch on another matter. Possibly some of you, you business men sitting in the pews, may wonder that I, a minister, dare to touch such great financial questions as these. I venture, however, to deal with what seem to me fundamental principles simple enough for any man. comprehend. They tell us that another great danger that threatens the people is the existence of the Trust; and here, in the East, where 16 to 1 is not specially popular this year, it is thrust quietly in the background, and "Trust" is placed at the front as the one great thing against which the American people need to be guarded in this present campaign. But what is a trust? Is it anything but a bugaboo? A man goes into business alone. He is not able to carry on so large a business as he desires with his own capital, his own time, strength, and brains. He associates himself with another man, and we have a corporation. Two corporations agree to work together, and we have a trust. It seems to me to be the simplest possible extension of the principle involved in the corporation itself, and one that is utterly inevitable. If the great businesses of the world at the present time are to be carried on at all, then people must be left free to organize themselves into corporations or trusts large enough so that they can swing these great business enterprises and manage these financial affairs on so large a scale as is necessary. Barbarians never associate. You go back towards the beginning of the world, and you will find each man's hand against every other man. By and by they are able to associate in a little tribe; but it is only civilized people -it is only people who have developed the highest culture, great brain power, remarkable moral ability who are |