... Can any party afford to treat its leading men as a part of the Republican press has been treating leading Republicans during the last few weeks? Senators of the highest character, who, in being simply honest and in having a mind of their own, render more service to the country than fifty thousand of the windy blatherskites who assail them, have been abused like pickpockets, simply because they chose to think. We have, during the last week, heard language applied to Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Trumbull, for instance, which was fit only for a compound of Benedict Arnold and John Morrissey, and all their colleagues have been warned beforehand, that if they pleaded their oaths as an excuse for differing from anybody who happened to edit a newspaper, they would be held up to execration as knaves and hypocrites. Now, the class of men who are most needed in our politics just now are high-minded, independent men, with their hands clean and souls of their own. Their errors of judgment are worth bearing with for the sake of their character. Yet this class is becoming smaller and smaller, falling more and more into disrepute. The class of roaring, corrupt, ignorant demagogues, who are always on "the right side" with regard to all party measures, grows apace; and, if we are not greatly mistaken, if the Republican party does not make short work with them before long, they will make short work of it.... When it became known that Grimes, Trumbull, and Fessenden would vote not guilty, the pressure from outside was redoubled upon others who had been reckoned doubtful, and especially upon Henderson, Fowler, and Ross. Even the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then in session at Chicago, was called upon to lend a hand, and a motion was made on the 13th of May for an hour of prayer in aid of impeachment. An aged delegate moved to lay that proposal on the table, saying: My understanding is that impeachment is a judicial proceeding and that Senators are acting under an oath. _Are we to pray to the Almighty that they may violate their oaths?_ The motion to lay on the table prevailed. On the following day, however, Bishop Simpson offered a new preamble and resolution, omitting any expression of opinion that Senators ought to vote for conviction, but reciting that "painful rumors are in circulation that, partly by unworthy jealousies and partly by corrupt influences, pecuniary and otherwise, most actively employed, efforts were being made to influence Senators improperly, and to prevent them from performing their high duty"; therefore, an hour should be set apart in the following day for prayer to beseech God "to save our Senators from error." This cunningly drawn resolution was adopted without opposition. It was supposed to have been aimed at Senator Willey, of West Virginia, rather than at the Throne of Grace.