Being ever ready to “speak my piece” against the saloon and its allies, I was constantly stirring up a “hornet’s nest” over the business. When I spoke against it, whether in public or private, I never hesitated to pay my respects to the machine politician, since I regarded him and rum as closely related. As the result, some of the newspapers and office-seekers got after me with a vengeance. This I confess was to my liking, since I felt sure I was making at least some kind of impression upon them. Then it gave me a chance to answer their criticisms, and puncture their fallacies. The following extract from one of my replies may be of interest to the reader. The principle laid down will always hold good: “All at once the saloonist and politician are becoming greatly concerned over the question of ‘pure and undefiled religion’; and well they may, for if religion is effectually taken into politics they will as certainly go out. This they fully understand, hence yell themselves hoarse in trying to divert attention when the pulpit begins to let the light in upon their devilish business. While a man is a minister of the gospel, he is also a citizen in common with other men. The fact that he pays taxes, lives under, and is subject to the laws of our commonwealth, makes him such. Then most assuredly he has the same right as other men to be heard upon great political issues that affect the well-being of his country. If not, why not? Touching all moral and political affairs which have to do with the home, the individual, and the general good of the community, the pulpit has ever stood at the front, and so it ever will, unless it sells out to the saloon. “The truth is, under a government like ours, presumably Christian, all political questions have a moral phase, and to a greater or less extent involve the question of religion. In other words, every question in politics touches at some point the work of the pulpit, therefore it is right and proper for the minister to discuss before his people, prudently, of course, the moral bearings of all these issues. There is nothing that the liquor ring, and old-line politicians would rather do than to stifle the utterances of the pulpit, for well they know that the molding of sentiment, and the training of the moral forces by which the eternal God proposes to overthrow and dash in pieces their strength, must there begin.” In May of this year, 1885, I attended my second General Conference, which met at Fostoria, Ohio, in company with Z. Warner, E. Harper, and S. J. Graham. The occasion was an historic one. Radicalism was given a black eye; the forces of the Church were realigned, and the clouds which had so long hung over our Zion were pierced by the sunlight of a new day. CHAPTER VI.