Prohibition

To tho Editor of the Detroit Tost. Sin - A few yeara ago when the immedlate issues of the wu wen upon us, it would have been deemed Imponible tliat at this comparatively late day i natlonal election would cause sucli peculiar and intense feellng. Uut for i balf a eentury there has not been the same kind of interest and depth of convietion in the ïninds of good men as there is to-day. The circumstanees are so peculiar, and In one, and that the most important aspect, so disgiacefully unfortunate. There is nol one decent citizen ven in the democratie party who knows the facts who does not consider the party shamefully liurdencd in the abomination it lias to beur. Prominent democrits have to me acknowledged even more than their opponents have commonly charged. It is admilted by all that know that Mr. Cleveland is a druukaiil in the legal sense;of the term, and a persistent and unrepentant libertino. It is admltted that söould he be elected the White Honfle would lienceforth be the pest house of America, the scorn of Christendom. Tliink of the pure face of Luey Hayes, sent there by the womeo of our land, looking down froin the walls upon sucli a repróbate. It is not st range that CiirisMan minister- speak. They would be recreant to their duty not to do BO. A few, a very few, have spoken for Mr. Cleveland. Borne are men of high character and inlluence. One of them, tlie most notorious, Mr. Beecher, In the minde of a great portion of the ministers of the land. and espeoially those of bis own city and vicinity, has personal reasons to teel sympathy. lic is the last man to put an uncharltable construction upon the Mul ligan letters and to pose for purlty beslde tlieoleaginous Imikof Mr. Cleveland, it is a thousand times easiei to read innoconce in the MuIligaD letters than in those of Mr. BeecSir that caused hini considerable inconvenience gome ten years ago. Men vastly stronger in judicial grasp than Mr. Beecher lind no difficulty in giving those letters a construction that Is tree trom all suspicion. At the very worst Mr. Blaine is morally inliuitely above Mr. Cleveland. Butstrangely enough it is held by man3that ministers may notspeak at all on this great moral issue, but it is perfectly proper for them to use all their influenee for Gov. St. John and bis party. In the minds of the inajority of Christian men the St. John canvass is a great mistake, and as f ir as it goes threatensdire disaster to g-ood moráis and temperance itself. Our Democratie f riends of course approve and aid the moveuient. It is their best ally and only liope. Gov. St. John, backed up by the prayers and sympathies of manj' good men and women, is the door step, and now the only possible one left, for the polluted foot of Mr. Cleveland In hisattempt to enter the White House. If I vote "as I pray" Ishallcertainly vote to prevent that. 1 have never prayed for sucli prostitution of wbat has been the central Christian home of our land and whatshould ever reraain so. Many of the best Christian men of the North have earnestly and most forcibly asked Gov. St. John to withdraw from the canvass when bis only possible immcdiate inlluencc must be fn sucli a shameful direction, for which no subsequent good resulta can possibly atonc. Will he withdraw? Of course not. That would be to relégate hini hereafter to the complete obscurity from which a few years ago he accidentally emerged. That would be to cut liim off from the incorae he has been receiving as a professional reformer, far beyond what bis abilities wonld ever obtain for hini in the practico of his profession. These are not hasty words. I was a great admirer of St. John. 1 hoped to lind in liim the leader of our people in the line of virtue and purity. I do not asperse lus private character. That, I believe, is unimpeachable. Our democratie friends of course will land him to the skies. Our republicans will be charged with base motives f they state the facts as they are. A visit to Kansas, conversation with some of the best temperance republicana and in his own neighborhood, who in the earlier stages of the movement had to meet St. John's opposition, changed my views essentially. Gov. St. John was not defeated because of bis temperance procliviües and record. That certainly entered into the canvass when Gov. Glick was elected by sucli a inajority, while St. John's assoeiates on the ticket, as good temperance men as he, wcre triumphantly elected, Gov. St. John was defeated because a great many temperance men in Kansas believed him, whether justly or not, to be a machine polltician, whose sudden conversión to prohlbitton was from policy rather than principie, who, contmry to all usage in Kansas, demanded a third term to advance his own designs upon the senatorship and further political promotion. Mr. John B. Finch, ohairman of tlio national proliibition comniittee, stateci the same tbino to me personally in siibstance in this city a little more than a 3'ear ago. He said St. John sent for him to go to canvass Kansas for him in nis third-term campaign; tliíit he went supposing it to be a temporalice issue. His own words are these in almost tlieir exact form: "Iraade one speech, found the true inwardness of tilines,, packed my grip-sack and went home." AVlien I stated this to one of tle strongest friends and most confidential adyisers St. John ever had, yet one who no-.v refuses to vote for him, he replied that Finch was a copperhead and an inlidel and unworthy of credence. But in my judgment even such a man with Mr. Finch's great ability is a competent witness. There is but one St. John Club in Kansbs. He will have hardly the ghost of a vote in the great temperance and moral tates of Maine, Iowa and Kansas. Indeed, in the last named state the bestpeople are well nigh unanimously indignant at his present position. Smnehow they see as mucb demagogue in St. John jnst now as in Blaine. Many of the ablest men in the Methodisc church are strongly convinced that the present third party movement is a great mistake. lt is unfortunately weighted down in its platform by female suflrage and other extraneous issues that divide, rather than unite, is ambiguous and thereforecowardly on the great flnancial and industrial issues, is slanderons in its personal assault upon other eandldates. I refer to the Methodist church especially, beeause in this state it is lioped to use it for the defeat of the republican party. The Methodists of Michigan I think are not quite so blind, or so easily delivered up. They do not propose to lid in the pollution of the presidency or the prostitution of the White House. Bishop Merrill is publicly committed agalost the whole thlrd-party moveinent. Several other bishops to my personal knowleuge are of the same mind. I know none who favor it, thongh such there naay be. Dr. Daniel Dorchester. of Boston, is the ablest exponent in Metliodigm of such uestions. His recent book on the liquor traflic is ihe best that lias yet appeared. He was the second choice of New Ungland Methodi&ts last May for the episcopaey. He is out in a Jetter in the Boston Journal, a letter of great power, against this whole thirdparty movement and in favor of Mr. Blaine. I am sometimes, indeed often, asked as to the attitude of the university professors hcro towards Air. Blaine and Mr. Cleveland. They express their views ireely in this community, and are therefore open to review. To the surprise and sorrow of many, a number of them whlle most cruelly severe in tlieir judgment of Mr. Blaine, are very tender towards the terrible turpitude of Gov. Cleveland. Indeed some of them Peein to swallow the nauseous bolus with vnstly greater euse llian their colleagues of Democratie training and consislency. But there is do accounting for tastet, or as they say up at the university, " de gustibus." J'erhaps in many cases the absolute absence of any activity in behalfof home lnterests in the the past, foreign training and attachments, consequeut feeljle home-ties, and frectr.uk; teachingg and lendenoles, me the oiilj' explanaban of thelr strange pogltiOD, No woiiclcr, wllllo personallv so honorable and pure, without exception, in too many cases there la but little Influance tor purity upoii tcinpted young men heir. 1 havo questloned in rcjrarü to Uiis letter, but I wrlto froni i scn.se ot' iluty, and have oertulrily as niuch right thus to express myself as liave any of iny ministerial brethren to carry politics into their pulpits, wliich I wlll not do, or parade the state at pole raisings, and the political potpourrla ot' the heterogeneous union [larty. Respectfully,