POLITICS AND RELIGION.
ITO THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR...1 Siu,—In an article entitled " Radicalism and Revelation," in the Spectator of November 15th, some observations are made which, as a regular reader I regretted to see, and upon which I venture to address you. We are told in this article that it is wrong to treat politics as a regular religion. " Politics," the writer says, " ought not to be a religion." The reason for this assertion seems to lie in the complexity of political problems, and in the difficulty of calculating all the hidden currents of politics with sufficient accuracy. Now, if this means that politics differ from religion inasmuch as the truths of the latter are fixed for ever by Revelation, and that the truths of politics (at any rate, viewed practically), are fluctuating and progressive, I do not think many of us would quarrel with the article. But more than this seems to be intended. As I read the article, it seems as if the writer thought that polities should not be treated religiously. If this is the meaning, surely it is a dan- gerous doctrine. If any of the important facts of life, and the welfare of our country is a very important one, are to be treated deliberately as outside religion, can we be surprised if we have to complain that in matters of politics men are unprincipled? Politics, if not a religion, are not so because they are part of religion. It has been splendidly said that " nothing is secular but what is sinful." All life, a Christian teacher is bound to hold, is sacred; if treated religiously, as it ought to be, by which I mean, as a matter of right and wrong, not one of self- interest, political life is as seared as any. Few lines of life come more into contact with conscience than politics. It may be difficult to form a right opinion on a complex political matter; so it is very often on a complex religious question But we do not on that account decline to treat such questions as matters of conscience. Apologising if I have wrongly read your writer's meaning, I am, Sir, &c.
E. S. SHIITTLEWORTH. New Brampton Rectory, Chesterfield.
[Of course it would be monstrous to say that it is not a religious duty to form as careful a judgment as possible on political questions on which we are asked to vote. Nor did we say or suggest anything of the kind. What we did say, and do maintain, is that it should not be regarded as a religious duty to be either a Liberal or a Conservative in the abstract. It should not be regarded as a sin, it is not a sin, to change from the one policy to the other,—though it is often regarded as the very worst of sinsi—under the pressure of what seems to the politician who makes the change very clear evidence that the welfare of the State requires such a change. Yet in many circles to speak of a man as a political turncoat is to speak of him as a person who has forfeited all title to respect.—En. Spectator.]
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