CHAPTER XVII. 



RELIGION IN THE ALLIANCE. 

 BY REV. ISOM P. LANGLEY, EX-LECTURER OF THE AGRICULTURAL WHEEL. 



WHAT influence will the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial 

 Union have upon the religious institutions of our country? is becoming 

 a question of about as much magnitude to the leaders of religious 

 thought as the question of its political action is to the two great parties. 

 The farmers are thinking and acting more independently than ever 

 before. For some time the political and religious ties of the people 

 have been growing less binding, and men and women have become 

 more exacting as to the conduct of the leaders in both Church and 

 State. 



Politics being the science of government, we have the right to know 

 the reasons for the conduct of our public servants. Science is what we 

 know, and not what we may suppose. Supposition is the mother of all 

 our mistakes. Knowing the principles upon which our government is 

 founded, we have the right to call in question the authority of any one 

 who ma^ attempt to change the basis upon which our fathers established 

 our institutions. Our government is intended to be a government of the 

 people, by the people, and for the people ; and the people should be 

 consulted on all questions involving their rights to life and property, it 

 being the object of all just governments to secure the greatest good to 

 the greatest number. 



To secure these ends, the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial 

 Union has been putting forth all its energy in educating the wealth- 

 producers of the country in the science of economical government. 

 The prediction has been made that this grand order would go to pieces 

 and fail to accomplish any good ; yet it continues to grow, and its prin- 

 ciples, as they are better understood by the masses, become more 

 popular. 



The religious sentiments contained in the basic principles of the 

 Alliance are giving it its wonderful power with the people. True relig- 

 ion, not sectarianism, is its crowning glory. This organization makes 

 war upon vicious principles, and not upon men, and it will not permit 

 any man or set of men to get in its way. Good government for the 



