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Forces in Training

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 5, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 31.

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Forces in Training

By C. M. S.

The Christian Endeavor Convention at St. Paul, Minn.

The tendency of these times is confederation of forces for a common purpose. It may be represented by a great river toward and into which flow numerous smaller streams, all flowing ultimately into the waiting sea. There is a See which is patiently and with the utmost confidence awaiting the inflow of the united forces of Christendom. Those forces are systematically uniting, and are moving with steady flow toward that See—the papal See.
The movement of National Reformism and church federation is a movement that is attracting the quiet but most intense attention of the Roman hierarchy. The spider and fly furnish the only adequate illustration of the anomalous situation. The spider does not show himself when the fly is approaching the web. The strong drift of the two movements named toward common ground with the Catholic Church is as certain as the movement of the Mississippi toward the Gulf; but their movement in that direction is no more certain than is the movement of the Christian Endeavor organization toward National Reformism and federation, and therefore toward their common destination. This confluent movement was manifest at the Christian Endeavor convention at St. Paul in three particulars: The demand for the union of religion and politics; the demand for more stringent Sunday laws and the stricter enforcement of those already in existence; and the recognition of National Reformism itself by giving the leading representative of that organization a place on the official program of the convention to advocate National Reform ideas.
The demand for a union of religion and politics was the one crimson hue that ran through every feature of the convention, giving the tone of the whole color scheme. To mingle, as Christians, in the politics of the nations was set before that vast assemblage as the paramount duty of every member of the organization; for by such means they were to usher in the kingdom of Christ and set him upon the throne of this world. It was the revivification of the old cry of the political aspirants in the W. C. T. U.: “The kingdom of Christ must enter the realm of law through the gateway of politics.” Hardly a speaker addressed the main audience who did not give expression to that idea in some form.
In the meetings held under the auspices of the department of Christian Patriotism the necessity of securing or enforcing Sunday laws was made a prominent feature. At one of these meetings the leader of that department, in instructing the Endeavorers how they could influence legislators to do their bidding, said: “Tell them that if they do not vote right now, you will vote right when they are up for re-election.” Thus would they play upon the legislator’s fear of the loss of his place, and without regard to the oath he had taken, compel him to act either against his will or against his conviction. This is perhaps the most demoralizing feature of the campaign for the “purification of politics.” The man who yields to such a threat is made a perjurer, and that through the influence of professed Christians who are conducting their campaign for the purpose of bringing in the reign of truth and righteousness. Such a course has long been followed by political “bosses” and by wealthy and unprincipled men; and that mode of operation has given us the kind of politics the world has to-day. Can the professed church of Christ remedy the dire conditions by adopting the very methods that have made the conditions what they are?
At the same meeting the same gentleman proposed to oust the liquor dealers by boycotting those who patronize them. He said: “A great many patronize institutions that favor the liquor traffic. If we let them know that we will not patronize them as long as they favor the liquor traffic, they will take notice.” Another stated the same proposition in a little less offensive way: “Instead of boycotting the fellow that is for liquor, patronize the fellow that you know is against it.”
At the close of this meeting a vote was passed recommending the establishment of a national department of Christian Citizenship.
On the evening of July 11, Bishop W. M. Weekley, D. D., of the United Brethren Church, Kansas City, Mo., delivered an address upon the theme, “The Sabbath for Man,” in which he took the position that this nation must have a national Sunday or go down. He said, in part:—
The blight of physical, mental, and moral degeneracy will fall upon any nation that ignores the law of rest and worship. Ours is a Christian nation. It is such because it was established by Christian men and Christian ideals. Its foundations were laid broad and deep in the belief that one day of rest out of every seven was in perfect accord with the divine Word, and absolutely essential to man’s well-being, whether spiritual or mental, physical or social. Therefore any attempt to destroy the sanctity of our Sabbath or divorce it as a day of worship from our national life is an effort to undermine and destroy forever one of the chief corner-stones of our republic.
Again and again have thoughtless men, or men with a position to prove, proclaimed the Sunday institution to be “one of the chief corner-stones of our republic.” The position is utterly untenable. It must be granted that the keeping of Sunday was an almost universal custom among the early settlers of America; but it is one thing to be a custom of the people, and quite another to be a “chief corner-stone” of a government. It is a very peculiar circumstance that if Sunday was “one of the chief corner-stones” of the American government, the edifice should have been erected with the corner-stone left out; for left out it certainly was, along with every other religious dogma or ceremony practised by the general public. More than that, the Constitution of the nation was so amended as to rule out the enactment of any religious legislation that could be regarded as establishing any form of religion.
The speaker denominated those who were opposed to the national Sunday idea as the country’s worst enemies, who, if their ideas were accepted, would dominate the country with influences unchristian and un-American. He scouted the right of the people to use the day as they saw fit, and the tone of the address indicated that if there were a law compelling church attendance on Sunday, he would help in its enforcement, as did the Puritans of New England. He held up the example of the Puritans in the observance of the day as worthy of our emulation, and quoted the following words of a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, to strengthen his proposition: “Where there is no Christian sabbath, there is no Christian morality, and without this, free government can not long be sustained.”
The Sabbath which he wished to see established as a national institution was not the “civil sabbath” advocated by many to smooth the corners of distrust and opposition. He said:—
No one can truly keep the Sabbath without being a Christian, for Sabbath implies worship, and worship means the cultivation of faith and devout meditation and prayer. Nothing else is worship, and nothing else is keeping the Sabbath. I confess that my patience is severely tried by those, who, in discussing this question, endeavor to eliminate the religious element. Of course it is a day of rest for the body; but it is emphatically a Christian institution, and as such has the sanction of high heaven, and this phase of the subject should be tremendously emphasized. We should ring it out in tones loud and clear: The Sabbath is holy, and must be employed in a way to promote fellowship between the soul and its God.
While all this is true when applied to the true Sabbath, it must not be forgotten that it is this religious institution with its religious setting and its religious requirements which it is proposed to nationalize and make obligatory upon all. And to make such an institution obligatory is to make worship obligatory, and church attendance obligatory, as a matter of course. But when we have religion and the observance of religious institutions made obligatory, what have we but the papacy reincarnated in principle in the organizations that profess to have thrown it off? And what more did the papacy ever require?
“Religion,” said Bishop Weekley, “demands a Sabbath, and when any community or country brushes aside its authority, it decrees its own overthrow.” Therefore the only conclusion is that if the nation would not decree its own overthrow, it must establish a sabbath, a religious sabbath, a sabbath which shall be characterized by faith, devout meditation, and worship, and require all its subjects to participate in its observance, in spirit as well as in letter. From the adoption of that papal principle it is only one more step to the open arms of the papacy itself.
After a short address by Archdeacon J. B. Richardson, of London, Ontario, upon “Fellowship for Service,” Dr. T. P. Stevenson, corresponding secretary of the National Reform Association and editor of the Christian Statesman, spoke upon the topic, “The March of the Nations Toward the Kingdom of Christ.” He took the position that the kingdom of Christ is an actual, present fact because of the declaration made by Christ that he had overcome and had set down with his Father on his throne. But to hold that position and at the same time to pray the Lord’s prayer—“thy kingdom come”—made it necessary for the doctor to take the paradoxical and anomalous position that “it is a present, actual fact; it is always coming; it has always been coming; and it is yet to come,”—a series of propositions which rob the most important and definite declarations of Scripture of all meaning, and give point to the accusations of infidels, that “you can teach anything you please from the Bible.” This is a position which totally ignores all that the King himself has said as to the coming of his kingdom, and is an attempt to do in our day what the immediate disciples of Jesus attempted to do in his day; that is, make him king in their own way, and in opposition to his way. As he rebuked those, so must he rebuke these.
Dr. Stevenson attempted to harmonize these self-destructive propositions in this way: “Christ reigns over wicked men and wicked nations even while they are impenitent and rebellious; but when they are changed by his grace and power into loyal and obedient subjects, then Christ as king has come to them in a new and different sense from that which was apparent before.” Thus are lightly tossed aside all the great truths of the advent, and all the plain teachings of the Messiah himself regarding that event, and Christ is made to come whenever an individual is converted, or a nation places its Christian “laws, rules, and usages” in its fundamental law. The declaration of Christ that he will come in the clouds of heaven, rewarding saints and punishing sinners, is spiritualized away, and Malachi’s description of the end of wickedness and the wicked goes for naught, with a great portion of the rest of the Bible, while the daily grind of this old world goes on from age to age, or until some “golden age” in the far reaches of eternity, when nations have ceased to be wicked, and by common consent place the Messiah upon the throne of the world. Such is the gospel of the advent from the religio-political point of view adopted by the National Reform movement and by the Christian Endeavor movement.
Dr. Stevenson holds that the extension of Christian mission work among the nations is an indication of the march of the nations toward Christ. With these reformers nothing smaller than nations counts for much. The nations are made living, breathing, moral personalities, to be saved or lost, redeemed or eternally damned. “Caring for the individual,” said Dr. Stevenson, “does not heal the woes and miseries of society.” The soul of the individual is lost sight of in the glowing halo that surrounds the greater soul of the nation. The salvation of the individual sinks into insignificance when they contemplate “the salvation of the nation,” and the work which it is to
do in “going forth gloriously to save the world for truth and righteousness.” They lay much stress upon the text, “The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15, R. V.), while ignoring completely the psalmist’s declaration that when the nations are given to Christ for his inheritance, he will “break them with a rod of iron” and “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Ps. 2:8, 9.
The speaker saw in the increasing control of the world by “Christian nations,” the movement for the abolition of war, the great number of arbitration treaties, the adoption of laws against cruelty, the temperance movement, the Christian citizenship movement, etc., etc., sure indications that the nations are marching toward Christ. “These facts,” he said, “show forces which will yet bring all nations, all governments, under the benign sway of Immanuel.” He wanted his hearers to remember that “Jerusalem is still far away.” It is in harmony with the Saviour’s teaching that along with the false conception of the advent and the “peace and safety” cry should go that other declaration, “My Lord delayeth his coming.” And the servant who utters that saying is the servant who persecutes his fellow servants. Matt. 24:48-51.
The convention was urged by various speakers, especially by Rev. Charles Stelzle, superintendent of the Department of Church and Labor of the Presbyterian Church, to form a closer bond of union with the labor organizations, and the practise of exchanging “fraternal delegates” between ministers’ unions and labor unions was warmly advocated. This feature of the convention brought to mind the editorial utterance of the New York Independent: “If the members of labor unions are all to become dogmatic religionists, the days of persecution for the faithful are not over.”
There were, during the convention, numerous addresses based upon the idea of “bringing in the kingdom” through political means, through social reforms, through the enactment of human laws, etc.; and the last service of the convention consisted of a march of the delegates by States and nations, with banners waving, each company telling, in a one-minute declaration, “How We Propose to Help Bring in the Kingdom.” There were many strong expressions of a determined purpose to carry into execution all that the movement stands for. Here was a great company, representing a much greater constituency, receiving a definite training and a definite and strong inspiration for a very definite work; and from this center of influence and purpose went out, to all the States and to many nations, advocates of all that was learned here, enforced by the influence of eloquence and numbers. We may expect to see rapid developments in the lines that affect the third angel’s message during the next two years.
C. M. S.
St. Paul, Minn.