At the National Reform Convention
By C. M. S.
To a Seventh-day Adventist the opinion of the speakers at this convention on the work and worth of Romanism in the various countries of earth, was exceedingly interesting. There was no hesitancy on the part of any of them in paying their respects to that organization and its work in the world. No word of commendation for either was heard by the writer in any of the many addresses. Dr. V. Losa was positive in his assertions that immigrants from Catholic countries did not know anything of true conversion, experimentally. Dr. Lyman Davis declared, in his address on our legacy in the Philippines, that “we have inherited the dark ages.” And this he could say in the twentieth century, after four hundred years of the preaching of the gospel as it is preached by the Roman Church, and after the nominal acceptance of that gospel by practically the entire population of those islands. This was interesting as a practical demonstration of the futility of the very system of government which the National Reform Association is seeking to establish in this country—the union of religion and the state. In the Philippines such a system existed, with none to hinder its operation or question its right; and the record of what the American government found there, and what evangelical missionaries found there, is far from pleasant reading. The National Reform Association in all its institutes here has urged the supreme importance of “national Christianity” and national salvation as compared with individual Christianity and individual salvation; and yet the testimony of Dr. Losa on the Christianizing of immigrants, and the testimony of the missionaries from Catholic countries on the evangelization of the natives there, directly and emphatically contradicted this position of the National Reform Association. Said Dr. Davis, in his address on the Filipinos: “There must be individual work done to kindle the souls of the Filipinos. Our first work there is to reach the hearts of the individual Filipinos.” That is a fact which the true missionaries of the cross have demonstrated in every land; and it ought not to be necessary for a Christian minister to state it in a congregation of Christian ministers. It seemed nothing short of an interposition of divine Providence that such testimonies should be borne again and again in an institute committed to the opposite idea. The antichristian nature of the religion-and-state idea and régime was made manifest, incidentally, in the following statement by Dr. Losa when speaking of conditions in Austria. He said: “Protestants in Austria are not allowed to develop the missionary spirit. They would be arrested at once for disturbing the religious peace of the people.” How true is this always of a state wherein religion and the state are united. Whoever attempts religious work unsanctioned by the religion which is dominant there, is “disturbing the religious peace of the people.” It is not in Europe alone that such a spirit is manifested. The same spirit is alive in America, and is seen in many communities where the “religious peace” of some people is disturbed by seeing observers of the seventh day of the week quietly working on Sunday. On the evening of August 11 a special meeting was called for the purpose of discussing the objects of the next World’s Christian Citizenship Congress and the arrangements being made therefor. This world’s congress is to be held in Portland, Ore., from June 29 to July 6, 1913. The president of the National Reform Association and the secretary of the Young People’s Department are now touring European countries for the purpose of engaging the most influential public men possible to give addresses at that congress. It was stated by the superintendent that the city of Portland had pledged the equivalent of twenty-five thousand dollars to insure the holding of the congress in that city. Fifteen thousand dollars in cash had been pledged by the city. The other ten thousand guaranteed is made up of hall rentals and caring for the local interests of the congress. The problems to be discussed at this congress will be such as the securing and protecting of the weekly day of rest, the labor and capital problem, public education in its relation to morality and religion, laws relating to the family, intemperance, war and how to abolish it, vice, crime, and political corruption. It is expected that there will be reports from every country in the world with reference to the attitude of those countries and their governments toward prevailing religions, and especially toward Christianity. “The cooperative work of the church and state in the upbuilding of the kingdom will be brought to the fore,” said the superintendent, which means simply that the state is expected, under the National Reform régime, to help the church in promulgating the gospel of Jesus Christ and bringing about the conversion of the people. This, to an ordinary American, looks like a union of church and state; because, wherever, during past centuries, church and state have been united, the state has helped the dominant church to upbuild the kingdom, and has used in that work the same power that it has employed in all its other work—the power of force. The state helping the church has stained with blood every country of the world, has filled her prison-cells with her best citizens, has crucified conscience, and bred a race of hypocrites in every country thus deceived and thus afflicted. The superintendent, in explaining the purpose of the congress, declared that its object was to secure the adoption of the Bible principles of civil government in national life; to secure our national Christianity through the recognition of God and of Christian institutions in our great fundamental law—the national Constitution. The association proposes to change the Constitution of the United States so that it will be in harmony with what that association denominates the “unwritten or vital constitution.” Much stress is laid upon the unwritten constitution, and the disagreement between that and the written Constitution. No account is taken of the fact that if a hundred different classes were to seek to draw up the articles and sections of this “unwritten” constitution, the result would be one hundred different constitutions, not one of which would agree with any other. What the National Reform Association is laboring for is a complete metamorphosis of the nation; an overturning of its basis of government, with a resulting curtailment of the liberties of the people; a union of8the civil and religious elements, with the religious dictating every move of the civil, and the people bowing again under the iron hand of a compulsory religion. Said Dr. Martin again: “We stand for the complete Christianization of our own country, and through that to bring all the nations into harmony with these views, in order that the world ultimately may be taken for Christ. There is such a thing as national Christianity, and we propose to emphasize and maintain national Christianity.” It will be interesting to place alongside this statement of Dr. Martin’s another which he made at the very close of the institute. It was this: “We need a revival of national religion. The greatest revivals recorded in the Old Testament are revivals with which the king and the civil rulers had a great deal to do. Take Nehemiah. What an active part he took in bringing about a revival in the nation! The will of God as revealed through Jesus Christ, so far as that relates to the state or nation, the two should work together, hand in hand, in carrying it out—the king and the prophet. Josiah had his Jeremiah; Nehemiah had his Malachi; and is it not true that Hezekiah and Josiah and Nehemiah all took the initiative in bringing about great revivals in the national life, in the civil and political sphere? And that is one of the growing needs of the hour in this country of ours at the present time. The church is the prophet of the state.” After listening to such statements, an American citizen naturally asks himself. Are we, then, living under a theocratic government? Does the National Reform Association speak truly when it says that it is opposed to a union of church and state, and immediately proposes the reestablishment of the régime of ancient Israel, which was that of a union of church and state? Let us consider the doctor’s two statements side by side. His association proposes to Christianize the nation (by the means already indicated), and through this nation, thus Christianized, to bring all the other nations into harmony with its views and operations. It proposes to do this by having the king and the prophet—the state and the church—work hand in hand. Wherever, in the past, the king and the prophet have worked hand in hand to accomplish revivals, the prophet has pointed out to the king what he should do, and the king has done it. Now, when all the nations of the earth are united under one policy, and all the nations have professed religion, and all the rulers are being directed by the church as to what they must do in the promulgation of religion, and those rulers are all doing it, what have we but the Papacy over again, a perfect image of that power? If that power—the Papacy—is denominated by the revelator as “the beast,” we do not have to look any farther for what that same writer denominates “the image of the beast.” The formation of that “image” we can now see with absolute certainty in actual process. C. M. S.