p. 9 | Sweeping Back a River With a Straw by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 29, 1912

Sweeping Back a River With a Straw

By C. M. S.

STANDING knee-deep in the waters of the Mississippi and trying to sweep the river up-stream with a straw, would fittingly represent the endeavor of the National Reform Association to make this nation Christian by law — to make it Christian by inserting the names of God and Christ in the national Constitution, and using that and the civil law to bring men and women into the kingdom of God. The prayer-wheel of the Tibetan and the East Indian is not a more grotesque caricature of true religion than is this error of national or law-made religion, which puts form in the place of faith, fear in the place of love, and makes men mere automatons and marionettes dancing to man-made religious laws, when they should be living, lifting Christians, inspired by God's Spirit to do his work in the earth.

The Christian Statesman, the organ of the National Reform Association, gives a large portion of its space to a setting forth of some of the deplorable conditions of the present day, and it paints the picture none too strong; but the remedy which it offers is the straw against the stream. It hopes to remedy these conditions by putting “God in the Constitution,” and attempting to “bring all the civil statutes into accord with the law of Christ.” But Christ's remedy, and the only remedy that can help, the remedy that deals with sin in the domain of the individual heart, is unmentioned, and his commission seemingly ignored.

While our Lord's commission to his followers authorizes them to “make disciples” of the people of all nations, the exponents of religious legislation have left the individual work, and are seeking to make a disciple of the government itself by baptizing the Constitution in the name of Deity — a work never committed to Christians, and a work as barren of sheaves for God's garner as the fields that have never known aught but tares here are barren of bundles in the human harvest.

The conditions that exist to-day are apparent to all, and he who sees in them the fulfilments of God's Word is armed against the temptation to do any such unfruitful work as this of the National Reform Association. Here are some of the conditions which they and others recognize, and which they hope to remedy and reform by the purely human scheme above set forth:—

Everywhere the drags are off, and the wheels of trade and pleasure are running wild. When the stoppage will come, as come it must, no one can tell; but this career of extravagance in living is bound to end in catastrophe, moral and social, unless common sense interposes.

—Dr. Donald Sage Mackay, of Fifth Avenue Collegiate Reformed Church of New York.

President Thwing, of Western Reserve University, speaks strongly of the same dangers:—

Becoming brutalized, becoming materialized, becoming sensualized, are the three gravest perils of our times. What we suffer ourselves to call the lower classes are in peril of becoming brutalized. They are becoming stolid, indifferent, hard of heart, secretive, cruel, without knowing they are cruel, living for the day only. What we call the middle classes are living for a world outside of the world of their own character. Wealth, not for spending, but for holding, is their god. What we call the higher classes are in peril of becoming sensualized. They live in the exterior senses. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, constitute the basis of the pride of their flesh. This materialistic spirit has led to a marked development of the passion for gambling. In rich and fashionable circles there has been a great increase of card-playing, not only for sport, but for money. Betting . . . is becoming more and more prevalent. The spread of this mania among the American people marks an intellectual decline. The moral evils are, however, immeasurably graver. . . . If any part of our system of government should be free from the control of such men as make up the political machines in our cities and States, it is the public schools. Yet the appointment of teachers in the city of Philadelphia [and he might have said, practically every city in the country] is in the hands of ward politicians, and is determined by considerations of “practical” politics.

After enumerating some of these evils, the Statesman points to some “hopeful signs,” such as the decision of the coal strike commission, which it thinks has checked to some extent the industrial despotism of the labor unions; the burst of public sentiment against the Mormon senator, Reed Smoot; and the “increasing difficulties of the Papacy,” such as the dissolution of the Catholic orders in France. But the dominance of the labor unions is more marked than before; the Mormon senator is still in his seat, and Mormonism continues to increase; and the Papacy is wielding greater power than ever with the rulers of the world, and this includes the President of the United States of America. The transactions between the Washington government and the Vatican over the Philippine affairs gave Rome such a prestige as she had never enjoyed before. It gave her an influence in the Old World that she had long sought. In America it gave added impetus to the Romeward drift.

So much for the “hopeful signs” which point downward rather than upward. These signs are hopeful in this only, that they show the fulfilments of God's Word, fulfilments which are harbingers of his soon return. The conditions which the Statesman points out as illustrations of the need of its politico-religious remedy are conditions which God's Word plainly declares would be in existence in “the last days,” just prior to his return; and that Word holds out no hope that any such scheme, or any scheme at all, would bring a reformation of the people generally. In fact, the Word declares that these evils will grow “worse and worse” until the end.

In view of that declaration of God's Word, and in view of the increase of all these evils,—National Reformers themselves being witnesses,—how futile is the attempt to stem that unyielding tide by mixing religion and politics! Take each separate evil named, and ask yourself how the placing of God's name in the Constitution, and the changing of our laws from a civil to a religious basis, will reform that evil out of the body politic. The evil is in the land because it is in the individual heart. Legislation will not reach it any more than skin lotions will cure dyspepsia and tuberculosis. Christ must come into the individual heart by faith, or the soul will never triumph over sin. God's victors are a “remnant;” they are called out from the great evil world around them, and that great evil world will go on to the destruction of the last day. The Christian will oppose the evil and uphold the good everywhere and at all times; but he will use no such remedy and hold out no such hope as the National Reform Association puts forth. The heart must be clean if the man would live a clean life; and there is no one who can cleanse the human heart save Jesus Christ, and he does it for each individual personally and quietly, and because that individual wants it done. To try to bring that about by human law is as useless and illogical and unnatural as to try to make a rose bloom by opening its petals with our clumsy fingers. Such a process ruins the rose; and such a process makes of a man one of two things, a martyr or a hypocrite. In both cases Heaven is insulted, and a wrong is done which can never be repaired.

C. M. S.