The Winona (Ind.) National Reform Convention
By C. M. S.
The real work of this institute began on August 11, and was opened with an address by John G. Woolley on the evening of that day. His address consisted largely of an appeal to the Christians of the land to “line up” at the polls on the temperance question. His fundamental proposition was that the Christian citizen is the best citizen. Other speakers here, building upon that proposition, seem to lose the fundamental gospel idea of soul salvation, and lay upon the church the business of making good citizens, of shaping better laws, and putting at least the form of religion in the laws of the land. The expressed purpose of the National Reform Association at this convention is “to show how Americans can apply Christianity to the affairs of public and private life.” The association, while strongest in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio, is holding its institute here this year in order to interest Indiana people in its work and methods. The association prides itself upon what it has accomplished in Pennsylvania in preventing certain elements from weakening the Sunday laws of that State, or causing their repeal, as also in the strenuous endeavors made to secure Bible instruction in the public schools. One of the features of National Reform work, which was most interesting to the writer, was that set forth by Rev. Charles Stelzle, who stands at the head of the Presbyterian Board of Church Work Among Laboring Men. He stated that the idea of bringing about closer relations between the church and organized labor has made remarkable progress since it was begun a year ago. One of the chief efforts of this church board has been to get central labor unions to exchange fraternal delegates with ministerial organizations. This plan is now in operation in one hundred cities. The general ministerial association sends a representative member to the meetings of the labor union. On the other hand, the labor unions send one of their members to the meetings of the ministerial organization. Some of the labor unions, he stated, had found it necessary to change their constitutions in order to admit these ministerial delegates; but this had been accomplished, and the arrangement was now working smoothly. Many of the central labor union bodies have named the ministerial delegate as their chaplain, and so have their regular meetings opened with prayer. The following direct quotation from Mr. Stelzle will be both surprising and interesting to the readers of the REVIEW, in view of the fact that Mr. Stelzle approves of the inference which he says the labor unions draw from this arrangement. I quote:— “Union men take it for granted that a minister who comes among them as a delegate is with them on the broad principles of trade unionism, and they appreciate the fact that he represents all church organizations, instead of one particular church. While the Presbyterians were the pioneers in this effort, it is being taken up by other denominations. The labor question is fundamentally a moral and religious question, and it will never be settled upon any other basis.
“Working together, the ministers’ associations and the central labor unions may bring about many municipal reforms. Indeed, united, there are few things in this direction which they may not accomplish. These organizations may especially co-operate on questions involving the saloon, gambling, Sunday work, child labor, sanitary conditions in tenement-houses,” etc.
About one half the Presbyteries have appointed subcommittees to co-operate with the church and labor department; and with the other denominations entering upon a similar combination with the labor unions, it is not difficult for the student of the Word of God to see the laying of a deep plan to focus powerful forces for the enactment of more numerous and more stringent Sunday laws. It is another of those great combinations which are to be instrumental in bringing upon the remnant people the last bitter persecution from which they will suffer. The bitter spirit so prevalent in the labor unions to-day will help to fill that last great persecuting movement with the bitterness we know will be manifest at that time. It is, of course, but justice to them to state that they do not understand the end to which their present purpose leads. At the meeting of the National Reform institute held on August 13 the aims of the organization were again set forth. This was in an address by Rev. T. P. Stevenson, on the “Divine Origin of Civil Society.” He declared the purpose of the organization to be purely a religious one—“to bring about a revival of national religion.” “Such a revival,” he said, “must be in the sphere of the nation’s life, as a revival of personal religion takes place in the life of the individual man.” Throughout the address the nation was made an entity, a sinner or a saint, an infidel or a believer, as the case might be. He declared that a nation sins as a nation, just as an individual sins as an individual. This made it necessary that its laws should be made Christian laws, in order that the nation’s sins should cease. The inconsistency of the scheme is perhaps shown at no point more glaringly than in their declaring that such an arrangement would not constitute a union of church and state: that they are21as much opposed to such a union as we are. In a personal conversation with the chairman of the convention, Rev. J. S. Martin, and with Rev. John A. Henderson, who has charge of one of the departments of the institute, both claimed unyielding opposition to a union of church and state. Nevertheless, they stood for the incorporation of all the laws, rules, and usages of the church into the fundamental law of the land. The distinction was so very much finer than the difference that the writer was unable to make it out, and frankly admitted it. Both these gentlemen, though expressing the kindliest feelings for the writer and the people he represented, were free to admit that the conditions they were seeking to bring about would bring hardship upon that class. Nevertheless, they thought it necessary to persevere in their work even though it caused the imprisonment of Christians and their loss of one sixth of their time of labor. “That,” they said, “would be your misfortune for being in the minority. When you are in the majority, you could change that, have your Sabbath made the state Sabbath, and then the other class would have to submit or take the consequences.” (I am quoting this practically verbatim.) It was a novel proposition, and the writer assured the gentlemen that Seventh-day Adventists had no desire to get in the majority for the purpose of inflicting either their ideas or penalties for non-conformity therewith, upon any class, Christian, or otherwise.