THE REAL PURPOSE OF “NATIONAL REFORM.”
By G.
A resolution of the last National Reform Convention says, “The right and duty of the State to establish and maintain a system of public instruction free from sectarian bias and control, we deem fundamental to the State’s welfare.” Yet the National Reform Association persistently advocates a system of public instruction which logically would be dominated by sectarian bias. Any attempt to carry out the association’s scheme of teaching religion by the State must inevitably result in the formation by State authority of certain religious tenets that must be taught. Whenever the State undertakes to prescribe a course of religious teaching for the public schools, or for any other purpose, then we will have a State religion. No such thing could be done without “sectarian bias and control.” Just a little retrospect will refresh the minds of some of our readers as to the aim of the National Reform Association; and the attention of all others is called to the fact that the same men, in the main, have been all along, and are yet, the manipulators of its policy. The Reformed Presbyterian for the month of January, 1870, published an article by Rev. James Wallace, in which he said, “The distinctive principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church are the principles, and the only principles, of National Reform.” Further along he said, “The principles of National Reform are our principles, and its work is our work.” To this was added, in italics, this emphatic declaration: “National Reform is simply the practical application of the principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church for the reformation of the nation.” This shows the character of the religious education by the State that would be acceptable to the National Reform Association. The movement originated in that church, and its leading men have been and are connected with that church. That church is a lineal descendant of the Scottish Covenanter Church, which is intensely Church and State in principle—and in practice when the opportunity comes her way. Such is its history. And a minister of this Reformed Presbyterian Church, who is also a prominent factor of the National Reform Association, said several years ago that he was “proud to belong to a denomination which appropriated $10,000 of its funds for political agitation each year.” Just how much is appropriated now we do not know; but this we do know: The money which that church spent for “political agitation” was spent mainly for overturning a fundamental principle of the government, namely, its distinctively secular character—the principle of Church and State separation. That none of such appropriation was spent in support of the government is evident from the fact that its members would not participate in the government, even so much as to vote, because it did not take on a religious phase and assume a religious function. Therefore the foregoing facts show what the National Reform Association means by the “right and duty of the State to establish and maintain a system of public instruction free from sectarian bias and control.” Of course any sect that could get its “distinctive principles” established in the government, would scorn the idea of being termed a sect. If this were all of the demand, the present public school system would be their ideal. But they are opposed to that because it is not religious. A further expression of the same resolution confirms all that we have here represented, and reads as follows:— We believe it to be the duty of Christian patriots to join in an effort to make our educational system thoroughly Christian. This means “thoroughly Christian” from a Reformed Presbyterian-Covenanter-National Reform standpoint. And this is what all the various societies and church representatives of other denominations, who have given their encouragement to National Reformism, have really pledged themselves to sustain. It is but justice to say that many of them are not aware of all that is involved in their adherence to this association, but it is all there, nevertheless. National Reformers are not as bold as they used to be in declaring their intentions to “disfranchise,” to “banish,” or otherwise summarily deal with opponents, when the power came into their hands. They have learned that to gain adherents to their cause, they must be more politic, and show a more conservative front. But the State-religion idea has not been abandoned, and all that they have ever avowed is involved in it, no matter how fairly it may be presented to those who are susceptible to its wiles.