NATIONAL REFORM MOVEMENT.
The friends of this movement are making extensive preparations for a vigorous campaign the coming fall and winter. Encouraging meetings are reported in Central New York, and a convention is contemplated in Oswego, for which the cordial co-operation of the best citizens is promised. Respecting the general prospect before that movement, the Christian Statesman of June 28, 1877, says:— “While a large number of ministers and members of nearly every denomination of Christians are active supporters of the cause of National Reform, there is one church which is so unanimous and so earnest in this behalf as to appoint an annual collection for the treasury of the National Association. The Reformed Presbyterian Synod at its recent sessions in Alleghany, Pa., designated the first Sabbath of July for this purpose, and the sum of four thousand dollars as the amount which it was desirable the churches should raise. “To those of our readers who will have an opportunity to contribute in this way, we say: There never was a time in the history of the work when there was a better prospect of securing large results with a comparatively small outlay than during the coming year. The Chicago Convention, and the labors which preceded it, revealed a surprising advance in public sentiment, and a wider door than ever for the proclamation of the truth. A more effective organization of the movement is about to be accomplished, by the appointment of district secretaries in every community where the movement has taken root. This will bring a large number of earnest workers into official connection with the National Association, and will facilitate their labors in its behalf. “We are confident that more sermons will be preached before new audiences on the great theme of Christian civil government and its related topics, more meetings will be held, more petitions will be circulated, more practical results secured, and more new friends won to the cause during the coming winter than during any two campaigns before. But the indispensable previous condition of this success is the supply of funds to carry forward the work. It needs, we are persuaded, only the prospect of such labors and successes to encourage the friends of the cause to all their accustomed liberality.”