The National Reform Movement.
By D. A. Robinson
WHILE in Philadelphia, the last of March, it was my privilege to attend a convention of the National Reform Association, whose object, we hardly need state, is the securing of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, inserting therein a recognition of God and Christ and placing "all Christian laws and usages on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the nation." This convention was merely a local one, its object being to discuss the salient points of their work, and to formulate plans for future operations. The meeting was called to order by the Rev. T. P. Stevenson, editor of the Christian Statesman, who said he was very happy to have the privilege of introducing, as chairman of the convention, the gentleman who presented the first resolution at Xenia, Ohio, which led to the formation of their organization. The chairman congratulated the convention upon the fact that their cause had just gained its majority this year, and that it was now prepared for vigorous and aggressive action. This statement received prolonged applause. The questions discussed were as follows: 1. Moral accountability of nations. 2. Jesus Christ the Ruler of nations. 3. Mail service on the Sabbath. 4. Shall we have a national Sabbath? 5. The Christian amendment of the national Constitution. 6. God's law and temperance legislation. Three sessions were held, on Monday and Tuesday evenings and Tuesday afternoon. Among the topics discussed, no one received more attention, or created greater applause when it was alluded to, than the Sabbath question. The session of Tuesday afternoon was not really a private one, yet it was supposed to be attended chiefly by friends of the movement. One feature of that afternoon struck me with peculiar force. Notwithstanding the repeated assertion of the leaders of this movement in the past; that the Sabbath has not been a vital question in their minds, yet in that afternoon's programme, when they could best talk out what they would not care to say before a promiscuous audience, the only theme they discussed was the question of the Sabbath. The entire afternoon was devoted to questions three and four referred to above, the first being introduced by the Rev. S. M. Vernon, of Philadelphia, and the latter by the Rev. R. M. Somerville, of New York. The chairman, in opening that meeting, suggested that it should be a sort of normal school, where they would take a preparatory drill, which would tend to unify their efforts as they went out into the field. As I listened to the arguments presented, and saw the character of the appeals made, I mentally said, "If my faith in the success of the movement has ever been weak, it can be so no longer." It has been a question with some, "How can such a movement carry, when there is such a strong element of the laboring classes who have no regard for any day?" One speaker outlined an appeal that should be made to this class. This was under the discussion of the Sabbath and the mails. "We plead," said he, "for the vast crowd of men in Government employ. This Sabbath work is an attack on the piety and integrity of fifty thousand homes. These employés are demoralized, and it is no marvel that we have mail robberies when we teach and compel them to trample under foot the decalogue." Think of it. A failure to observe Sunday means trampling under foot the decalogue! We wonder what portion of the decalogue the speaker meant. We imagine he must have referred to the same part of the decalogue that another speaker did of the Constitution, who declared that other nations regarded ours as a godless nation; this, however, he thought was false, notwithstanding a speaker before him had said that "our failure to recognize and obey the known will of God [by which he meant our failure to enforce the observance of Sunday] is open rebellion." "Though other nations regarded ours as a godless one, yet he thought this was untrue. The error of the founders of our Government," he said, "was not in their heads; they meant right but failed to say so explicitly, and now," he added, "we must have the Constitution conform to the unwritten Constitution." The decalogue trampled under foot by disregarding Sunday, we are forced to conclude, must be the unwritten decalogue. Aside from the ten commandments, I never have heard of but one definition to the term decalogue, and that was given by a young lawyer who, when asked by the judge if he knew what was meant by the decalogue, replied, "Certainly, your honor, it means a severe flogging for contempt of court." The speaker could not have had the latter definition in mind, and as to the former, we have carefully read the ten commandments over and are unable to find any reference whatever to Sunday-keeping; hence the unwritten decalogue must have been intended. But to return to that appeal to the laboring classes, "The Government," continued the speaker, "compels its employés to violate their consciences; this it has no right to do. . . . We are growing up and raising a race of pagans. . . . Many will say they have not been in church for twenty years; . . . living as though there were no God, and this, too, partly by our sanction." He then presented a strong appeal, calculated to reach the sympathies of the class referred to. He thought God would hold the nation responsible for her example of Sunday labor to her subjects. The newspapers are not only printed on the Lord's day, but they are read as well, and the nation gives free lessons in Sunday secularization. The address closed up with substantially the following words: "Our Christian Sabbath, the bulwark of our freedom, is in imminent peril, and we must not allow such proceedings to go on much further. There will be, erelong, in some form, an authoritative demand which shall result in a Sabbath for all, when all shall rest, and the land shall rest." Behold here the counterpart of what the prophet predicted eighteen hundred years ago. We believe we state the truth, when we affirm that the very life and soul of the amendment movement—the most prominent point in the minds of its advocates—is the enforcement of a national sabbath law. And what is the character of the institution that is to be thus elevated and backed up by the supreme law of our free land? Is it an institution that God has recognized and commanded in his word? No, indeed! It is a usurper, a supplanter of the Sabbath of Jehovah. Its name betrays its heathen origin. Baptized by the Catholic Church, and elevated by her above the day of rest which God commanded man to observe, it has become sacred to the greater part of the Christian world. In Rev. 13:11 we have a two-horned beast brought to view, which it is easy to show is a symbol of our own nation. John says this power (see verse 12) "causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast [the papacy], whose deadly wound was healed." This power, then, is to promulgate some law, allegiance to which will not only result in worship to the papal church, but it will be a kind of worship in which the land, as well as the people, is to participate. Dear reader, trace the word of God through, search its every page, and you will find but one way in which the land is said to render worship. The prophet declares that the land "kept Sabbath." See Lev. 25: 3, 4; 2 Chron. 36: 21. The two-horned beast is to cause not only the people, but the land, to worship the papacy. This we have found can only be by the observance of a Sabbath; and mark—it must be the Sabbath which the papacy has brought into existence, for the worship is not to God, but to the "beast." The speaker last referred to said: "There will be erelong, in some form, an authoritative demand which shall result in a Sabbath for all, when all shall rest and the land shall rest." Another speaker in the convention, in referring to Sunday trains, Sunday newspapers, and Sunday labor in general, said: "What we look for, and what we need, is some Nehemiah who shall lay hands on these corporations and these men and compel them to observe the Lord's day." The prophet, centuries ago, drew a picture of what would be done in the last days, and as we place the work of the Reform Party beside that photograph, we behold not only the general contour, but the more minute features of the likeness beginning to appear. The agents are already training in the field. We live in a time when events move with lightning rapidity. The darkened heavens and the muttering thunders bespeak a storm which, if we read the word of God aright, will erelong burst upon a careless world and a slumbering church who are dreaming of a good time coming.