ARE NATIONAL REFORMERS CHRISTIANS?
By M. C. W.
THEY claim to be. They desire to make Christ king of this nation. They aim to establish by civil law what they call the Christian Sabbath. They are determined to have what they call Christian instruction in our public schools. Verily, on the face of it, it would look as though they were Christians. Further, they are determined to compel all to submit to their regulations, willingly if they may, forcibly if they must. If a man who does not believe in Sunday sacredness, concludes that he ought, in duty to his family and for the interests of his business, to work upon that day, he must be compelled to do differently. Now a Christian is a follower of Christ, one who observes his sayings. And to one of the most blessed of his sayings, known all over the world as the "golden rule," National Reformers are diametrically opposed: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Matt. 7: 12. The term men includes more than the National Reformers, or Christians. It means Jew and Gentile, Barbarian and Scythian, Mohammedan and Pagan, believer and atheist. If it is right, therefore, to compel all these classes to observe any of the forms or institutions of Christianity, simply because professed Christians are in the majority, or have the power to enforce obedience, it follows, if National Reformers are Christians indeed, that they believe it would be the duty of the Jew or the pagan to enforce his forms of worship and religious institutions upon Christians, if he were in the majority or had the power. This is the inevitable conclusion. They say to the grossest idolator, We are Christians, and believe the golden rule of Christ. Now we desire you to be a Christian. We wish you to observe the institutions of Christianity. If you do not desire to do so, we will compel you so to do. By that they say to him, This would be just what you ought to do by us—compel observance of your gross idolatry—if our situation were reversed, and the power were in your hands. And if the National Reform theory be correct and Christian, the golden rule justifies religious prosecution and persecution, in all lands, of all religions. Either Christ taught that it was right to compel religious observance, or National Reformers are not followers of Christ. Do National Reformers ever read the instruction of Christ? Will they follow it? Then they will no longer be National Reformers, seeking through civil laws and penalties to propagate the religion of Christ; for National Reformers and the Christianity of Christ are diametrically opposed the one to the other. Christ gave the golden rule to keep his followers from the exercise of all oppression and tyranny. And those who believe more in His sayings than they do in their own selfish greed for place and power, will never seek to enforce any religion or religious institution on their followers. But perhaps National Reformers have never learned the golden rule. For their sakes we repeat it again: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."