National Reform Convention
By Editor
A REPORT of the National Reform Convention, held in Pittsburg, Pa., November 14-16, 1893, sent out from headquarters, says:— “The keynote of this convention was the kingly authority of Jesus Christ over the nation, and the application of his law to the moral issues of our national life. . . . Special attention was given to the sabbath question, and the influence and labors of the association were pledged to the advocacy of a national sabbath law, as the next great forward step to be taken by the friends of the sabbath in the United States.” Among the resolutions passed they summarize as follows:— “The resolutions adopted declared that the nation is a moral person under moral law; that the supreme law for nations is the law of Christ; that the most important moral question for this nation now to settle is the sabbath question; that the Chinese Exclusion law, and the wrongs done to the Indian and the negro, are in defiance of the law of Christ; that the conflict between capital and labor has its deepest roots in moral causes, and can be settled only by the sincere acknowledgment, as final Arbitrator, of Him who labored as a carpenter and now reigns as a King.” Now all this seems good, and some of it is good in a certain way, but in it all there are all the baleful evils which resulted in putting to death the Christ of God; for “the kingly authority of Christ over the nation” means the authority of the National Reform Association, and the disfranchisement and banishment of every opposer. “The sabbath question” and the “national sabbath law” mean the sabbath of the National Reformers, with persecution for those who do not and cannot submit to the usurper of the Sabbath of the Lord. Christ as “final Arbitrator” means to submit to the National Reform régime in all things. The evil of the whole thing comes in the desire of the natural heart, in unwise zeal, in unholy aspiration, to do for God what he has never committed to man. God is the “final Arbitrator” of all things religious, not through men, but in the great judgment day. Are National Reformers afraid to trust him?