TRUE REFORMS AND REFORMERS.
By Editor
THERE is much said about reform, and there are many who claim to be reformers at the present time. We will not stop to enumerate the subjects upon which reforms are urged, nor the different classes who urge them: suffice it only here to remark that we trust we shall be permitted to put in our claim also of being among the reformers of the nineteenth century; since we do claim this, and not only so, but, however presumptuous it may appear to some minds, we claim to be in advance of all reformers, and to labor for those true reforms which are especially essential to this perishing world. A reform is an amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt or depraved; it is a changing from worse to better; and surely we can all see that there is need enough of this in our world. We therefore heartily bid all reforms, God speed! We are glad always and everywhere to see the great tree of error trimmed and stunted, though it may be but the lopping off of some of the outer branches, instead of the destruction of some essential root. But true reform and a true reformer will strike at the root of the evil to be corrected. True reform will purify the fountain, since we cannot otherwise expect a pure stream. But the standard of rectitude and purity for this world is only found in the word of God. This much will all professors of Christianity tell us. The Word then is the source and basis of all true reformation. An exchange not many months since offered the same sentiment when it said: "The Bible is the great anti-sin text-book; the church, the great anti-sin society. No reform can be successful and complete which is not founded on the great fundamental principles contained in the Ten Commandments. All else is surface work, and must prove abortive. As well might you kill a tree by clipping off here and there a twig, as kill a moral evil, while its root is still striking deep in a luxuriant soil." "There," says one, "they've pitched upon the 'ten commandments' ready; now we know what's coming: something of course about the 'Sabbath' which these Seventh-day people everlastingly connect with all their teaching!" Exactly so! and since you've opened the way we will begin on this very point. The Sabbath is something like an all-pervading principle in a man's religious belief. It is among the very commandments by which we show our allegiance and our love to God. It is the great link which connects man more closely than any other to his great Creator. And there is need of reform upon the Sabbath question. Justice and the word of God call loudly for a reform in a practice which has made a breach in God's holy law, with which is inseparably connected the honor of the supreme Law-giver, and the destiny of man. But how do you know but that the command is already correctly observed, generally, so that there is no need of reform? We know how the commandment reads; and we know that the mass of professors do not pretend to keep the day specified in that command; and we know that the reasons they offer for another day are uncalled for, unscriptural and absurd; and we know that to keep another day for another reason, is not according to the "great fundamental principle" of that commandment. Therefore a reform is necessary or the letter, even, of God's requirement is not observed. But we are the more sure on this point, since not only existing facts demand a reform, but this very reform is a subject of prophecy. There was to arise a power, distinctly noted on the page of prophecy, which was to change times and laws, a blasphemous beast, who should exalt himself above all that is called God, and set up his own decrees above those of Jehovah. See Dan. vii; Rev. xiii. But there is also as distinctly noted, while the scenes of earth are drawing near their close, a class of people coming forth—the remnant of the woman's seed—who should resist the decrees and commandments of the beast, and instead of them, be found keeping the Commandments of God. Rev. xii, 17; xiii, xiv. Here is pointed out the reform that should take place on the law of God. The Papal beast has made a breach in that law, and the last work of the true church is to restore it again; hence says the prophet Isaiah, Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in, and shalt ride upon the high places of the earth, if thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath. See Isa. lviii, 12-14. We say we bid all reforms, God speed! but some are laboring for reforms which they never will see accomplished. As much as any one, from our very soul we detest and abhor that foul blot of our country—slavery! and our sympathies are with those in whose hearts burns the love of freedom, and who would desire to see the bondman loosed from his chains. But he who expects to see the land freed entirely from this curse, or even to see slavery contentedly confine itself within certain limits, we can but regard as laboring under a false hope; for the character which the prophetic pencil has given to the two-horned beast, [Rev. xiii, 11,] a symbol of our country, is that he shall speak as a dragon! Not that slavery alone constitutes the dragon voice; but we must take with it its prime mover, that infernal spirit that is even now, on the plains of Kansas, burning the homes of freemen to the ground, and driving out their inmates robbed and insulted, and which but recently prompted a brutal assault upon a senator in the very halls of congress. Prophecy gives us no ground to hope for reform here: the beast speaks like a dragon. People may caress him never so fondly, or threaten him never so fiercely; they cannot reform his mouth; he will speak like a dragon still. The prophecy does not say that at first he spake like a dragon, but at length reformed his speech, and breathed forth a just and Christ-like spirit. His future history presents no redeeming feature. He will continue to bellow forth his dragon voice, till he shall be cast into the burning flame, and the remnant whom he will persecute shall take their stand of victory on mount Zion with the Lamb. There is another subject upon which reform is needed to save mankind from a fatal delusion. It has been needed for years in the past, and because it did not take place, a huge evil is overspreading the world. We refer to the popular belief concerning man's condition in death, and his final destiny, as needing reform. Had the plain teachings of the Word been followed, there would have been now no need of reform; but there has been a wide and sad departure, and the peculiar dangers to which the present age is exposed demand a speedy return to the word of God on this subject. The theology of the world was "defective, corrupt and depraved," or Spiritualism would never have found soil for its dark and deadly roots. Here is the danger; and the only remedy is to reform an erroneous belief. Admit once that man is in death where the Bible leaves him, in a state of unconsciousness, waiting the resurrection, and the whole brood of spirits are stripped of their garb of light, and shown to be the emissaries of him who is the father of all lies. The theology of the world needs reforming. The manners and customs of the church need reforming. True religion is not accustomed to dwell in gilded temples with pride and popularity, and corruption and hypocrisy. A reform is demanded; a return to the simplicity and devotion of early times; and whoever is engaged in the work of giving men a proper basis for their daily lives, a consistent view of the plan of salvation, and a well-grounded hope for the future, in opposition to the corruptions and errors of this degenerate time, is engaged in true and radical reform; and there is no nobler work on earth. Such reforms we cannot expect to become general. The way that leads to life is narrow and there is only here and there one who is willing to take it. It is about as hard to make a germ of truth flourish in this cold world, as it would be to rear a tender flower amid the snows of Siberia; and we might well nigh become discouraged were it not for the assurance that there will be a few plants ready to be transferred to a heavenly climate, to flourish there through all eternity. We claim to be reformers; and we claim to be engaged in the noblest and most essential reform—even that of restoring the claims of the royal law of God, that men may conform their lives thereto. And we earnestly invite the attention of all to these things, in whose eyes reform is a sort of divinity, worthy of our highest regard if not of our worship. We invite their attention to these things. If actions which violate the plainest precepts of the divine oracles, ought not to be reformed, we know not what should be; and if this subject should not engage the attention of a world full of candidates for life or death, again we say, we know not what should.