Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-02-17
The Philosophy OF Reform.

In an article under the above title DR.
Holland writes in Scribner for February.
1t is most interesting and instructive, we
repeat, to observe how all the patent
methods that have been adopted outside OF,
or In opposition to, Christianity, for the
reformation of society, have, one after
another, gone to the wall, or gone TO the
dogs. A dream, and few futile or dis
astrouS experiments, are all that ever
comes OF them. Societies, communities,
organizations, melt away and are lost, and
all that remains of them is their history.
Yet the men who originated them fancied
that they were radicals, while they never
touched the roots either of human nature
or human society. The most intelligent
of those who abjure Christianity have
seen all this, and have been wise enough
not to undertake to put anything in its
place. They content themselves with their
negations, and leave the race to founder
along as it will.
We suppose it is matter of wonder to
such men as these that Mr. Moody and
Mr.. Sankey can obtain such a following as
they do. They undoubtedly attribute it to
superstition and ignorance, but these re-
formers are simply eminent radicals after
the Christian pattern, who deal with the
motives and means furnished them by the
one great radical reformer of the world
Jesus Christ himself. They are at work
at the basis of things. To them politics
are nothing, denominations are nothing,
organizations are nothing, or entirely sub.
ordinate. Individual reform is everything.
After this organizations will take care of
themselves. No good society can possibly
be made out of bad materials, and when
the materials are made good, the society
takes a good form naturally, as a pure
salt makes its perfect crystal with
out superintendent. They are proving,
day by day, what all Christian reformers
have been proving for eighteen centuries,
viz, that Christian reform, as it relates to
individual life and character, possesses
the only sound philosophical basis that
can be found among reforms. Christian,
reform, with all its motives and methods,
is found to be just as vital to-day as it
ever was. 1t is the same yesterday, to-day
and forever. There are great many
dogmas of the church whose truth. or
whose importance, even if true, it would
be difficult to prove; but the great truths,
that humanity is degraded, and can only
be elevated and purified by the elevation
and publication of its individual con-.
stituents, are evident to the simplest mind
Men know that they are bad, and ought to,
be better; and mOtiye-or series of
motives to reformation, addressed directly
to this consciousness-is not long in.
achieving results. The radicalism of
Christianity holds the secret ofrevivals, of
the stability of the church, of the growth
and improvement of Christian communt-
ties. All things that are true are divine.
There can be no one thing that is more
6ivinely true than any other thing that is
true Christianity is divine, if for no
other reason than that it holds and mo-
nopolizes the only radical and philosophi-
cal basis of reform. The criticisms of all
those who ignore these facts are necessari-
ly shallow and unworthy of consideration
just as shallow and just as worthless, as
the dogmatism inside the church which
attributes the power of Christianity to
those things which are not sources of
power at all. Christianity must live and
triumph as system of reform, because it
goes to the roots of things, and, because,
by so doing, it proves itself to be dIvinely
and eternally true