The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-12-01
In the Religious World
What the Church Folks Are Thinking
AboUt and Doing. Religious News
From Every where.
sUNDAY scHooI. LEssoN AID YOUNG PEoPIIEs ToPIC.

l.
ed to be true to their noblest impulses;
they followed a multitude to GO evil.
Therein was their guilt in this great
time of testing
A Notions Failure.
An individual may go to smash, and
so may a company; worse yet, a whole
nation may fail. One does not have
to be deep student Of history to see
how the shores of time are Uttered
with wrecks of nations. Or one may
simply search his own recollection to
see the flag of Spain growing less and
less. as it has been driven altogether
from the western seas. The devout
mind can scarcely help believing that
he Lord deals with nations as we'll as
with men and women.
The Jewish nation was on trial in
Pilates judgment hall that early April
{ morning. The chosen people had
chosen wrongly Jesus had come -'un-
to his own, and His own received Him
not" Lulled into a torpor of spiritual
inactivity by a consciousness of its own
greatness. as has been materially true
of al least one great nation in our own
time. the Jewish people were blind and
sensitiveness of spirit, that open-mind-
edness and alertness which distinguish
the quick from the dead. So the foes
Of truth were found in the household
of truth. The danger of any nation or
denomination Is that it will settle down
in se'f-complacency, SO that prophets
viii cry unto it in vain. On this charge
the Jews were found guilty at the
great assize; and swift and terrible
was their punishment. The awful de-
struction of Jerusalem, and the sad
ness that is written on the face Of the
Jewish race today are their own com
mentaries upon this incident
The Man Who Won.
BY the popular clamor=people lose
their heads when they act together as
crowd-one man came out of the
trial a gamer. This was Barabba the
rObber. who may be said to represent
those who, undeserving, are benefited
by the unexpected turns of the wheel
of circumstance. The injustice done
to Jesus. a man with whom he had
probably had no relations, meant an
undeserved liberty for him. True, he
might have interpreted that cry -Ba-
rabbasl" as a token of popular appro-
val; really it was a shout against Jesus
It was not that the people loved Ba-
rabbas more, but that they loved Jesus
less. So the robbers figure is brought
into the white light OF undying fame
simply because of this fortuitous con-
nection with the trial of Jesus.
In passing, it is worthy of note that
all the participants in this momentous
scene have earned immortality merely
by their association with the despised
One who stood, bound. bloody, soiled
and a prisoner before them. AS a VII
lage or city is made famous by the
fact of a great mans being born there
IN. so every CHdIdcleT on TINS page Oh
history stands out distinctly because
the page bears the name of Jesus. The
naughty PLATE would have been for
gotten within a generation as merely
one of the scores of Roman provincial
governors had he not been called to
face the testing of this humble Naza-
rene.
PLATE, tho Dodser.
Of all the marks by which we know
a real man none is more certain than
willingness to stand up under his own
burdens and to accept his own respon-
sibilities. The shfrlxer and the trimmer
tempt of the ages has been heaped
upon PLATE because he did not play
the man. 1t was like him to find a
cowardly suicides grave. In this great
trial he proved himself a provincial
a politician, n dodger and a weakling.
The case was plain. PLATE was
judge. with full authority and the
power of the eagles behind him. The
was worldly wise enough to see at a
glance that it was for envy that the
rulers delivered up Jesus. and exam
nation led him to the decision, IT find
bled and dickered and faltered, sue
ceeding only in insulting the Jews, and
wronging Jesus 1t Is the weak man,
like PLATE. who Will take neither
side, that Is made to suffer by
both. He affected the air of a man of
the world treating the whole subject
Of religion with disdain and supercil-
iousness- He was so little that he was
proud of himself for knowing nothing
about religion. wherein he has had
many followers. The state of mind Of
the average worldly man in this par
ticular would be funny were 1t not
pathetic: Il e affects to be superior to
all things religious and Theological
though If he we're possessed of sufi-
cient brains he would recall that these
subjects have engrossed the deepest
Inf Of T-o fs,4rr
all walks OF life, and yet he feels free
to dogma tie about the profundities Of
religion. and is vain enough to believe