The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-02-02
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.


BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
The greatest problem of all ages and
Ill lands has been how to keep good
men from becoming bad, and at the
same time to know what to do with
bad men who are determined to keep
themselves bad and make others like
unto them The child of the highest
civilization and the son of deepest saw
agery are here seen upon the same
level. Human life is uncomfortable
where sin taints and wrecks the gains
both of thought and of material en-
deavor. Education, culture, wealth.
what are these worth where depraVed
passion has made them all its slaves?
A miIlionaire's home on Murray Hill
becomes quite as horrible hell as any
Mulberry street sub-tenement when
coiIfiagration of evil passion burns un-
checked.
The story of the deluge. well-nigh
universal tradition among all nations
possessing a literature, gives us certain
teachings upon the ways OF Gods mer-
cy moving through the tragic and ter
rible events of life toward an ultimate
of goodness over evil.
Sin SeIf-Destructive.
The story of conditions in the an
cient world before the time of Noah
corresponds to many a dark narrative
Of later ages. Evil is increasing among
The children of men. The hour when
the Creator looked forth upon the
works of his hands and pronounced
them very good seems to have
passed, never to come back. The deeds
and the desires of men wax worse and
worse. Horrible crime and passion
produce more daring designs and i'm
Rginations. which in turn bear swift
maturing fruit. Where will the broad
ening cycle of depravity end? Seem
Ingly only in the self-inflicted destruc-
ton of the sinners. Let US eat and
drink for tomorrow we die! Sin is !
I,-,t 4 Il
myself" is the prophets true inter |
probation of the nations plight in a |
later age of its career. So fell ancient !
Greece, perverting its love of beauty |
into unbridled lust. and debasing its |
power of noble thought to lowest lev |
els of casuistry. So fell Rome, in the |
hour of her greatest wealth and world |
wide possessions. So will fall any ma |
ton. any city, any home, any soul.
that let's sin have free course. The |
worst penalty of sin is sin working |
out its own nature and producing its |
inevitable sequences Have the fires
believe in a literal and physical flame
of birthstone? Not so. When a soul |
going on in the self-destructive courses
of sin comes to say. Myself am helli'
he is reaching the limit of conceivable
agony
Tho Sphere of Moral Surgery.
What is Gods way, of meeting this
mad rush of humanity on the tobog-
gan slide of ever-deeper sin? Shall a
world of beauty and wondrous posi-
bilfty lie fallow and idle because man,
the glory and crown of creation. has
blotted himself out of existence? What
is the remedy? One that in its terri
bleness shall fit the awful malady of
the patient.
Here is a cancer sufferer. The little
spot of diseased tissue, seemingly so
trivial, is spreading. Every day sees
larger ravages of the devouring de-
sit,
away before its merciless approach.
Agony. indescribable now. and presag-
Ing worse things in the future, is the
victims lot. What shall be done? A
poultice? A perfumed lotion to coun- I
teract the offense to the senses? Con-
cealment by bandage and elaborate
screening? No. There is only one re- ,
sort The operating -table-the keen,
knife. whose swift movement /
shall go faster and further than the
progress And so the surgeon !
stands prepared, bending above the dis !
BASED tissue. and ready for his work. '
strokes cut and cut again? Is it cruelty
TO thus mutilate? No. 1t is supreme :
mercy; it is greatest kindness.
Even so the story of the deluge
STANDS out as the earliest and sublim-
est representation of a divine mercy !
that shrinks not from moral surgery
where nothing else will avail To save I
the good by removing that which is
nopelessly bad; to replace contagion {
oy isolation; to look beyond the terri
bic processes of the immediate pres 9
ent to the results that in due season !
shall appear.-that is divine 1t is
GODS way where no other way will
AVAIL 1t is divine wisdom where hui t
man devices are avowedly helpless. 7
However awful the tragedy, however S
FEARFUL the picture of desolated realms /
1ho countess corpses as the waves re- v
sede, 1t Is far less appalling than the r
thought of humanity's doom If left to /
tself TO continue unchecked the course a
'r self-destructive madness which was
hyao'ng all realms of mans being.
For be 1t ever remembered the story G
II the deluge does not end as the wa \
ers reach their utmost height and the :
nundation of plain and valley and hill a
lae comes TO Its climax. God has not c
orgotten what has been blotted out OF
isht by the rising and enguIfine bill
ows. The end? No, the end is NOT
ct Some things are indeed ended but :,
MY tnat others may begin. What =
The Stimulus of Fresh Start. a
Who does not respond to such an in y
eH tive whenever and Wherever it =
oInesE The new year. after the weeks -
ma months of the old one have been q
rowded with mishaps and failures and ~
oIlies; the new home. where old as :
ocle.lons are gone, with their enticing r
emptations; the new task, with better =
.daptation to ones powers and ones y
lkings-all these things send a thrill =,
= new purpose into the soul that has A
-rown burdened and homeless unt1ar "
Id conditions.
Here was the merciful purpose of t,
iod revealed clearly in the outcome of r
his tragic chapter. but to be equally
ttributed to every portion of it. a
ew start for a world that had eo1a !
'rong! The dove that flies forth and =,
ONES back with the first symbol of II
heer goes out again and returns no Il
Iha- q -