The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-01-26
A SATURDAY SERMON.
THE FIRST BABY.

| Say not thou. What is the cause that the
! former days were better than these? for
| thou dost not INQUIRE wisely concerning
| Observation-Disclosures ITO.
This is a pretty good old world after
all. Notwithstanding all its wicked
ness, it's deceit its grating, its oppres-
sion, its sin, its woe, there is a great
deal of goodness and benevolence in
this sphere of ours that makes it
good place for humanity to spend its
mortal days.
And notwithstanding the opinions of
the pessimist, it is growing better
right along. We often hear of the
good old days when sterling honor
prevailed on every hand, but as mat
ter of fact there is probably not as
much grating today as there was
hundred years ago, considering the
opportunities for it. Human life is not
held nearly as cheap as it was a few
centuries back. Might does not always
make right as it once did, and Justice
is steadily overcoming oppression.
Humanity did not make a very good
start in the beginning. Disastrous
consequences followed fast on that
episode in the Garden OF Eden when a
little disobedience on the part of our
first parents brought all the woe that
humanity has suffered and all the
wickedness it has committed.
Did you ever realize how grievously
Adam and Eve were made to bear the
consequences of their disobedience-
not because of the physical labor and
pain that it brought, but because of
its results on others?
Picture to yourself the scene in that
first home after the first baby was
born to humanity. Very likely Adam
was as proud of it as Is the modern
father of his first-born son. OF course
Adam could not go down town and
brag to 1.-The boys about how smart
little Cain was, nor bore his acQuain-
tances with stories of the little fell
lows bright sayings; but Adam I'M
doubtedly came home after a hard
days work out on the farm and got
unstinted pleasure out of romping
with the boy. And Eve. with all a
young mothers pride and happiness,
doubtless fondled her baby by the
hour. and she probably got the whole
neighborhood excited when Cain cut
his first tooth.
And yet that first baby-the very
first born of the human race-was a
murderer
He wasn't common murderer.
either; he was a fratricide. He muir
dered his brother. simply because of a
mean. contemplate spirit of envy and
Jealousy; and it all came about be-
cause of the disobedience of our first
parents. What must have been the
anguish of those parents when they
realized the awfulness of their act and
its results! Think OF the sorrow II
endured when they discovered that
one of their two sons had been slain,
and that the hands of the other were
red with his brothers blood,
1t must have been a great disap-
pointment when the good Lord looked
down from heavn and saw what His
children had done; and as He realized
the havoc that the serpent had
wrought in His creation and foresaw
the agony and suffering that sin would
bring to all humanity, how His great
fatherly heart yearned to free His
children from its influence and still
leave them free moral beings!
And because of that yearning the
world is growing better. When men
of today are compared with the first
baby born into the world, the present
generation seems fairly respectable in
spite of all of the wickedness and op-
preston one reads about in the news
papers-or in ones own heart.
For centuries back in the morning
of history it was terribly wicked old
world-so wicked that its creator
blotted most of the human race out of
existence. And even old Noah, who
alone was deemed worthy of saving,
with his family. went out and got
drunk soon after the ark struck dry
land.
We sometimes have to look a long
ways back to see where the race has
made any progress in goodness, but If
we use the right sights we can see it.
Sometimes when things look as though
they were going wrong around US
trusts and combines expressing the
people, corruption in all walks of life,
our candidates beaten, and the rail-
roads electing the United States sena-
tors-we may get pessimistic and
think the whole world is going to the
bow-wows. But It isn't. 1t is march
ing steadily onward towards the mil
lennium and will reach it in the time
appointed by an All-wise Providence.
In the meantime. in the atom of
time allotted to US on this earth, we
can help matters along by pushing in
stead of pulling back; by being a force
for good in the world. instead of
force for evil.
IT'LL, DOTTEV DASS RITZ