The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-07-20
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.


A great deal of advertisement has
been given of late to the freshly flask
ionable principles of the Ten Com
mendments, and, perforce. the Com
mandments themselves are being moro
generally observed. Only a hare-brain-
ed enthusiast, however, would think for
a moment that the great task of liftini
society up to Sinai's level has already
been accomplished. The most serious
business in the world today-a job
alongside of which the building of Il
Panama canal is a mere trifiing episode
is the creation of a social condition
among men wherein these eternal prin-
ciples of right and equality shall be
hOnOred and Obeyed a S q normal COEdi-
ton Of life. Here is work worthy Of
the best: How can the Decalogue be
30 pressed upon the conscience of men
and women, both low and high, that
the black record of each days news
may be cleansed?
The other day a number of men re-
ceived request to join The 1nterna-
tional Committee for the Promotion of
Moral Training Inquiry" Now it is not
by any such formidably named socie-
ties as this that the vast and urgent
work of raising the standard of pub
lie morals is to be accomplished. Far
more potent is an already eSta bliShment
agency, existing wherever the Christian
church has gone in the whole world.
namely, the Sunday school. If the
myriads of Sunday school teachers on
this western continent We're tightly to
take hold Of the present lesson on the
six words of the Decalogue which deal
with mans duty to man, as a great
opportunity. an Unreasonable influence
would be welded for human morality.
Ethics and Patriotism.
Since the demand for fighting men is
happily rather low just now, there is
no more definite, Immediate and fruit
full work for patriotism to be done by
the average Christian citizen than is
AFFORDED to the Sunday school teacher
by this lesson. Let him speak clearly
and with conviction, out of his own OBJ
servation and common sense, rather
than repeat the platitudes of common
taries, and his hearers will be set to
thinking upon the truth that morality
Is the foundation of the state, and that
no better service can be done for CUES
country than to create q spirit of obedi-
ence to the Ten Commandments.
Sometimes a wrench is necessary to
bring the divine law out of the Book
that is commonly reserved for Sabbath
reading into the clear sunlight of the
commonplace everyday life. Yet the
DecalOgue'S place is out where men
sweat and strive and suffer. We have
read into the Old Testament so many
spiritual meanings that we are in dam
ger of forgetting that the law which
was given on rocky mountain deals
only with the life of a real people in a
real world.
New and advanced" thought and
isms are rampant today, some of them
being more concerned with the color of
the efflorescence of a persons soul than
with his conduct as a citizen and neigh
Dor; more jealous that he should have
aesthetic emotions than that he should
pay his grocer's- bill. Contrariwise, the
old-fashioned Decalogue faces the hard
facts of everyday worldly conditions
and of human nature. The last six Com
mandments. which are at the moment
before us, take for granted that people
must live together; that the hermit life
is not normal; and that. since men and
women have got to live in the society
of one another they must squarely con-
front and deal with the problems that
arise cut of these relationships.
In a word these Commandments are