The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-08-10
IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD
What the Church Folk Are Thinking About and Doing.
Religious News From Elsewhere

Religious News
OLD TIES AND NEW WORK.
The International Sunday-schOol Les
son for August is is PauIs Third
Missionary JOurney--EpheSuS.' Acts
1928; 1922.
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
One Of the everyday tragedies OF
life is the breaking of old ties by pro-
greSSiVe persons who have gOne into
a new life. Young people who have
left the humble old home to go to col
lege return and find themselves living
in a different world which does not
speak the language of that in which
they are reared. All about us we sec
prominent and successful men and wo-
men concerning whose families we
never inquire. They have had tc
make a fresh life for themselves
Some are all too quick to break with
the past, and to forget those to whom
they owe all; but even many who
would carry their families and old as.
S~OcjateS with them find it impossible
so to 10. Paul, the great apostle tt
the Gentiles, was nevertheless a Jew
and his heart ever yearned for his
own people Daily he prayed for them
and with all his tact and tenderness
and wisdom he sought to keep ir
close relationship with them. When.
' IN u - Viii Il
ity 1t was to the that he
Immediately repaired. His pride wa:
that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews
Yet alas! his own people continually
cast him out.
Despite innumerable mobbings, Pau
kept his Hebrew affiliations. In thu
present lesson we find him ending hi!
second missionary journey m order u
go up to Jerusalem to fulfill a vow
He made the long journey up to tn
city Of David-with the ~inextinguish
able love for that spot which has char
acterized the devout Jew Throughout
all ages-and in the temple courts h
fulfilled all the rites Of an orthodo.
Jew.
The Things Men Celebrate.
Nothing is aid in the record abou
the reception given the great apostl'
by the church at Jerusalem. Appar
emily he had no trfumphal entry. I
is more than possible that the Juda
lied Christians were cold to this apos
tie to the Gentiles. 1t is more prob
able, however, hat the historian, will
a fine sense of proportion, record:
only the work OF the evangeliZatioI
and not the home j~ubi1atiOnS. Luke
like Paul, had a supreme interest il
the field.
Paul was not one or those mission.
than they do abroad; whose Worl
looms larger in the printed report.
and in the telling to home churche
than it does before the eyes of thos'
who actually see it on the ground. No,
was ne of that company of evangelist
who employ press agents to repOr
their successes in distant fields to tn
centers from which they draw, or hop
to draw, a stipend.
For to Paul's mind the work wa!
the thing. His heart yearned for tn
battle-ground, like old DR.. Hunter Cor
bett, who would not~wait to finish hi
term as Moderator Of the Presbyterian
General Assembly, but who hastenet
back to his field in China. He would
rather preach in the him village;
than preside and be lionized at elabo
rate functions in America. Of him it i
told that returning to China from
furlough he began to preach to tn
natives as soon as he set foot upol
the ietty. even before he had greeted
his family.
An Echo of the Baptists.
An interesting figure enters the story
here, one Apollos. an Alexandria,
Jew. He was of the type of the schol-
arly man of letters, ready in debate
and equipped by research for thor
ough controversy. The Alexandria,
standard of scholarship to h He
brew scriptures, was persOnifed in
Appollos. Now Apollos knew John
the Baptist's teaching, and the prom
" Used Messiah, but he was ignorant that
Christ had already come and lived
and died. Yet he was true to the best
that he knew, and up to the limits OF
his knowledge he preached his gospel
in Ephesus, powerfully co%nfoundine
the Jews.
The churches which are not awake
to the whole truth are typified in APP
pollos and his Ephesian converts. We
recall the great body of Armenian
Christians, and the Coptic Church
and the Greek Church, and the Or
thOrdOX Russian Church., which
through intellectual torpor and spirit
ual decline, have lost much of the
pleasures of the universal Christian
Church. What shall we say to them