Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-12-16
The International Sunday School Les
son for December 10 is Review,
CONTRASTS AND coMaUEsTs
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

BY WILLIAM L. ELLIS,
Clever scientists have invented
scales for measuring mental processes
but they have not got to the point of
being able to weigh the power of an
impression or an impulse. All the
events in creation cannot determine
the effect upon twenty-five million
minds most of them in the plastic
state of youth, of the years study, now
ended, of the heroic history of the
early Christian church.
Certainly il has been tremendous.
4 The Sunday school scholars have lived
with giants-Jesus and Paul and
Peter and Stephen and John and Bar
i nabas and Silas and James and Tim
othy and DR.. Luke They have in
qrired into their motives, dissected
their characters, searched out the
springs of their great deeds. They
have learned the secret of their
greatness, have thrilled with their
iheroism, and have shared in their big
and conquering idea. It has been g
rare school for cosmopolites and world
servants, has the Sunday school dur
ing the past year. The politicians OF
tomorrow will have to reckon with it.
The Day of Worldism.
Curiously-let us say Providentially
this twelve months spent in the
/ Book of the Acts has chorded won
! drously with the world thought of the
times. It's broad outlook has CORE
| sponded to the awakening of the
/ minds of men today. This new era of
worldfsm upon which the church has
entered fits, like ball into socket, into
/ the theme of the record of Chris
! tianity's beginnings. That was a day
of imperial conceptions. So is this.
Evidences on every land attest that
truth. Personally, have had a
peculiar opportunity to observe it as
have noted the comment upon Men
and Missions; and the. chapter of the
book which seems to hit men hardest
is The Awakening World" For our
day is becoming newly alert to the
meaning of universal ferment.
Some Modern Instances.
There are striking contrasts and
consequences as we put the years
studies alongside of contemporaneous
life. Compare that first little gathering
of Christians at Pentecost with some
of our modern representative re-
~llSlOuS hSHSulpltSS. L axe tuS IhSe't-
ing in Louisville this month of the
executive committee of the Federal
Council of Churches of Christ in
America. There were represented
more than half the population OF the
United States. The ministry of eacn
of, several denominations is larger than
the entire Christian church at Pente-
cost. What the Louisville meeting
stands for in the way of social and
patriotic influence, material wealth.
educational leadership and religious
power, maybe only family imagined.
Or look forward to the great
gathering in Washington next May,
when the Worlds Sunday school con-
ivention will call together represen-
tativess of a greater number of nations
than have%ever met together in a re-
ligious capacity. Again consider the
Laymen's Missionary Campaign, now
sweeping over the country, and the
National Congress on World Brother
hood with which it will eliminate in
Chicago next May. Surely, the must
ardtseed which students of this course
have watched terminate, has become
a.mightytforest. whose branches cover
thesearth.
Then and Now.
Keeping lin mind the central thought
tofi the developing Christian church, it
Is well to contrast the feebleness of
1.-THE church then. with its potency to-
day. misunderstanding to point out the
snumber' Of 'infdels, now mostly forgot
ten, whoahave predicted the early de,
mise, of Christianity, or the fierce eff
forts of kings and governments TO ex
Itirpate it, attention should be called
Ito the new vigor with which the re-
~f5igion of Jesus and his apostles IL
spreading cover the entire earth. Next
June there will assemble in Edin
rburgh, q Worlds Missionary Confer
ence metoto consider a universal prop
uganda of the Christian faith. The
craftsmanship of Christendom will be
there represented. Heroes of the
faith from all quarters of the globe
will bear with them the smoke of Thu