Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-12-30
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON AND
YOUNG PEOPLES MEETINGS
News Of Interest to Church Goers BY a
Writer Who is An Authority on Religious
Subjects. The International Lesson for
Next Sunday.

parers and heralds, if not to rear a
highway for the entrance into
acknowledged sovereignty of the
King?
This sense of the significance of cur
own time, as well as of the sacredness
OF every life's mission, is seriously
needed today. There are two strong
ly1owing tides discernible in our
modern life. One sets back thought
fulness, simplicity and spirituality; the
other flows swiftly toward restless
ness, specifically, materialism. The
latter Is the more apparent of the two.
Evidences of it are The worship of
wealth, the eagerness for notoriety:
the mad pursuit of diversion, the
pathetic effort to ward off safety, the
growing luxury in personal and do
mestic adornment and in food, the
popularity of problem" plays and
novels and the vogue of such common
and inane notices as "Lifes just one
BANKED thing after another ANY
! where but where we are Nothing
can be worse than this and others
more distinctly vulgar.
The antidote for this sort of thing
is a John the Baptist sense of mis-
SlOL. Lille IUGduS anu II
| means 1t tremendously" No man is
! born into the world whose work is not
born with him" Such magnificent
life purpose as Jesus afforded to John
and Matthew he still offers to every
serious spirit today. Life becomes
worth living when it Is lived for some
thing worth while.
The Anchorite in the Wilderness.
The cook who serves half-baked
cakes is not SO reprehensible as the
life which offers the world half-pre-
pared abilities. The old apprenticeship
system has been abolished: and many
young people foolishly aspire to be-
come master workers before they have
| learned the rudiments of their calling.
| The schools which offer to train
nurses by mail, or by a six-week's
course, are more illogical and more
dangerous than the whole system Of
thinking which pervades modern SOC
| iety. In the older days, men took time
to get ready
John the Baptist went off in the
wilderness to learn the prophet trade.
He dressed in camel's hair and ate
| locusts and honey, not in order to be
| picturesque, or to make the crowds
stare, but simply because that was the
natural way for poor man to live in
the wilderness. He stripped life of all
its essentisa trappings. The infinite
calm of the solitudes filed and stead
led his soul Could even the Baptist
have become a prophet amid the
complex life of modern city? Some
how, contemplation of this lesson has
filled my own heart with great long
| ing for the radiant peace of the
Libyan Desert: I would be once more
on the swaying back Of a dromedary,
with contemplative Arab by my side,
and with time and inclination for in
distracted thought amid natures
teaching silences.
2 This majestic, rugged old figure OF
John calls us back to the duty of tax
ing time for the things worth while.
We putter too much and accomplish
too little Let us be brave enough for
| best things. DR.. H. Clay Trumbull
wrote an editorial on THE Duty OF
Refusing to Do Good 1t takes cour-
age to be true to ones own call. Ten
nyson refused to be social lion, and
was criticised for his disregard of the
amenities: but he left the world a
great message, which it needs more
sadly than it needs dancing masters.
Who will be heroic enough to follow
John, the anchorite into the wilder
ness, to learn how to live his own life
back IN the conventionalized world of
| men?
Success Is In the silences,
Though fame is in the song
The Man With Something to Say.
In the wilderness, John came to
Standardization and acquired his mes
sage. Some preachers are affecting
the camers hair cloth and the leather
girdle and brusque speech, without the
message. But the message alone is
the thing. TO hear that, the world
will seek out a man In the remotest
wilderness, or will not shrink from the
most fashionable of churches. Why is
it that Philadelphia crowds flock every
Sunday to hear DR.. Floyd w Tomkins
while our downtown churches are al
most empty? Simply because he has
a message about God. He does not
rehash the days news from the pulpit
nor choose topics that will command
space in the newspapers, nor have pro
logues or epilogues or stereopticor
| SHOWS. t1S luoI " OpSiiSS So'i ~ w.
hearts of the people, and the multi
tude which gathered in hunger goes
away fed.
1t was a plain sermon that Matthew
reports John as preaching. First. there
was the old appeal Repent ye.'
Then there was the warning, that the
: axe was already lying at the tree o
hereditary religion, ready to cut i
down should they prove unworthy o.
their fathers. And then there was the
promise of the greater One Who was
To Come. John offered his time Christ
That was its need then: it is the su
preme need now.
AN oLDLAW FOR tn NEW YEAF
: Terse Comments Upon the Christian
Endeavor Topic for January 2
| 49, -