The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-12-14
CONTRASTS AND CONoUEsTs
rhe international Sunday School les
son for December 10 Is a Review

n international Sunday School Les
son for December 10 Is a Review.
By WILLIAM 7. ELLIS.
Clever scinetists have invented
scales for measuring mental processes;
out they have not got to the point OF
being able to weigh the power of an
impression or an impulse. All the SER
wants in creation canno 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 it has been tremendous.
The Sunday school scholars have lived
with glants-JesuS and Paul and Pc
ter and Stephen and John and Barna-
bas and Silas and James and Timothy
and DR.. Luke. They have inquired
into their motives, dissected their
characters, searched out the springs
of their great deeds. They have
learned the secret of their greatness,
ave thrilled with their heroism, and
have shared in their big and conquer
ing idea. 1t has been a great place
for the meeting Of cosmopolites and
world-seryants, has the Sunday school
during the past year. The politicians
of tomorrow will ave to reckon with
it.
The lay of Worldism.
Curiously-let US say Providentially
this twelve month spent in the Book
OF the Acts has chorded wonderously
with the world thought of the times.
It's broad outlook has correspondent to
the awakening of the minds of men
today. This new era of worldism upon
which the church has entered fits, like
ball into socket, into the theme of the
record Of Christianity's beginnings.
That was a day of imperial concep-
lions. So is this. Evidences on every
hand attaSf thot fr11fh Personally
I have had a peculiar opportunity to
observe it as / have noted the com
ment upon Men and M~issions;' and
the chapter Of the book which seems
to hit men hardest is The Awaking
World" For our day is becoming
newly alert to the meaning of univer-
sal ferment.
There are striking contrasts and
consequences as we put the years
studies alongside of contemporaneous
life. Compare that first little gath
ering of Christians at Pentecost with
some of our modern representative re-
ligious assemblies. Take the meeting
in Louisville this month, of the exec
utive committee of the Federal Coun-
ell Of Churches of Christ in America.
There were represented more than half
the population of the United States.
The ministry of each OF several de-
nominations registered 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, may be only family imagined.
Or look forward to the great gath
ering in Washington next May, when
the Worlds Sunday School Convention
will call together representatives OF
a greater number of nations thar have
ever met together in a religious capac-
ity. Again., look at the Laymen's Mis-
SjnnaJv y r1naiO now CWpaDlng over
the country, and the National Congress
on World Brotherhood with which it
will eliminate in Chicago next May.
Surely, the mustard seed which stu
dents of this course have watched
terminate, has become a mighty for
est, whose branches cover the earth.
Then and Now.
Keeping in mind the central
thought of the developing Christian
church., it is well to contrast the fee
bieness of the church then, with it's
potency today. Without tarrying to
point out the number of infidels, now
mostly forgotten, who nave predicted
the early demise of Christianity, or the
fierce efforts of kings and governments
to extirpate it, attention should be
called to the new Vigor with which the
religion of Jesus and his apostles is
spreading over the entire earth. Next
June there will assemble in Edtnburg
a Worlds Missionary Conference, met
to consider a universal propaganda
of the Christian faith. The states
manship of Christendom will be there
represented. Heroes of the faith from
all quarters of the globe will bear
with them the smoke of this world
war. 1.-The evange1ization of the world
in this generation will be the audac-
ious watchword sounded. Does not
that recall the boldness Of the apos-
ties?
The background of the Acts history
IS heathendon. The first attack of
the infant Church was upon an en-
Vironment odden i~nselfishness, with
slavery, oppression, and Iustful vice
the rule. Today we find the Church