Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-07-29
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.

forces representing the highest ele-
ments in human life. Paul had no
difficulty In allying himself with a
community Of fellow craftsmen for
his problem like that of many another
stranger going to city, was the one
OF self-support-and he discovered the
Jewish synagogue as lighthouse of
the one true God amid all the heather
blackness that environed it.
The City as a Playground.
Paul was a city man. Yet he never
became wholly Injured to the wicked
ness and the emptiness of city life.
He was as greatly affected by the
frivolity of this metropolis as by it's
vices. The city is not only the work
shop of the twentieth century, but al
so it's playground. Men and women go
to the city for good time" How
empty and inane is much of the pleas
ure that is provided for these residents
and visitors every thoughtful OBJ
server has remarked. There are few
things Licre discouraging that night
spent ON Wv York's Great White
Way" 1t ic not only that people are
SO often vulgar and wicked, but also
that they are frivolous and unsatis-
factory.
Our urban civilization has created
artificial standards which are vicious.
The newspapers told the other day
how certain woman testified in court
this kind Of people easily find their
way into .court-that her social stand
ing required her to wear at least three
different dresses a day, each costing
a ho
the same dress twice! In the face of
such facts one cannot wonder at the
presence of sullen anarchy or rampant
socialism. Consider how we have null
| tiplied the forms and accessories of
what we call good society" The
| modern table is not we'll furnished I'M
less it has a great array OF knives and
| forks and spoons and curious nipple
ments, until one has more pity for the
state of mind which has so burdened
itself with useless encumbrances of an
unreal Journalism than with the con.
sternation Of the country visitor who
finds himself helpless among this ar.
ray of table accessories.
The Good Amidst the Bad.
Beneath all this overlap of foolish
and needless eXtravagances which
| characterize the modern city life there
yet remains, even as Paul found in
Corinth, a thirst for religion. Recent
ly a Young Woman's Christian Asso
citation worker was making a Bible
talk to company Of young people in
a training school. BY chance, g
wealthy woman and leader in aristo
cratic social circles entered the meet
i ing and heard her. She requested thai
the association secretary spend the
next Sunday at her home, a palatia
residence suburban to New York
There the visitor found that she was
called upon to meet some thirty of hel
hostess's neighbors, men and womer
Of wealth and position, some of then
known the world around as socia
leaders. To this gorgeously arrayec
company she was asked to teach the
Bible. So real was their interest thai
they urged that she come every weel
to teach them in Bible class which
they would form. Instances are no.
wanting to illustrate that even the
. men and women who are dizziest will
the perpetual round of pleasure-seek
ing and the observance of socia
forms still hunger for the bread tina
satisfies.
The Good Man In a Bad Place.
Face to face with the modern city