The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-12-10
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
% EALLY startling is the fact
which a close observer dis
Germs, that somewhere in the
background of all the great
Nv struggles going on in the
earth today rises the figure
of the cross. Portugal, the latest ma
ton to oVerturn, confeSses the issue 10
have been primarily religious, even as
is also the cause of SPANS deep dis
content. Egypt's agitation resolves
itself into question of cross versus
The Turkish problem. which en-
crosses the attention of European
diplomats, and is intertwined with the
future of Greece. Crete, Bulgaria
Seryia, Montenegro, and Rouman1a-
not to mention the nationalities under
Turkish dominion-is essentially
problem of Islam versus Christianity.
Greeks, Russians, Armenians and Sy-
r1anS see it all typifed in the figure OF
the cross coming back to the mosque
of st. Sophia in ConStantinople. ST.
Sophia's w2s founded in the fifth cen
fury by the first Christian emperor of
the Roman empire. For nearly nVe
centuries it has been in the hands OF
the MosIems. But the belief is strong
in millions of hearts that ''the cn0ss is
coming back" When it does, the Turk
ish empire will have fallen.
An Emblem and a Passion.
The vast political significance of the
in the regions around the Mediter-
ranean. There the Moslems spit upon
and tread underfoot the cross. Even
officers to whom Emperor William OF
Germany gave decorations when he
visited Palestine thus treated their
honors, because they bore the hated
symbol of Christianity.
The Greeks especially believe that
the cross is to be their sign of polit-
zeal emancipation. SO their Christian
ity tends to become almost idolatrous
devotion to the cross. In the old city
of Ephesus the archaeologists have
unearthed beautiful marble baptis-
try with seven great crosses about Its
sides. I caught our horse boy rever-
emily kissing one of these crosses.
One of the most impressive bits of
statuary I have even seen-and one
that should be better known-is that
which stands halfway up the hill over
looking the Danube river in the city
of BUDAPEST. The figure is that of
king-emancipator, in bronze and of
heroic size, holding aloft cross above
the city below. At his feet crouches
an eloquent figure in marble of a saw
age Hun who looks a1oft to the up
raised cross for hope and emancipa-
ton. The entire group fairly domi-
mates the whole city. It is beautifully
emb1ematic of the power of the cross
as the only hope of the modern city.
The Man.
All of this world wide devotion to
figure of a lonely and wasted Man,
hanging on rough wooden beams upon
a stony hill outside of the capital of
a remote Roman province. An exc
cuted criminal, q thwarted refOrmer, q
crushed dreamer; a forsaken leader
could any fate be more pitiable than
that of this failure, as his contempo-
raries regarded the Carpenter from
Nazareth2
Just pain-rent Victim of that hor-
rible invention, the cross, at whom the
meanest of the gaping rabble and the
coarsest of the rough soldiers was free
to scom-yet that Man is today the
worlds greatest conqueror. and the SUI
preIne factor in human life and inter
national politics. / have been working
lately in the regions where the great
ones of ancient history fought and in
trigued and ruled and sat in splendid
state. Only here and there have 1
been able to find even an uncertain
trace of Cyrus and Darius and Neb-
lichadnezzar and Alexander the Great
and julius Caesar and Cleopatra and
Saladin and Haroun Raschid. But
this Man who went to death outside
of old Jerusalem is today. the most
living of all the worlds forces.
The Message of the Art Galleries.
The shame of that ignominious death
is being supplanted by the greatest
gIories the race can bestow. Every
one who has visited the great art gal
leries of Europe knows that the one
supreme theme of the greatest artists
has been the death of Jesus of Nazar-
eth. 'Ecce Homoi" might be inscrib-
ed over the door of every great art
gallery, for there the cross is lifted
I'd.
Passing by the conquest of the i'm
mortal music by Christ. and his king
ship in the worlds literature, one may
go to the firing line of civilization He
learns that something like one-seventh
of the human race speaks Arabic, and
GI-~ ~,er& N1rrv-,5 r,r.1
well as the most scholarly, publications
in that tongue have to do with the
Story of which Calvary is the climax.
He finds more than a fourth of the
human race using the Chinese lang
uage; and 10, the modern literature in
that tongue, which is going into the
very texture of the new thinking, is
Issued in the name of the Crucifed.
The one book which has been print
ed in most languages-and for the ex-
press purpose of reading which many
LANGUAGES have been reduced to a writ
ten form for the first time-is that
which has redemption for its theme
The circulation of the Bible in 800 diff
ferent tongues, is so great, and so
steadily increasing that there is moth
ing else in literature with which it may
be compared. The cross is winning
conQuestS of which the ancient Caesars
never dreamed.
Why is the squalid, sordid miser-
able strip of land in which write at
the naoment-known on the maps as
Palestine, though there is. politically.
no such country-the center of world
wide interest? What brings thousands
of tourists here annually from all parts
of the earth? Why are half a dozen
great nations striving for a foothold
here?
Because it was here that after his
peerless life, Jesus Of Nazareth died
an undeserved death for the redemp
ton of the whole race.
He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good"
All the accumulated shame and sin