The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-01
s |7gZ|ZIn(aiymReHSEs

worth living when it is lived for sorne-
thing worth while.
The Anchorite I'm 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
more dangerous than the whole sys-
tenn of thinking which pervades mod
ern society. 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 a poor man to
live in the wilderness. He stripped
life of all its essential trappings. The
infinite calm of the solitudes filed
and steadied his soul. Could even the
Baptist have become a prophet amid
the complex life of modern city?
Somehow, contemplation of this lesson
has filled my own heart with a great
longing for the radiant peace of the
Llbyan Desert: would be once more
on the swaying back of dromedary,
with a contemplative Arab by my
side, and with time and inclination
for indistracted thought and natures
teaching silences.
This majestic, rugged old figure of
John calls us back to the duty of
while. We putter too much and ac-
complish 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 courage to be true to ones own
call. Tennyson refused to be a social
lion, and was criticized for his disre-
gard 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 wilderness, to learn how to live
his own life back in the convention
allied world of men?
Success is in the si1ences,
Though fame is in the song"
The Man With Something to Say.
In the wilderness, John came to
GENERALIZATION and acquired his mes
sage. Some preachers are affecting
the camel's-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 DIR. Floyd w.
Tompkins, while our downtown
churches are almost empty? Simply
because he has message about God.
He does not rehash the days news
from the pulpit, nor choose topics
that will command space in the news
papers, nor have prologues or cpl
logues or StereOpticon shows. He
| just breaches God to the hearts of
the people, and the multitude which
gathered in hunger goes away fed
1t was plain sermon that Matthew
reports John as preaching. First,
| there was the old appeal Repent
ye." Then there was the warming,
| that the axe was already lying at the
| tree of hereditary religion, ready to
| cut it down should they prove un-
worthy of their fathers. And then
there was the promise of the greater
i One Who Was To Come. John Of
| fered his time Christ. That was its
| need then: it is the supreme need
now. AS Richard Watson Glider, who
!, recently passed away, so beautifully
| wrote:
eff Jesus Christ is a man,
| And only man, I say,
That of all mankind I cleave to him,
And to him will 1 cleave Away.
But if Jesus Christ is God,
And the only God. I swear,
will follow him through heaven and
HE'LL
The earth, the sea, the air.