The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-12-26
IN THE SCHOOL THAT HISTORY
KEEPS.
The International Sunday School Les
son for December 81 is An Annual
Review

Inc cFnatlOn sunday SchOOl Les
son for December 81 is An Annual
Review.
By WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
h mayor of a Western city has
undertaken to break the era Of high
prices by going into the retail pro-
vision business himself. Commenda-
bic as this procedure may be, the fact
remain that the phenomenon of high
prices is absolutely worldwide. Its
causes and cure must be sought with
broad vision. So in all problems of
economics, politics, business and re-
ligion, it is important to understand
things in their relations. Yesterday
IS linked to today, and there and here
are inextricably interviewer. The
story is told of a certain President of
the United States that he found him
self greatly hampered in the foreign
affairs of the nation, because he was
not conversant with American his
tory. In the Jungle Books, the boy
MOWgli took counsel in ergen
with h long-lived python and ele-
plant, a out OF the experience
Of the past they could offer remedies
for the present.
Confronting peculiarly critical
times in the nations life, It is well
for patriots to recall that God has
been keeping hiStOry'S school, for
many long centuries. The present
generations are not his first pupils.
The lessons he taught the nations Of
long ago., are still the lessons that
he is trying to teach US. If we would
understand the relation Of God to u
own times, we may not be ignorant
Of the relation Of God to all times.
There is no better material for stu
dies in citizenship than this past
years course Of Sunday school les
sons in the life Of the ancient Jewish
/ people,.
Starting With the News.
A common interest is a good begin
ming for q broader acquaintance. The
average person who would like a ia
miliar route back to the old lands
and times in which these Bible stories
were laid. can find it in the days
newspaper dispatches from the East.
Some of the later lessons were laid
in Persia, the land which was then
so glorious and is now SO abject. Rus
STA has invaded Persia and there has
been a keen struggle Waged for the
busting of a young American, w.
Morgan Shuster, the financial adviser
to the Persian government. Prop
ably the end of the story will be
the partition OF Persia, putting the
old nation under the comparatively
new flags Of Russia and Great
Britain.
Relations between Germany and
Great Britain are strained just now,
and one point at issue is the Bagdad
Railway. There is nc better way to
study the subject of the Hebrew eXiles
than to look into the question of the
Bagdad Railway, which has branches
running from Palestine up INTO Syria,
past the home Of Abraham and Re
becca's well, in Haran, and down
through Babylon to the vicinity OF Ur
! Of the Chaldees. This new line pierces
- .- ~ rrx-~fn nn6 % IN
There are lessons in Sta~teSInanSnlp
for this present enterprise to be
learned from these o~ld-fashioned sun
day school lessons.
The Holy Land, is we now learn
from the cable dispatches, is afflicted
with what the Moslems call a Holy
War; The followers Of the Prophet
have attacked Christians because of
the Italian operations at Tripoli.
Thus, in an entirely new form, the
old strife between truth and error
is continued, and the studies in
Judah's early history fit the present
Tn Jews On the Spot.
Down in the n~eighborhood where
the Jews were carried captive by
I NebuchadneZzar, and where they
hung their harpS On the willow trees,
and lamented that they could not
sing the Lords songs in a strange
land, the aTcIlacOlOS1SC II "SSiHS
up much new light upon the times
and incidents about which the sun
day schools have been studying.
There seems to be an increased in
terest in archaeology throughout the
world, and it is worth remarking that
the tudent Of the Bible IS better pre-
pared to understand the finds IN
Babylonia and Assyria than is the
ordinary person.
Present interest in this region, upon
which the Sunday school have con
sentrated the attention OF millions, Is
increased by new projects tor the re
demption of Mesopotan1ia by vast irr1-
cation schemes. 1t has been deter
mined that this land-once a garden,
now a desert-shall be made TO
bloom again, and the engineers and
worknen are on the ground and far
advanced in their labors.
49, - Il nd