The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-10-17
THE FIRST STEP IN NATION
BUILDING.
The International Sunday School Les
sOn For October % is formulation
of the Second Temple Laid" Ezra

of the Second Temple Lald. Ezra
3: ID: ).
(By WILLIAM T. ELLIS.)
/ had been watching the Jews at the
WalIing Place in Jerusalem one FRIDAY
afternoon. Some of the deVOtlon
seemed mechanical, as when some Ola
Spanish Jews in gaberdines went up
to the wall and read for a space, then,
after perfunctorily touching the stones
with their lips, stepped off to one sac
and chatted and giggled. l was IN
formed that these men are hired TO say
prayers at the Walling Place for Jews
in distant lands.
Then, as l was about to leave, I saw
a woman of perhaps thirty, draw near:
She had been praying at the other end
Of the wall. AS she approached, | per-
ceived that she bore such a lace as
might have been RacheIS-strong,
melancholy, spiritual, queenly. n
was manifestly Obvious to the motley
about her Of Jews from
many nations: her soul was in her
rapt face; turned toward the grea1
blocks Of yellOWiSh stone. still stand
ing from the foundation OF
Temple. Her hands were clasped TO
her bosom and her lips moved in
lustrous eyes, not those monoliths
covered with Hebrew Anames and
prayers, but the glory of the house
Of Jehovah and of the kingdom OF her
fathers. All that had been and now
is not, that a devout child of
symbolized for this worshipner by
these stones. She kissed them again
and again, as a woman kisses the
lover she fears h may nevermore
see, and Is she moved away, n
looked back Owe her shoulder, With
unutterable longing in her eyes.
The incident gave me a new con-
ception Of the ardor and intensity with
which a Jew may love even the very
stones Of the temple. There | saw en-
bodied the passion Of the returning eX-
lies for the house Of Jehovah. The
and deepest moods, was ~personified' by
that one devotee. It was a new light
upon this entire story Of the rebuilding
Of the temple, which the Sunday
schools today study.
1.-THE East is the East"
Nobody will ever understand the
Jew until it is remembered that he is
an oriental. The d~eep-1OWing re-
ligious spirit Of this people who were
chosen to be ~custodians of h~umanity's
%loftiest religious truth is partially ex>
planned by the OrientaIs supreme IN
terest in religion. The Occidental is
not SO. To this a the people Of all
the East, but especially Of the region
called the Near East, whence sprang
the Jews, put religion first. All sorts
of religions thrive there: an irreligiOuS
man is unthinkable. The villagers on
the hills Of Lebanon, the shepherds
in the fields Of Palestine, the Bedouins
of the desert in their tents, the di-
verse peoples in the Tigris-Euphrates
Valley, talk over historic and doctri-
nal religious questions Just as a group
of Americans discuss politics or base
ball.
At the present time, the region
where the Bible story was enacted is
afre with religious agitation, due to
the war declared against Turkey by
Italy. The Moslem world feels any
attack upon the Sultan, whom it re-
CARDS as Caliph, and Commander of
the faithful" as an act of hostility to
its faith. So, from India to Europe,
the followers of Mohammed have been
drawn together into new and defensive
solidarity. They see, first and chiefly,
the religious aspect of the war. The
handspring of politics in these realms
is usually religion.
The Chief Fact About Man.
The Jewish exiles who centred their
first thought upon the spiritual side
of the return from captivity were true
to the fundamental aspiration of hui
manity.. AS Carlyle says, I'm every
sense, a mans religion is the chief
fact with regar to him. A mans, or
a nation Of mems. If you tell me
what this is, YOU tell me. to a very
great extent, what the man is, what
kind Of things he will do"
The fippant youth, or the immature
man, who has no time for religion
and who is not interested in the
church, and feels too big for a Bible
class, has all the history of the hu-
Ican race, and the testimony of all
the great thinkers, arrayed squarely
against him. One hours honest re-
search upon the subject will start any
man toward a realization of the truth
that religion is the theme that has
most deeply engroSsed the best
thought of mankind from the dawn Of
history to the present hour. The
shallow materialisln of the West is
no Improvement upon the inbred re-
1i~giouSneSs of the East.
The Altar at the Centre.
The huge task of the returned exiies
was to rebuild a nation. Their exist