The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-01-03
IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD
What Church Folk Are Think
ing Abont and Doing
ONE MANS

ONE MANS REPUTATION.
The International Sunday School Les
son for January Sth is: "JcrOboam
Makes Idols for Israel TO Worship"
I Kings 1925: 1896.
By WILLIAM L. ELLIS.
A darling desire Of most strong men
is to leave a certain coveted reputa-
ton behind them. The fields of Asia
are strewn with fragments OF costly
marble monuments, erected Of Did, TO
proclaim their owners virtues to pos
terity. I have seen many battered
but once ella bOrate SarcOphagi used as
Wayside drinking trOughS. The walls
Of peasant huts in the East often show
carved columns, and frag-
ments Of statues built into them. along
with bricks of mud and straw. Cities
and theaters and baths and forums Of
antiquity, designed to recite the glo-
rieS Of some cOnQueror to future ages,
now scarcely make a ripple in the
ground.
The regulations men designedly
seek they do not often attain; for
reputation is generally character, but
the effiorescence of character; and
character is an unintentiOnal by-prod-
uct of life. The case in point is that
Of ~Jeroboam, who wanted to found a
dynasty and hand on his name as one
Of earth's great Ones; but he succeed
ed only in leaving a name that IS
odious to this day-'JerobOam, who
made Israel to sin" That was his
character and that is his reputation.
A Shepherd of Sin.
We may search the vilest depths of
the WickedeSt city in the world, and
the worst man to be found therein is
not the poor derelict who is the sedi-
ment Of vice, blu the man who incites
his fellows to do evil. He may be a
publicist of power. or a merchant Of
repute; none the less. if he causes
Others to go astray he is the most dia-
bolical servant Of his master, Satan,
that ranges the earth. America n
Europe have been concerned over the
possibility Of cholera and the plague
during recent months; far more to be
dreaded and fought are the men and
Women who deliberately teach wicked
ness. especially to the young.
That was JerOboam's unique dis
tinction. He became a shepherd Of
sin. His was a unique opportunity.
The revolt Of the ten tribes, because
Of R~ehoboam's folly, gave him a
chance to head a dynasty that might
rival Solomon's. He had talents; his
cunning hand may be seer in the
course of the revolt. His ambition
was limitless. But it was restrained
by no moral motives. He was a
Statesman who felt himself "toc
big for old-fashioned religion. The
real crisis in his career, though, like
that Of many another, it was un-
| known to his closest friends, was
when ne parted company with the re-
ligion of his fathers. His detection
was not merely his own back sliding;
leaders cannot live unto themselves in
this or in anything else it was that he
melted his people to desert the old
faith which had been their national
as we'll as their personal salvation.
The Wheel of Time.
How relentlessly time Nindicates
truth! The judgments Of history are
usually true. The sure turning of the
| wheel Of time submerges the wrong
and exalts the right. Shechem, Jero-
boam's capital on Mt. Gerazin. is to-
day a bigoted, malodorous Moslem
| city; the handful of Samaritan Jews
| who remain are despised and decad-
ent. Dan, where n altar of idolatry
was erected, lives only in the proverb,
From Dan to Beersheba.' Bethel is
a scarcely d~iscernible ruin on a hill
sile. with a few native mud huts
above it. The very existence of what
remains Of the ten tribes is a subject
of conjecture and debate. Not only
Peroboam, but his deluded followers,
paid a sore price for their sin.
Although he attained the goal Of
his ambition, and became king Of the
ten seeding tribes, Jeroboam lives
only in infamy. His name is a herit-
age of kissing to the chosen people.
The very end he sought was defeated
by his compromising his religious
principles. There is a lesson for all
public men. be they national officials
or village fathers, in the career Of
Jeroboam.
When Religion is Debased.
The use of religion by JerOboam in
his royal policy sounds quite modern;
and like the game of high politics as
played in Palestine today. The pow
ers Of Europe vie with one another
through their respective churches, in
securing the sacred places Of the Holy
Land. Each wants the prestige that
comes at home and abroad, from pos
sessing and protecting the sites made
dear by association with the loWly