The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-03-14
IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD
What Church Folk Are Think
ing Abont and Doing
WHEN \ KING VENT DON =.
The international sunday NiioUn g..
son for March -. - ~
Through Drunkenness. Nih30 -
nv William I. ElliS.)

(Ry William 7. Ellls.)
u-bv do nations die? We no" nave
written records Of CIVILIZATION ~ W.
ing pack several thousand wears -
not a single nation that HouiiSllou
the beg ming of the CHRISTIAN eie'
nnIv two Thousand years 90 IS IN e1-
istence today. if we except the Mon
poIian neoDles of the Far East some
of the great powers that e1eIcLseu
dominion over all, or a large part o.
the known world, have passed SO cohl-
Dletely out Of the knowledge OF man
kind that their very existence was de-
MED, until the spade turned up .ne
records within recent decades. Sucn
for example, were the Hittites, Whom
we now know to have been a power
full and ruling nation in the region
that is now known as Siberia, norliieih
Asia Minor n Armenia.
A long roll may be called or tne
great nations that have had heir day
of power and glory and then nave
ceased to be-Babylon, Assyria. Chal-
dea. Persia. Media, Parthia, PhOenlc1a,
Scythia, Syria, Greece Rome, Egypt.
To consider the reasons for the de-
cline of these lowers is q prOfltable
exercise in patriotism. For it natural
" raises the question. is our nation
also to go the way Of the empires OF
old? What elements OF decay are
there to be found in our national life?
Certainly, as this is a government by
the people, the cause of possible de-
cay must be looked for in the moral
and intellectual character of the cIti-
zens themselves.
A King Who Forgot Himself.
In those olden days, the kin was
all and the people were naught. His
tory is largely q record OF great ful-
ers. The great progress that ciV1llza-
ton has made since then has been in
the direction of Dem OcraCV- or The
rights of the whole people. What the
king then did the entire citizenship
now do. 1t is beyond the power Of any
one man to anv OF the w est
.ern nations. But the least of the citl-
zenS may help his country on. to this
fate. a modern nation is no stronger
than the character Of its people.
SO as we study today about King
Benhadad, and the disaster his drunk
enness helped bring upon Syria, we
are to remember that in this West
ern world there are as many kings as
there are citizens. OF Syria itself it
may be worth while to recall that il
was, in the time Of Elijah, Ahab and
JehOSaphat, one OF the great natlOna
of Asia. 1t extended to the north,
northeast and northwest of Palestine,
Its capital was Damascus, that won
derful old city, perhaps the oldest in
all the world that still lives as a great
city. The country seems to have been
made up of petty municipalities, over
which Benhadad was at this time the
ruler. We still speak Of : section Of
Asia along the Eastern shore of the
Mediterranean as Syria. but there is,
strictly, no such place as Syria. al
though all the present residents of the
Holy Lan call themselves Syrians
The nation is no more. A Turkish
at Damascus governs most Of his
region.
Banhadad had come up gains Is
rael. with his tfdrty-two kings. He laid
seq to Samaria. the city that is now
but a hill of ruins and a small village.
He despised his foe-which is ALWAYS
"a tactical blunder, and, flushed with
Wine, made arrogant demands and
boasts. Ahab was roaded to resist
ance. quoting, as an apt renlv to Ben
hadad's vauntings. the saying, Let
not him that girdeth on his armor
boast himself as he that pu.teth it
off, A good motto, that, to have Sun
day school scholars commit. to mem
Org. The message from Ahab came to
Benhada while he was in
the pavilion, or mat shed which they
still erect in tho East for special flnc-
tons. Benhadad had forgotten him
self. and that he had a KINGS business
on hand. His task needed a clear
head, instead of Which he gave it a
muddled one. His orders were hastv
and boastful and inconsiderate. SO
the Syrlans suffered a rout, and the
king himself barely escaped with his
life.
\ Victorious Nation.
The story of Benhadad is interpo-
lated here by the Lesson m
out of its place, in order tina II NAV |
be used as a temperance lesson. alone
the line indicated by the caption. DE.
feat Through Drunkenness For even
the most careful and tolerant thinkers
agree that the liquor question is one
Of the problems and menaces of orr
national life. There is a growing dis
position to look at the subject loss
from the standpoint, What shall We
do with drink and more to regard it
from the standpoint. What will drink
do with us?' 1t is obvious that no ma
ton nowadays can be Victorious whose
people are in the bower Of the linuor