The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-01-07
BY WIILIAM T. ELLIS.

BY WILLIAM IT. ELLIS
I- DARLING desire of most
strong men is to leave GER
AA tain coveted reputation be-
-VI hind them. The fields OF
Asia are strewn with frag-
ments of costly marble mon
uments, erected of old to proclaim
their owners virtues to posterity. L
have seen many a battered but once
elaborate sarcophagus used as wayside
drinking troughs. The walls of peas
ant huts in the East often show elaD-
orately carved columns and fragments
of statues built into them, along WIN
bricks and mud and straw. Cities ana
theaters and baths and forums OF
antiquity, designed to recite the glo-
ries of some conqueror to future ages,
now scarcely make ripple in the
ground.
The reputation men designedly seek
they do not often attain; for reputa-
ton Is generally but the Ell
fioreScence of character; and char
acter is an unintentional by-producs
of life. The case in point is that OF
Jeroboam who wanted to found
dynasty and hand on his name as one
of earth's great ones; but he succeeded
only in leaving a name that is odlouS
to this day-"Jeroboam who made IS
rael to SIM 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, but the man who incites
his fellows to do evil He may be
publicist Of power, or merchant OF
repute; none the less. if he causes
others to go astray he is the most dia-
boIical servant of his master, Satan,
that ranges the earth. America and
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 distinc-
ton. He became a shepherd of sin.
His was unique opportunity. The
revolt of the ten tribes. because or
Jeroboam's follOy, gave him a chance
to head a dynasty that might rival
Solomon's. He had talents; his cum
ming hand may be seen in the course
of the revolt. His ambition was limit
less. But it was restrained by no
moral motives. He was a STATES
man" who felt himself too big for
old fashioned religion. The real crisis
in his career, though, like that of many
another, it was unknown TO his closest
friends, was when he parted company
with the religion of his fathers. His
detection was not merely his own
DdCk-SllQlnS, leaders cannot i've UNTO
themselves in this, or in anything else;
1T was that he melted his people to
desert the old faith which had been
their national as well as their personal
salvation.
The Wheel of Time.
How relentlessly time vindicates
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. Gerazim, is to-
day q bigoted, malodorous Moslem
city; the handful of Samaritan Jews
who remain are deSpised and decad-
ent. Dan, where one altar of idolatry
was erected, lives only in the proverb,
From Dan to Beersheba." Bethel is a
scarcely discernible ruin on hillside,
with a few native mud huts above it.
The very existence of what remains of
the ten tribes is a subject of conjec-
ture and debate. Not only Jeroboam,
but his deluded followers. paid a sore
price for tn -ir 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 hertz
age of kissing to the chosen people.
The very end he sought was defeated
by his compromising his religious
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 DOW
ers of Europe vie with one another
through their respective churches, in
securing the sacred palaces of the Holy
Land. Each wants the prestige that
comes at home and abroad, from pos
M md -stz
dear by association with the lowly
Carpenter. to whom their policy would
be repugnant. Even in the Moslem
world. Turkeys weightiest argument
with multitudes of persons is her pos
session of Medina and Mecca. If as
is sometimes whispered, the Arabs
Should revolt and deprive Turkey of
these shrines, her pretensions to the
Caliphate and the leader of Pan-Is-
lamism, would Utterly collapse.
In quite the same spirit Jeroboam
had to face the influence of Jerusalem
upon the newly founded nation If his
people went up thither to their feasts
his hold would be slight, indeed. So
he shrewdly planned other and rival
sacred feasts, to coincide with the
Passover at Jerusalem so that peoDIe
would not attend both. He erected
Thigh places and established sacred
groves for worship, at Dan and Bethel,
the boundaries of his kingdom
His specious argument was that if
was too hard for the people to make
the pilgrimage to Jerusalem When
men take to accommodating religion to
themselves rather than themselves
to religion, the supremacy of the lat
ter is lost. An easy religion is no
honor to God and no help to man.
Take out the element of obligation to
q supreme authority. and religion be-
comes a mere passing fad of senti-
mentalists. 1t is a short step from
making idols of gold or brass or wood
or stone, to making an idol of the
mirror. Religion must be all or it is
nothing.
Little Gods or Great.
The faint of the heathenism which
environed them and from which they
had sprung, was still strong upon the
Israelites. In the monotheistic atmos-
phere of North America it is difficult