The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-05-20
5 ! Zz5E (a i

When a Nation Misses It's Mark.
The International Sunday School Les
son for May 81 is, Song of the
Vineyard" lisa. 5:1-1z,
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
FTI HETHER the bard or the
W&N storyteller was the first
AVW creator of literature. we
Ia H know that to this day the
maker of parallels is the
wisest of teachers, even as
we read of the One who expounded his
new philosophy amid the waving flow
ers of Galilee-'without a parable
spake he not unto them" Real litera-
ture has the simple strength and di-
rectneSs of actual life. The master
craftsman of the old Testament canon
whose figure of the vineyard is this
weeks Sunday school lesson knew the
power of a familiar and homely Incl
dent, crowded with a divine signih-
canoe. 1t was most natural for Isaiah
to employ the vineyard metaphor, for
he spoke in land of vineyards, some
of the ancient wine-preSseS of which,
cut in the solid rock, persist to this
day. For the modern city man to use
that same metaphor, when he is sur
rounded by a wonderful symbolism of
present-day civilization is not natural
or effective. Each ages appliances
should be made the vehicle of each
ages truth.
4NC OAdSS.
The fault of the vineyard about
which the prophet sang was that it did
not produce properly. Outwardly, it
was a very fair vineyard The fruit
which it bore, though, was not the
fruit which the husbandman had a
right to expect. In word, it failed in
that first requisite of human life, a
plant or a civilization-to bring forth
results commensurate with its powers
and opportunity. After all considera-
ttons have been weighed, that is the
final Judgment: did you bear fruit?
Excuses will not serve; fruit must be
shown.
A short time ago I met titled and
wealthy Br1tiSher who, like so many of
the upper classes of that country was
railing against the democratic, or as
he called it, the socialistic trend of his
land. The usurpation of privilege and
authority by the masses made him fu-
rtous. He, an absentee nobleman,
fatty avowed the old doctrine of the
divine right of the upper classes to
rule the lower. No medieval king
could state the proposition more fatty.
Nevertheless, he himself belonged TO
the non-rroductive class: his claim
was to an inherent privilege regardless
of his deserts. He looked upon the
whole earth as a big game preserve,
for the. exercise of his sporting pro-
clivities; and he regarded the great
mass of his neighbors and tenants as
designed by wise Providence to main
tain him in idleness and luxury.
That man who would not like to be
called an anachronism. though he is
and his twin brother. the man who
1oafs while his wife or family support
him, are modern types of the ancient
Jewish nation. They are making no
adequate return to the world for the
privilege of existence. They are not
wells or springs or living streams, but
only stagnant cisterns, or Dead Seas,
which take in and never give out
An Heir of the Ages.
All the piled-up wisdom of the East
had been inherited by Israel: 1t was
not out of barbarism that Abraham
came to Canaan but from the advanced
civilization of the great Babylon1an
city of Ur of the Chaldees, with its
mass of literature, its codif1ed laws
know that the Jews wers in touch
with the highly organized, though idol
atrous life of Mesopotamia. The
warnings as we'll as the benefits of this
heather civilization We're theirs. They
also had their own unique experience
the discipline in Egypt, the wander
ings in the Wilderness, the lessons of
nation building, the special revelations
from Jehovah and the peculiar pro-
lection and guidance of His providence.
No nation before had ever been the
recipient of such especial bounty and
consideration. They had been trained
for a peculiar mission-and had failed
One does not like to study the fail
ures of history, though the pursuit is
profitable. Nations, like men, have
missed their opportunities. The most
conspicuous Instance, of course, is the
nation of Israel. The Holy Roman
Empire had a glorious chance-and
neglected it. Spain was once a fore
most Christian power, now 1t is
negligible factor among nations. The
federated Christian nations of the
Crusades held the Holy Land and far
more of the Near East than is COM
monty supposed, for hundred years,
and fell back before the infidel only
because of their own petty jealousies,
rivalries and personal ambitions. Had
It not been for this the whole of west
ern Asia and eastern Europe would
probably been Christian today and the
menace of Pan-Islam would not be
troubling the leaders of the West as a
specter. Great Britain is apparently
now in her crisis; the proving of
America is yet to come. There is for
Christian nations a divine mission
which Kipling calls 1.-THE White Mans
Burden:" f..-r-t rz
Take up the white mans burden
Ye dare not stoop to less
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your WEAKNESS;