The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-11-14
AN OLD WRITER-REFORMER.
The International Sunday School les
son for Nov. 10 Is "EZra's Journey
to JeruSalem.' Ezra S:1o-36.
By William Il. Ellis.

the Sphere OF pracIlcdl poliei.0 III
form, it is especially suggestive to
study the career of q more GlStln-
guished literary man than they All,
who lived centuries before n
beginning of the Christian era. rms
famous nth bore the name OF Ezra,
and he might have lived the congenlal
life Of a bookish reciuse amid the
prosperity of Babylonia. Instead, ne
chose the distasteful hurly-burly OF
administrative work. sacrificing him
self for h he c~onsidered the
greatest public cause of his time.
Ezra is one of the giant figures OF
this romantic period which has
bulked so largely in Jewish and CHRIS
tan history, and which now the spade
is digging up from beneath the arid
a place of power by sheer native
force. He had a yisionary's dreams,
and an executives practical abilities.
His administrative capacity rams
formed his dreams into political re-
alities.
A Nation in the
"All ships look stately except the
one upon which you ride says the
proyerb. 1t is hard to perceive the
Importance and meaning Of ones own
age. So the Jews who lived through
the period Of exile in abylonla dlc
not understand the big meaning OF Is
all. That it was a national furnace
for the publication of the Jews is
better understood now than then. The
individual experiences OF misery, or
temporal prosperity, and OF saIety I'M
der the protection Of the law OF BABY
lonia, were all that the average Jews
got out OF the exile. There are chi
nese in plenty who are troubled by
the unsettled state OF their land at
the present time, but who cannot at
all see that their nation is passing
through it's greatest crisis. The ex-
t~raordinary unsettling Of American
thought In our day means to some
persons merely hat business is not
good. They are blind to h larger
Interpretation of their times.
This crisis Of the Jewish eNiles con-
sisted OF the three deportations to
Babylonia, the period of s%ojourn
there, and the three returns-the
first, already studied, h second I'M
der Ezra at a period eighty years
later, and then h third under Nehe-
period eighty years later than the
lessons of. last month, which also
treated OF the return.
BY Desert Ways.
The thought Of travel in the desert
appeals to every lover Of the pictur-
esque and the adventurous. Just as
a caravan Of camels on the sky line
is q thing Of rare beauty and stateli-
ness, but common and eve unpleaS-
ant when seen close at hand, so these
desert j~ourneyfngs are made attrac-
tive by distance. The exiles could
tell you that h camel is infested
with vermin and hat there is no
beast of burden which SO racks its
rider. These same Jews. who had left
comfortable homes in BabylOnta, could
tell OF the choking misery of dust
and sand stOrms; of the dirt, barren
They could paint with many a graphic
gesture the torrid heat Of the desert
at this time OF year.
To the spectator they were doubt
less as interesting as the
which one may see today. / have
watched the Persian pilgrims travel
across this Mesopotamian desert;
some o n camel back, some of the chill
dren In panniers swung at each side
of the beasts Of burden. some on DON
keys. the rich on horses, some afoot.
h speed Of the journey is a camel's
Probably then. as now, the camels
were decorated with blue shells and
musical bells. A devout Jew, seeing
the cavalcade set out from Babylon,
would watch 1t from the heights. just
as / watched an expedition set out
across the desert from old Asshur.
Did their imaginations foretell the
testing times they were to nav by
the way, and the ~regretful thoughts
they would send backward to the fat
land of Babylonia?
Literary But B~usinesslike.
1t Is the visionary who sways the
minds Of kings, and it was Ezra the
scribe who secured the favor of Arta-
xerxes for the return of some seven
teen hundred exiles to Jerusalem. He
won the good will of the government,
and secured immunity from taxation
by the way. and the promise Of help
from local officials as we'll. In gifts
they bore with them sums a~ggregating
more than two million dollars in
American currency.
That best business methods are
thoroughly consistent with high ideal
ism, was shown by Ezra's conduct
with respect to this treasure. He had
every shekel of 1t carefully weighed
at the beginning Of the journey, the
responsibility accurately distributed,
and then he made al exact reckoning
at the end That sort Of Sx-Gtana- hA1.l