The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-30
CBY WILLIAM T. ELLIS0

CBY WILLIAM T. ELLlS.)
The captain of the ship that goes
down the Tigris river from boSrd
and through the Persian guIt calied
me from the cabin one day to watch
30 vvaiIings of the Moslem pilgrims
retl1rning to India from kerbala ana
1Teshed Ali, their shrine cities in the
NIesopotamia desert. They were lis
tening to one of their NUMBER reau
the story of the death of Husslan,
Grandson of the Prophet and the
leader whom Shah Moslems held IN
q veneration second only to that OF
Mohammed himself. AS the read1ng
Vent on men and women wept and
1-siIed- and swayed to and fro, beat
ing their breasts; by groans ana cries
giving evidence of deep grief over the
tragedy enacted more than fourteen
hundred years ago. The captain tolo
me that on every trip he mas the
same experience with the pilgrims
The story of the sufferings of their
leader never loses its hold upon
them That is what draws them upon
this long, difficult and perilous Pill
grimage.
The same motive, the grip of the
story of Christ upon the hearts of
men and women, is what takes tens
of thousands of pilgrims to Jerusalem
every year. The narrative of the lire
and of the death of Jesus has a power
unequaled in literature and history.
1t takes hold of young and old. AS
the old song says.
Il love to tell the story;
For those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirst1ng
To hear it, like the rest"
A little boy said to his father after
church one Sunday, Father, L was
aWfully interested when Mr.. Brown
began to talk about the crucifixion
of Jesus I could just seem to see
it. and I listened to every word. and
understood it, until all of a sudden he
stopped telling the story, and began
to preach
The first thirty-one years of that
wonderful story are reviewed in this
lesson, swiftly covering the studies
of three months in the life of Christ.
The recurrence of these reviews are
like the experience of the traveller
who finds himself upon height
from which he can look over the en-
tire stretch of country which he has
traversed, having seen it before only
in detail. From this height he gets
a sense of proportion and perspec-
tive impossible otherwise. AS the
Plain of Esdrae lon is not so clear to
those who travel upon it as it is to
those who view it from the southern
end of Mt. Carmel, and as the Jordan
valley is less comprehensive to the
people in Jericho than to the man
on Mt. Nebo, so these studies in the
when we take a survey of a large sec
ton of the biography at one time
The Wonder Child.
Literary folk have been cleaning
every possible story about Dickens
this year, in order to get new angles
of view for the study of the great
novelist. Every fresh viewpoint of
the life of Christ is to be welcomed.
A business man said the other day
that he had never really understood
the setting of the birth of Christ
until he read the story of travel
er's experience one Christmas night
in a Syrian khan. On a watchfob,
amid half a. dozen silver coins that
I got in the Holy Land, have one
Roman coin, bearing the name and
image of Caesar Augustus, and I
prize it above all the others, because
it seems to make q little nearer and
more vivid the great event that oc-
CURED when Caesar Augustus was
on his throne.
Points of contact with the story of
Christ are to be sought. Every baby
is one such. A grizzled and seemingly
unsentimental Presbyterian elder said
one day in prayer meeting, Il never
realized the humanness of our Lord,
and the meaning of the Bethlehem
story, until 1 looked upon my own
first-born SON." That son, now
grown man, blushed at the allusion,
but every parent present sympathized
with the fathers viewpoint. The
Christian mother or father under
stands the Babe of Bethlehem in the
D&nI OF the DaDG IN MS own
That is as God would have it: He
has tried to identify himself with the
commonest and deepest experiences of
the race. 1t seems as if all the re-
sourcefulness of Omnipotence had
been exercised to enable God to crowd
closer to the life of the people. The
Son who came by way of the manger
has not only lifted up all of childhood.
but He has brought wondrously nigh
Godhood to man.
The Emancipation of Woman.
From the songs of Elizabeth and
Mary to the battle-cries of window
smashing suffragettes in London may
seem a far cry; yet despite all extrava-
CANT and freakiSh manifestations of a
mistaken sex consciousness, the truth
remains that the emancipation of wo-
man has its roots deep in the moth
erhood of Mary. The new status of
women in Christian lands can be ex-
planned only by the Christian story.
Where the Gospel has gone, there
women have been gradually freed,
until today the highest expression of
Christian civilization is the character
and lot of womanhood. The Inter
prefer and Friend and Champion of
woman today is the white-souled
knight of God, who was born of
Mary. The new movement of wom-
anhood will be kept safe and sensible
and successful, so long as it does not
lose sight of it's spiritual beginnings.
Under the Yoke of Life.
Parents and educators today are
both muttering rebellion against our
present educational system. It is
over-Specialized; it sugar-coats
knowledge, and attempts to beguile
and allure pupils into the acquisi-
ton of information. Imperceptibly.
1t has come to be an attempt to Gre
ate a royal road to learning. The
protest is widespread that our edu-
cational methods are not fitting boys
and girls for life. We cram their