The Topeka state journal., 1913-09-27
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| Sciousness, the world around. vas new
| er so keen as at present Even China
/ has been shaken into a widespread in
| terest in the affairs of government
Ireland, Scotland and Wales feel new
| pulsations of national life throbbing in
| their veins. Finland and Poland dream
anew the old dream of nationalism
! while Armenian, Syrian and Arab cry
aloud for self-government
Deep teachings concerning national
life and patriotism have been bound UP
with these Sunday School Lessons upon
the exodus and training of the Hebrew
people. They have tended to stimulate
the great passion of love for country
without which no man is noble. The
cynical and superficial few who think
it mark of superior wisdom to sneer
at enthusiasm for ones native state or
law are not wise, but foolish. 1 heard
college president say, recently, that
his children had been brought up to
despise the state of their birth, and it
took considerable self-repression to re-
strain the words with which I wanted
to make answer on the spot. Loyalty
to the land of ones birth is a funda-
mental passion. If the great God took
such pains to make the Jews nation,
He surely does not look lightly upon
nationaliSm.
The Grand Rabbi of Bagdad once
said to me, THE Promised Land of
cations. in almost every days news
paper, that this is the time and the
place for revival of patriotism in
the form of the conviction that God
has special plans afoot for us here
and now, which call forth the most
solemn sense of citizenship. We have
companied with Moses in vain for
these three months if we have
learned nothing about loyalty to our
own people and birthright.
A Man and His Family.
Certain advanced" Cor are they
retrograded) sociologists propose that
both fathers and mothers work, and
that the children be cared for by the
state; and instead of individual homes
we have huge communities like the
bees. Anybody who talks that way
must first close his Bible and forget
it's examples and precepts. From be-
ginning to end this book stands for
the individual home and family. God
trained Moses in a family; and in
family he trained also
greater than Moses.
AS a man should forsake even his
nation, in order to be true to his
God: and as a patriot should leave
home when his country calls; so
third in the scale of great allegi-
ances, a man will lay down his life,
if need be. for the defense of his fam
lily. The home is the oldest human
1t is the conservator of
all the great ideals, including the
ideal of religion. The most power
full force in the shaping of every nor
NAL life is the home. Not in vain
of the character of
Israers great leader, from baby
hood on.
For many a teacher of this lesson
the application runs straight to the
Importance of young peoples estab-
s-l,s ri6 q
minds of much secondhand think
ing, like garrets cluttered up with
outworn junk. The conventional
idea that young people must marry
late, and only when able to set up
housekeeping in style, is basically
young people, better for the home,
better for their future prosperity, and
better for the nation, if they begin
married life near twenty-one as
possible, starting out with the cour-
lge to make a sim pie little home COM
with their resources. Given
1eaIth integrity, industry and the
,ear of the Lord, and the young peo-
pie who begin married life early, and
n poverty, will go farther, fare bet
er and do more for the world than
he prudentially-m minded ones who
postpone marriage until they have
got on in the world. Moses in the
married the daughter of
Jethro when he had nothing but a
)ilgrims staff to contribute toward |
he housekeeping.
This backward look into the be-
of the Jewish people, their |
their deliverance, their new
aw and their wayfaring blunders, re-
realS the pre-eminence of the three /
inns to which every life should be de-
-Oted, now then-God, country, |
home. When we think right on these |
hree themes we shall not go radical |
Y wrong on any other.