The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-12-17
International
Sunday School Lesson
BY w. T. ELLIS.

| For December 10 is 1.-The Song of the
Angels Luke 2:1-20.
Christmas Guns or Christmas Angels?
Cynics will jibe this year at the
| Christmas music of peace. They will
call the keeping of the day a mockery,
and declare that the angels song is
fore War, woe, hate and strife rule
the world today, say the critics of
Christianity.
Stay: are not the pessimists afflict-
ed with that sort of blindness which
| st. Peter described as ability to see
only that which is near? They cannot
/ discern beyond the obvious. They
! hear the great guns roaring, but are
| deaf to the bells of peace that are
| sounding their summons in the hearts
of men all the world around. They
| see the heaped-up corpses of the slain
| but have no eyes for the mountains
| of mercy which have arisen upon the
earth since this war began. Who
| knows but that this greatest of all
human conflicts may be written down
on the enduring pages of history as
the war of the pitiful heart?
Never before were SO many deeds
of mercy and brotherhood being done
AT no other hour since first the
Christmas music stole softly on the
Bethlehem night has there been such
a vital sense of love for mankind
among the children of men. World
day than ever before. The swift shut
tie of recent history has woven new,
strong strands of love and good will
| between nations, which two Christ
masses ago were remote and alien.
Many men have been driven deaf,
literally. by the roar of the great guns;
and still others. in larger number,
have been deafened metaphorically,
so that they cannot hear the deeper.
sweeter. softer and more abiding
notes of the Christmas music. Today
let us listen to the angels rather than
to the cannon Instead of the Hymn
of Hate'-which it's author and his
nation now publicly regret-let us
listen to the words of the Fellowship
or reconciliation, and the other agen-
cies which are tirelessly, quietly at
work in all lands to knit together
again the severed hearts of nations.
There never before was Christmas
so full of the true Christmas spirit.
The Major Christmas Goals
For an up-to-date Christmas, sup
pos" -'-2 resolve to get a firm hold on
the u truth, as tremendous as it
is that Christendom was never
beIu-- SO determinedly bent on
achieving the great Christmas goals
as today Out of the social and eco
nomic chaos this conviction energies
clearly. This world war will not have
wholly ended until the song of the
angels is made a present reality in
this, our workaday world.
Suppose we sit together quietly and
attempt to scan the re-valuations that
are under way this Christmas A
huge question mark, red and ineXora-
Bile, has been placed after every one
of our ideals and uSages and institu-
lions. Nothing is now unchallenged.
'Old things are passed away; behold,
all things are made new" Even our
religion has been tested to its utter
most depths by the present calamity
which has overtaken humanity. Does
ChFlStlanitV stand the teSt2
The War in the Jungle.
I turn first to a letter I received
today from Dan Crawford, written
from the middle of the middle of
Africa where wars bloodiness has
found its way. Incidentally the Bel
gians have carried off one of his fell
low workers, a German: But to re
turn to our carried-off missionary.
What is happening now? Can we see
no mercy through the mists? Has all
the promise and the potency gone be-
cause the missionary is gone? No,
thank God, the native Christians
stand firm. What is the good of a
gospel that cannot make the black
man stand up stoutly for God in his
own land? The first CLINT of sun
shine-news came from Chungu, a sim
ply written letter informing us that
by way of reprisal God had royalty
harvested ten souls, this not includ- |
ing many young people.
Then there was a 1ull, and our !
church here called for volunteers on |
hearing of the death of one of our |
evangehsts there. So away went the |
two delegates on their twenty days Of |
hard journey, bearing succor to the |
widowed one. There is Christianity |
for you-pure religion and undefiled |
toiling through the forest for twenty |
days-no, not for money, but for love
of the family of the faith. Then back |
they came with their sore feet and |
glad hearts-yea, back with the bless
ed news of twenty souls saved.
Thus it is We can proudly praise |
our God, come wild war and woe as
it may. Unlike all otherss He rules by
His over ruling, and could He not say
OF even the bad Babylonian monarch:
Is not the King of Babylon a golden
bowl in my hand?'
From the Lands of the Book.
By the same mail that brought this
message with the reek of the danl1,
tropical jungle upon it, there came
two others, ore from Persia and one
from the Holy Land, which today is
the scene of the climax of unholiness.
An American woman missionary is
writing from the mission compound in
Urumiah. Persia where fourteen
thousand Christians had found a
refuge beneath the American flag. She
had lived for four months amid the
starving, the dying. the dead, with dis
ease stalking haughtilyi amid the
stencil that assails the nostrils night
and day. One must turn to the rec
ords of Lucknow and Cawnpore to
find q story matching this Yet lis
ten to the echo of the angel song, from
this woman who has been pouring out
her soul almost unto death-for she,
too, fell victim to disease within a
day or two after writing these words:
1T is at such times that one finds
out just how much faith in the I'M
seen he has. and just how much his
religion is worth. I find the Rock
0n which l can anchor in peace are
he words of Christ Himself, Where