The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-11-19

'OOIldtAA 1TCdCnCTS anu ACdCIACTS.
The name of Jonah is good for a
smile in almost any company. The
slang phrase Hes JONAH" is
common among myriads who do not
know the first word of the story of
the runaway prophet. Other masses
of people merely have a dim notion
that Jonah brought bad luck to a
ship; was thrown overheard and
swallowed by whale, of which more
anon.
Now, by the choice of the Jonah
story by the international Eesson
Committee, there is put squarely up
to the millions of members of the
Sunday school the realization that
there are modern preachers and
teachers who are Jonahs in two
senses in that they cucumber the
gospel ship, and run away from their
divine mission and message. Pure
posely or not. there are a host of
Christians who are modern Jonahs in
the first two phases of that prophets
experience. Thank God, there are
also men who represent Jonah in the
third and victorious stage of his
work.
The thing that is most wrong with
our day is that our prophets haven't
given US their uttermost message.
They have declined to declare the
whole counsel of God. They have put
human comfort before divine com
mands- They have sought their own
ease rather than served their divine
mission. Let US admit it frankly, that
many of US have shrunk from the
hard places in kingdom service. There
are score of applications for the pull
pit of every prosperous church with a
good salary which becomes vacant, but
the difficult fields go unnamed. What
is this but the case of Jonah over
again?
Perhaps our present universal
shake-up will be the big fish expert
ence for our modern Jonahs. Out of
the travail Of the worlds woe we may
hope to see new prophets emerge. All
great spirits are suffering heavinesS of
heart because this collapse of civiliza-
Church idled complacently along about
petty concerns.
Today in Old Ninevah.
Nobody has yet attempted to explain
why the currents of world war and of
universal human interest are once
Palestine is anew, as in the days OF
Scripture, the center of the whole
earth. Military movements and diplo-
matte struggles converge on the scenes
God has designed some new revelation
of Himself in the ancient land of Abb
raham. Does this conveyance of
events upon sacred soil portend a new
is a new dramatic relation between the
daily newspaper and the inspired
Scripture.
A novelist could scarcely imagine
a more me1odramatic situation than
that now beheld in the exile of the
Armenian survivors to the city of
Mosul; for Mosul is directly across the
river from the ruins of Ninevah, and
connected Herewith by a bridge of
boats. Women Of Mospl do their laun-
drying on the eastern blanks of the
Tigris and spread their clothes to dry
beneath the ruined walls of the
ancient capital of Assyria, the city of
Jonah. This city, to which the Chill
dren of Israel were later driven, is now
the destination Of hunted and harried
Armenian survivors.
AS these prosecuted Christians in
1915 look upon the vast ruins of the
once great city, even as 1 myself have
stood upon the remains of SEN
nacherib'S palace and viewed them,
will they recall the ancient prophecies,
and remember that while Gods justice
may seem slow, it never fails to run.
Ninevah crumbled to dust is Gods
testimony that His word is sure, and
that His people will be preserved.
Where Jonah's Name Lives.
I found at Ninevah a startling thing.
The great city-and its greatness may
still be seen in the ruined walls trace
able from the heights of the palace
ruins-is now levelled to earth and
unoccupied. The only life in it is one
little village, and this is called ''Neby
Yunis," which is the Arabic for
prophet Jonah" The village is built
about a sacred mosque over the ruins
of an ancient church which contains
the reputed site of Jonah's grave. 1t
is poetic justice that after twenty
eight centuries the name of Jonah
should still persist on the site of his
preaching; while that of Ninevah's
kings is lost.
This is not the place to go into the
question of the historicity of the book
of Jonah Whether it be a literal
record or an categorical homily, as
modern critics contend, its message is
one and the same. No point of fact
named in the story is impossible
That Whale.
Mountains of good paper have been
spoiled by absurd dissertations on the
point that a whales mouth is not large
enough to admit the body of man,
and that, therefore, Jonah could not
have been swallowed by the whale
Well, who says he was? Certainly
not the Book of Jonah. The trans
lators of the King James version did
fall into the error, in the one New
Testament allusion to Jonah, OF trans
lating the Greek word great sea mon
ster' into the biggest thing of which
they had personal knowledge, which
was a whale; but the original BOOKS In
both the Old and New Testaments
use the WOrQ great sea HlOilSlCI- IL
is a matter of scientific demonstration
that there are, or have been, such
great fishes. For that matter, the
Book says that God prepared" great
fish, which phrase in itself eliminates
all difficulties for devout souls who
do not balk at miracles 1t seems like
a device of the evil one that the real
message of the Jonah story should De
obscured by the figure of whale,
which has no business in the picture
Jonah, who was a mature man, a
sort of court chaplain in the palace OF
Jeroboam, king of Israel, was called to
a foreign mission, to preach repen-
lance to Ninevah. He ran away from
his duty and took ship for the west
When a storm arose, and the sailors
began to consider who was responsible
for the wrath of the gods, Jonah's