The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-12-24
a Nation Looking Bae

Read Hos. Ch. IA.
y Nation Looking Backward.
With the Christmas music still in
our ears, we are called upon to enter
| the New Years mood of RETROSPECT
/ ton; for the present Sunday School
Lesson looks backward upon years
studies in the history of Israel, and
brings to a close this Old Testament
cycle With next week we enter upon
course of New Testament studies.
The keynote of the years lessons is
sounded by the first and last titles.
We began the series with a study in
the time of the Judges, Gods Pa
tience with Israeli" we ended it, at
the time of the collapse of the North
ern Kingdom and its captivity, with
the lesson, God yearns over Israel"
| Between these two studies we have
had nearly fifty lessons dealing with
variations of the same theme-a wan
dering people and a wooing Lord;
straying sheep and a seeking Shep
herd. Now the years Review is en-
titled 'Jehovah's Gracious Promises
to Israeli
Holding Nations to Account.
Bulking big on the horizon, as we
look backward, is the truth that Je-
hovah is the God of nations. From
the vantage point of the close of the
year 1915 we have at least five thou
sand years of history to study. So our
body of facts is large enough to en-
able us to draw some general les
sons. We are warranted today in say
ing that history teaches u.s. thus and
so. And of all the deductions we may
safely make from the long course of
human history, none is clearer than
that there has been a Supreme Power
who has overruled the affairs of ma
lions for certain moral ends. In 9TH
er words, God deals with nations as
units, as well as with men. We as
a country must render our accounting
to Him, even as did Israel of old.
No other people since the days of
the Jewish nation have been in such
a unique place of stewardship as we
of this new western world. Certain
great ideals have been given to us in
custody, and over every gateway has
been written opportunity" Now we
have come to the time of testing and
proof. Have we been good stewards
of this grace of God? In a supreme
moral crisis for the world are we
standing fast by the divine standards?
Is our loyalty to God. and to the
ideals which He taught our fathers
greater than our loyalty to self-inter-
est and sordid gain? Amid the tumu1t
of a world war we seem to hear anew
the poets CALL
Fair is our Lotto goodly is our heritage,
Humble We, my people, and be fearful in
For the Lord our God Most High
He has made the deep dry,
He has smote for us pathway to the ends
OF all the Earth!
Hold We the Faith-the Faith our Fathers
sealed US;
whoring not with visions-overwise and
OverStale.
Except We pay the Lord
% Single he heart and d single sword,
ask them trebletale!'
Keeping Close to Earth.
There is no workable national ideal
ism that is distinct from individual
morality. There cannot be a noble |
nation whose people rive ignobly. Ma
tional character is only the sum of in
dividual characters. Nebulous piosity
is no asset. Mere pratings about I'M
practiced virtues are worse than
worthless Only as the people work |
out into the warp and wool of their |
daily lives the great moralities can the
nation itself be strong.
So it was with Israel. We find the |
years lessons crowded with stories of
personal nobility and righteousness. |
The cornerstones of all Gods build |
ings are men and women of integrity. |
and there have passed |
before us such personalities as De- |
borah and Barak, Gideon, Samson, |
Ruth, Hannah, Samuel, Eli, Saul, |
David, Jonathan, Solomon, Asa, Joash, !
Amos. Hosea and Isaiah.
All of Gods business on earth is
done through men and women.
is history. The lives of
these ancient worthless are the record |
of Gods triumphs. They were the |
one great asset he had on earth. AS it
was, so it is. No truth energies more
clearly IN this lesson review than that
the only real strength of righteous
ness and religion today is the lives of
true men and women.
Big Buildings or Great Lives?
Apparently the present tendency is
the other way, by the eXaltation of
Institutionalism. We are in a brick
steel-and-stone era There
is a passion for palatial buildings as
UNCONVENTIONAL centers. Our Y NJ. c.
As and Y. W. c. AS have had a
record OF new buildings in
the past decade. We gloat over our
even as did Solomon.
We want to dazzle the eyes of the
world by our majesty and might.
The pathetic side of all this is that
so many of our big buildings house
only little men. 1t IS an open secret
in Y. NJ. c. A circles, for instance,
that the average secretary is in dire
danger of becoming q mere hotel clerk
and bookkeeper and financial leader.
And in our great ecclesiastical CEN
ters we house well groomed, thorough
y modern and conVentionaliZed men
Of affairs, while the cry of the heart
hungry people goes up for leaders.
real leaders, men of God, men of pas
sion, men of force, who dare defy the
world and its usages and lead men
ana women Dack TO COO ana the great
From legislative hall,
from church, from chambers of COM
nerce, from school and college, and
leighborhood meeting place, there
arises, in sad iteration, the cry for
eaders, real leaders, God-seeing lead j
ers.
God give Men. A time like this de-
mandS
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and
ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not KILL
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy | I
Men who possess opinions and a will,
Men who have honor-men who will die;