The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-11-26

FOR NOVem Der ZS is Amos, the
Fearless Prophet."-Amos 5:1-I5.
1t is dangerous to make predictions,
but, reasoning from precedent and
from present needs and conditions, it
is not unlikely that this new day of
ours will see raised up suddenly, from
obScurity and the ranks of the COM
mon people, new prophet for our
time, a man who will speak the blaZ-
ing MESA ge from God for which we
are waiting Clearly our need of
needs in religion is for a great proph-
ct and leader man who can inter-
pref this new era in terms of Gods
will, and arouse the church to her
mission.
To raise up such a man has been
Gods habit throughout the ages. 1t is
unthinkable that the present times,
more crucial and portentous than any
other epoch, should not produce the
man. Back in the critical period of
ISraePS life, when the northern king
dom seemed at the height of it's pros
perity and power and luxury, there
emerged from the South a man to de-
clare that danger and doom awaited,
unless the nation should return to
justice and to God. In less than half
a century after Amos spoke, israel
had been carried captive into Assyria.
This man Amos was fig-pIncher
and a shepherd. The small figs of
the sycamore tree can be fortified
only after they have been punctured:
I recall a friends saying to me one.
day in Palestine, as we rested under
a sycamore tree, This is what the
Prophet Amos used to do for Il living
and he drew down and pierced with
his nails a fig on the tree. plain
man of the open air, a rough, out-of-
doors, strong muscled, tree climbing
laboring man was Amos His home
was in Tekoa, half a dozen miles be.
low Bethlehem. He got his message
for his time by living close to the red
~ lao
favorite he, and no neophyte in the
school of the prophets. The great
crisis that hung over 1Srael-as SO ne
unknown fate hangs over US today
been trained in Gods great school of
everyday life.
A New Voice for the New Times.
More important and significant to
US than anything Amos said is this
truth of the timelineSs of the prophet
with a clear message from God. We
are to look for our messenger not in
the form of a high salaried expert
on sociology, nor in the form OF a so
phisticated Wire-pulling eccleSiaStic,
nor of q captain of religious industry,
dwelling amid office devices and teIe-
call bells and card indexes;
nor of a barbered, manicured, dena-
tured elocutionist from fashionable
seminary; but in the guise
of a man ablaze with God. and heart
broken under the weight of the
worlds woe. Somewhere he is brood
ing in silence, peering into the days
events, praying with agony to God.
No board will elect him to be the
days prophet, nor will any commit
tee appoint and direct him. Probably
he will not come to us through any
of our conventional religious channels.
but crying, like Kipling's Bell Buoy"
with the independence of a free soul
coveting a hard task:
''There was never a priest to pray,
There was never a hand to toll,
When they made me guard of the bay,
And moored me over the shoal.
I rock, l reel, and 1 roll
My four great hammers ply
will?
(Shoal! Ware shoalD Not I!
THE landward marks have failed,
The fog-bank glides unguessed.
The seward lights are yelled,
But my is laid to her breast,
l lift to the SWELL cry!
Could 1 wait in sloth the Chureh's
oath?
(Shoal, Ware shoalD Not
Il dip and 1 surge and 1 swing
In the rip of the racing tide
By the gates of doom I sing,
On the horns of death l ride.
A ship-length oversize,
Between the course and the sand,
Fretted and bound l bide
Peril whereof 1 cry.
Would 1 change with my brother a league
(shoai! Ware shoalD Not IT.