The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-08-14

eeptib1e to the worship of god made
in their own image. Our own time
sees plenty such: and the recent re-
turn of DR.. B. Fay Mills from the
fields of New Thought" to evange-
| hcal Christianity is a symptom widely
commented upon. Substitute religions
do not continue to satisfy; even as
Israel never was happy with her modi-
fled faith.
Two extremes of the pendulum are
represented by the two rival kings of
Judah and Israel. Rehoboam had not
yielded enough to popular demands;
Jeroboam yielded too much. He made
the politicians mistake of cultivating
the meaner, baser side of human
nature, and of failing to appeal to it's
nobler sentiments. Jeroboam thought
ligion would be popular. and so he
made provision for it, thus tempting
the people away from their allegiance
to Jehovah.
Satan's Nearest Kin.
The best friend of evil this side of
perdition, the man who is nearest kin
to Satan himself, is the man who de-
Hberately tempts people to do wrong.
Even the imagination of a Milton or
a Dante has not devised a torment
adequate for those diabolica1 crea-
lures who Intentionally lead their fell
lows astray. Yet the line of tempters
did not end with Jeroboam. The
pitiless publicity of our day has re-
Vealed whole classes of men and Wom-
en- who seduee the unwary into SIM
The entire hideouS White-Slave traffic
is made up of such. So is the drug
business. So, in considerable degree,
is the liquor business. Publishers and
purveyors of vile literature and pic
lures fall into the same black CLASH
ficauon. The baG big boys who teach
evil to younger boys are apprentices
to this trade of Satan. One shudders
as he contemplates Che variety and
number and might of the forces who,
like old King JerobCam, are leading
people into sin. Society cannot deal
too strongly with them now; and they
will have to reckon with a just Judge
hereafter.
Mudd1ed minds may think that his
tory has been too hard on Jeroboam,
who was a ''practi.a1'' man, facing a
Hovel and difficult situation. All that
he did, say they, was to divert the
stream of religious devotion from the
to make worship easier by setting up
two symbols of Jehovah, in the
familiar form of the bull other ma
lions worshipped the bull, even as do
the the Hindus toda.t- Why not adapt
fashions of the day?
Very plausible indeed. But aside
from the fact, happily uncompre-
hended by prese'nt-day western civil
ship of the bull went idoIatrous rites
of vile hcentiou Sness, there remains
the tremendous truth that religious
ideals are the rnother-matrix of all
other ideals. What a man thinks
about God determines what he will
think about everything else. To
corrupt religion is to pollute society
most seriously Jeroboam committed
the sin of sins in leading the nation
away from God. That was a political
and moral offense, as well as a reIig-
ious heresy. Some nations, with tear
cleared vision, are now seeing that the
only thing that really matters is mans
to God.
"Ah, but texpediency required this
concession" says Mr.. Worldly Wise
man. On tn e contrary, only deep
est religious devotion could have i
saved the divided kingdom. If his |
tory has taught any one lesson it is |
that it is never right to do wrong |
AS George Eliot puts it, Nothing in |
the world ls worth doing wrong for" |
Our own young countrys history is |
married by the wrecked careers of |
public men who preferred to. be po- |
little rather than to be true. Our |
great men are they who have dared !
to be loyal to their ideals and to /
whatever the cost. Jeroboam be-
queathed to posterity a name of