Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-08-20
(By William T. Ellis)

/ (By William I. ElltS)
Whom does the baby resemble?"
is the question asked concerning al
most every new life. If we could
see into that potential soul, the ans
wer would be more significant. For
should the baby take after" his no.
BILE grandfather, rather than his shift
less, characterless father, the result
would be important to the world. The
weakness of the argument about
heredity is that a child has so many
ancestors, of such varied sorts, and he
often shows the characteristics of re-
mote forebears whose worth over
powers the worthlessness of nearer
progenitors.
There was Prince Asa, our present
instance. Surely he was doomed to
a bad life, with both heredity and
environment to operate against him
He lived in a corrupt court. Rotten
heather practices prevailed all about
him. His father. Abijam, had yielded
to them; and his grandfather, Reho-
boam, whose folly had split the king
dom, was more interested in being
"a good fellow" than in being a good
king. One of his heather wives,
Maacah, mother of Abijam and grand
mother of Asa, was the most forceful
personality in the palace; and her in
fluence was wholly bad.
The outlook was dark for Asa.
Your modern sociologist might write
his case down in advance as hopeless.
But stay. Was not Solomon Asa's
great-grandfathe and King David
his great-great-grand So the
strain was not wholly bad. The virile
qualities of these greatest kings of
the Jews would surely assert them
selves.
And they did. Asa came to the
throne of Judah as a young man, In
a time of peace. He was a good"
young man. God and religion meant
most to him. He loved his people
more than he loved himself. His
heart was aflame with a passion for
reform; and all great reformers must
become such while young. Well nigh
hopeless is the case of the young
man who passes the period of impress
sionable idealism without yielding to
noble and unselfish ambitions. Like
his shepherd-boy ancestor, who in
boyhood sang songs of Jehovah and
did battle with giant, Asa early be-
came fired with resolutions of right
eousness.
A notable fact. of peculiar interest
just now, is that Asa came to his throne
at the beginning of a period of peace
for judah. War had been the rule
during the reigns of his father and
grandfather. Now peace gave him an
opportunity for internal reform. With
the distraction of enemies at the gates,
Asas great work of cleansing could
not have been done. 1t needed quiet
and determination to make possible
fT1or 80 l.
uon. Progress and peace go hand in
hand. Not on the battlefield, but in
the quiet times of industry, educa-
ton, invention and social conscious
ness, a nation comes to its greatest
height. This truth might be ampli-
fed, with illustrations from every
days newspaper.
Asa's reign was righteous in times
of peace; war made him forget his
holy purpose. Toward the end of his
days he even clapped a prophet into
prison for telling him the truth, and
he oppressed the people and permit
ted return of idolatry. Good King
deteriorating effect upon character.
Other examples may be gathered
from recent cablegrams.
When the young king came to the
throne he found the nation in a
sorry state of decline. The worship
of Jehovah had been largely super
seded by the idolatries of the sur
rounding nations with their appeal
to the sensual nature of man. An
appalling state of depravity had been
reached, one so far below our modern
conceptions of religion that only
those with knowledge of, say, the
baser side of Hinduism can under
stand 1t. War and it's contacts and
compromises had brought into Judah
all the denominations of the sur
rounding nations. Pure religion and
immortality cannot coexist side by
side; and the true worship of Jeho-
yah was engulfed by this flood of de-
pravity. No modern reformer ever
faces conditions so bad as those met
by young King Asa.
Left to Itself, society says and
slumps. When men do as they
please, they commonly please to do
wrong. Throughout the centuries
the great social corrective has been
the prophet and the reformer, some
times both offices being united in one
man. A world without these ideal
lists would be hopeless indeed. Con-
slider how far judah had deteriorated
from the great days of David and
solomon! Nobody, be he the great
est or kings, can establish a social
order that will endure permanently;
but he can transmit to his sons the
iPuioS anu the purpose and the
vision to maintain life at high levels.
This CLEAN" had been passed on
to Asa. Where there is no vison,
the people perish; and without the
diviner conceptions of life which
burn in noble breasts this old world
would soon perish of it's own rotten
ness. Always these reformers are de-
rloed by their own generation, lust
as practical men to-day sneer at
the prophets who proclaim a coming
oay or inevitable social Justice. of
peace on earth, and of world brother
nood. The administrators in Asa's
court gave him scant encouragement
IN MS reforms. They knew human
nature: by which they meant that
tney understood the baser side of
people. Nobody truly knows human
nature who does not clearly perceive
its capacity for idealism. Judah for
a time rose to Asa's lofty expecta-
uons for 1t, even as the peoples at
war to-day have shown a heroisn
self-sacrifce, devotion to great OBJ
JectiVes which a year ago the cynical
observer never suspected
wise reformer enlists the high
est motives that can possibly be At
tached to his cause. So Asa. because
he himself was primarily a snirit.
ually minded young man, made his
appeal to judah on religious basis
He rallied the people to the God of
their fathers. All the force of the
covenants which had been made with
Jehovah by Solomon and David and
Moses and Jacob and Abraham was