Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-11-26
LESSON ON AMOS
''THE FEARLESS"
Not a Church in America
Would Want Him For
Preacher Says Ellis
NEW PROPHET COMING :?
To Raise Such a Man Gods
Habit Throughout the
Ages
NEW PROPHET COMING +?
By William Il. Ellis

1t is dangerous to make predictions,
but, reasoning from precedent and
from present needs and conditions, 1t
Is not unlikely that this new day of
ours will see raised up suddenly, from
obscurity and the ranks of the COM
mon people, a new prophet for our
time, a man who will speak the blaZ-
ing message from God for which we
are waiting. Clearly our need of needs
in religion Is for a great prophet and
leader, a man who can interpret 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 portentious than any
other epoch, should not produce the
man. Back in the critical period of
1sraePs life, when the northern king
dom seemed at the height of its 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 JUS
tice and to God. In less than half
century after Amos spoke Israel had
been carried captive into ASsyria.
This man Amos was a f1g-pincher
and shepherd. The small figs of the
sycamore tree can be fertilized only
after they have been punctured: I re-
call a friends saying to me one day in
Palestine, as we rested under q syca-
more tree, This is what the Prophet
Amos used to do for a living" and he
drew down and pierced with his nails
Il fig on the tree. A plain man of the
open air, rough, out-of-doors. strong
muscled. tree-climbing. laboring man
was Amos. His home was in Tekoa,
half a dozen miles below Bethlehem.
He got his message for his time by
living close to the red ruck of COM
mon things. No palace fevorite he,
and no neophyte in the school of the
prophets. The great crisis that hung
over 1srael-as some unknown fate
hangs over US to-day-produced a new
prophet who had 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 high-salaried expert on soci-
ology, nor In the form of a sophisti-
Gated, wire-pulling ecclesiastic, nor of
a captain Of religious industry, dwell
ing amid office devices and telephones.
call bells and card indexes; nor of a
barbered. manicured, denatured elo-
cutionist from fashionable theo-
logical seminary; but in the guise of a
man ablaze with God, and heart
broken under the weight of the worlds
woe. Somewhere he is brooding in
silence, peering into the days events, |
praying with agony to God. No board
will elect him to be the days prophet. |
uor will any committee 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 inde- |
pendence 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.
rock. reel. and I roll
My four great hammers ply
Could I sneak or be still at the |
Church's will?
(Shoal! Ware shoal!) Not 7!
"Tl41 landward marks have failed.
The fog-bank glides unguessed,