The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-10-29


Lesson for Oct. 81 is THE Boy
Joash Crowned King.''-II Kings
11:1-20.
| The new is ever wrapped up in the
old; and the old repeats itself in the
new. Today is yesterday come again
| to life. Because they mirror the es-
sential realities of our own day, these
| stories of Bible times are closely stu
died by the Sunday school millions
week by week. The intrinsic facts
of the case-the who's who among
the kings and counsellors and war
riors-are not of great importance.
| 1t is poor pedagogy and bare piety
| that would require the memorizing of
all the names of the Jewish rulers.
Even the tangle of kings and queens
| who pass before us in the present
| lesson cannot claim very much at
tention.
Clear and distinct two figures
stand forth as types, and of eternally
contemporaneous interest. The first
| is a woman, JehoSheba, wife OF the
| high priest, who saved the boy Joash,
| who became king, from massacre; and
the other is the baby prince himself.
All others are but background, for
our present purpose.
A Bad Family Line.
Like many another youth of our
own day, whom the scientists would
foredoom to failure, because his he
redity is bad, Joash came from stock
which, in the immediate past, was
mighty poor. His grandmother was
the wicked queen Athaliah, daugh-
ter of the infamous Jezebel. wife of
Ahab, the king who gave Elijah so
much trouble.
AthaIiah had slain all the members
of the royal family whom she could
find, that she herself might sit SUI
preme upon the throne of Judah. We
shrink from teaching the story OF the
AtnaIiahs and JezebelS to youth, but
RI know in ration for
life, that there are such women in
the world. More than one boy has
come to harm because he supposed
that all women were as good as his
mother. Thank God, most of them
are. But to ''see life whole and see
it true we have to recken with the
bad as well as with the good 1t does
not do to leave the Ahabs and Je-
hoshaphats and Jezebels and Athallahs
out OF our reckoning.
A few weeks ago some teachers OF
this lesson might have said, IN con-
temptation of the bloodthirstiness and
massacres of this period that the
world has outgrown such cruelties;
they belonged to the dark ages. Now,
while we write, the soil of the Bible
lands is being Redeemed with the blood
of hundreds of thousands OF Chris
tan ArmenianS, slain by the Mos
lens This is the worst persecution
in the history of the Christian church.
The enlightened" Young Turk lead
ers, educated m Berlin and Paris, are
sponsors for atrocities worse than any
of tho bloody deeds of Abdul Hamid'S
reign We hear of Turkish women
shooting down Christians from sheer
blood-lust, and Of shepherds on the
plains shooting any Armenlans VINO
thing more than the mere passage
of years to deliver the human race
from cruelty and savagery.
Good Branches of a Bad Tree.
There is another woman in the story
besides Athaliah. Her own daughter,
Jehosheba, was as good as her mother
was bad. Like her little nephew
Joash, she seemed to revert to her
nobler forebears-Ruth and DAVID
and Solomon-for her qualities. she
became the wife of Jehoiada, the high
priest, and had no part IN the ploooy
politics of the palace.
If we wonder at the badness OF
some women, what shall we say ABOUT
the goodness of others, who, with eV-
cry temptation, by blood and environ
ment to go wrong, still develop only
the qualities of purity, strength ana
sweetness? Only the angels know
the struggle that many girls ana
women, especially out in the work
aday world, have to retain their
nobleSt womanhood. They are the
saviours of society. In such fashion,
Jehosheba stood, in a terrible time,
for the divine ideals of justice and
mercy.
Her way of serving God and her
country was by taking care of a baby
boy. We rejoice in all the new oppor-
tunities for noble self-eXpresslon
greatest work is the training of
child If ever she turns aside from
that, it will be a black day for her
and for the race. When the carnival
of cruelty was at its height, and
Athaliah was Staying all who had
royal blood in their veins, Jehosheba
surreptitiously got possession or the
baby prince Joash, only one year Old
The eternal mother instinct IN her
heart warmed to the helpless infant,
and at the risk of her life, she hid
the babe and his nurse for six years
in one of the remote rooms OF the
temple. I wonder how many Ar
menian babies will be saved from the
nationwide slaughter because some
Turkish women are better mothers
than they are Moslems? Some
surely.
All the hopes of a nation were
staked on the child Joash. Even az
ter he was crowned there were WISE
acres who wagged their heads omfn-
ously and cried, BLOOD will tell, and
his blood is bad These croakers
took short views and reckoned only
with physical strains. But their solicit
tude was natural. We look about us
at the spoiled children of parents VINO
themselves flout all higher laws, and
we wonder. Many a man is pillng up
millions for sons who have not been
fitted, by heredity or training, to in
herit such responsibilities 1 have in
mind a boy whose blood was of the
best, but who, inheriting million in
boyhood and Over-indulged, became a
wastrel and a grief to his family.
Society as a whole has no greater
problem than this one of what our
boys and girls are to become. The
increased attention paid to the Sunday
school, and to the public schools, |
shows how sensible we are of that
truth 1t is more important to pro-
duce a generation of noble men ana