Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-01-01
STUDY LIFE HISTORY
IN OLD TESTAMENT
Secondhand Religion Caused the
Downfall of Jews; Forgot
Fathers in Heathendom
The International Sunday School Les
son for January 8 Is Gods Pa
tience With Israeli Judges 2:7-19.
BY William II. Ellis

ience With Israeli Judges 2:7-19.
BY william T. Ellis
If. just for this one New Year Sun
day. Mr.. Average Man could discard
his shallow sophistication and his
American "smartness" and acquire for
a few hours the spirit of sound wis
dom. he would surely go apart for a
time and take counsel with his grand
fathers and with his grandchildren.
This is critical time; the most
critical in all the history of the world.
There never has been a New Years
season so solemnizing as the present.
To meet the call of our great day sue
cessfully we must look backward and
forward; listen to the past and to the
future; weigh our responsibilities to
those who have gone before and to
those who will come after u.s.
Opportunely, the millions who base
their serious thinking largely on the
International Sunday School Lessons
will find stimulus for the present
occasion in the new course of lessons
in Old Testament History which begin
to-day The opening study is of a
| people who had gone back on their
grandfathers. They were the third
generation Direct contact with the
great personalities of the earlier day
had been lost.
Like the rest of us, they were so
| Dulll lHdI lieN neSueu great leader
| ship. But these Hebrews had to face
| fresh and difficult problems alone.
! They were called upon to stand on
| their own feet, and to prove by them
selves their fidelity to their past and
to their future. A searching question
concerning them-as concerning us
Is We're they of the sort to whom
grandchildren could look back in
pride?
The answer is tersely told by the
Scripture And also all that gem
GRAFTON were gathered unto their
fathers; and there arose another gen.
GRAFTON after them, that knew not Je-
hovah, nor yet the work which ne had
wrought for Israel. And the children
of Israel did that which was evil in the
sight of Jehovah, and served the
Baalim; and they forsook Jehovah,
the God of their fathers. who brought
them out OF the land of Egypt, and
followed other gods. gods OF the peo-
Piles that were round about them, and
bowed themselves down unto them;
and they provoked Jehovah to anger"
After Joshua. What?
The city of Philadelphia has of re-
cent days come under the spell of a
powerful personality. Billy" Sunday
begins on the day of this lesson an
eVangelistic campaign in this city of a
million and half of people. On many
counts it is the most significant re-
ligious enterprise attempted in an
American municipality within the
memory of the present generation.
A stir of hope and a thrill of eX-
altation has been in the hearts of
anxious observers as they have heheld
the way in which the conservative old
| Quaker city has arisen to the ap-
| proach of this religious leader. Hun
! dreds of thousands of men and women
have gathered in biweelIly preparatory
| prayer meetings. The ministers have
| assembled from time to time in the
| largest clerical gatherings the city has
| known for generation. Tens of thou
I sands of men have already been added
| to Bible classes. The daily news
papers are full of news of every phase
of preparation for the campaign. The
churches are athrill with expectation,
so that observers say THE revival had
already come"
All of which is modern COM
| mentary on the need for Joshua The
Church's cry to-day is for great lead
ers who can rally her forces for con-
| quests commensurate with her might
and her obligations.
The momentum of Joshua and his
associates had carried the Israelites
| into the third generation of life in
Caanan. The pioneers had set them
going, and they had continued under
| this impetus. Joshua and Caleb alone
| of all who entered the Promised Land
had carried with them personal mem
| ories of marvellous providences that
had accompanied the deliverance from
! Egypt After the death of Joshua
| there remained the elders who had
seen the mighty works of God in the
| first overcoming of the land. These
men had possessed a first-hand, eX-
perimental knowledge of what Jehovah
| could do.
When the New Generation Forgets
! Now the third generation was trying
| the dangerous experiment of living on
| secondhand religion. They had failed
to acquire fresh, vital, personal
| knowledge of the ways of God. The
| pressure of the peoples and the GUS
toms about them had steadily and in
| sidiously counteracted the forces of
| heredity. The tug and pull of heathen-
dom ct times proved greater than the
personality and memory of the fathers.
! There had been failure to root out the
idolatry and the evils of the land-a
failure which is temptation that al
ways besets good people. In conse-
quence, the Children of Israel were
! left enVironed by a seductive phi
losophy of creed and conduct which
threatened the very existence of their
religion and mission. There came q
great slump in the life of the Jews.
A prevalent American notion is that
when on Broadway one should follow
Broadway's fashions The bright lights
of the Great White Way of the me-
tropolis are as the light of life to null
titudes of thoughtless persons. The
standards which are almost wholly
sensual. and which place outward
seeming above inward being, are ac-
cepted as prevalent and mandatory.
Most of the men and women who pa
rade Broadway in the neighborhood of
Forty second street would be ashamed
to be seen walking there with their
old-fashioned parents. (Never mind
what the parents would think: that is
another story)
The biography of a myriad of young
people to-day is written in the words
of the lesson. "They forsook the Lord
God of their fathers and fol-
lowed the gods of the people that
were round about them, and bowed
themselves unto them and provoked
the Lord to anger"