Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1915-08-19
A REFoRMER IN OFFICE.
The International Sunday sehoo.
Lesson for August 22 Is "Asa's
Good Reign" u Chrcn. 15:1-15.
(By William T. Ellis.)

(By William L. Ellis
Whom does the baby resemble?"
is the question asked concerning al
most every new life. If we could
see into that potential soul, the an
swer would be more significant. For
should the baby take after" his
noble grandfather. rather than his
shiftless, characterless father, the re-
suit would be important to the world.
The weakness of the argument about
heredi.y Is that a child has SO many
ancestors, of such varied sorts, and
he often shows the characteristics. of
remote forbears whose worth over
powers the worthlessness of nearer
progenitors.
! There was Prince Asa, our present
instance. Surely he was doomed to
bad life, with both heredity and
environments to operate against him.
He lived in 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 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
fluences were 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-grandfather and King David his
great-great-grand SO the
strain was not wholly bad. The vir1le
qualities of these greatest kings of
the Jews would surely assert them
selves.
And they did. Asa came to the
throne Of Judah as young man in
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 aname 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 impression
able idealsm without yielding to noble
and unselfish ambitions. Like his
shepherd-boy ancestor, who in boy
hood sang songs Of Jehovah and did
battle with giant, Asa early became
fred with resolutions Of righteousness.
The Harvest Of War.
A notable fact, Of peculiar interest
just now, is that Asa came to his
throne at the beginning of 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 re-
form. With the distraction Of enemies
at the gates, Asa's great work Of clean
sing could not have been done. It
needed quiet and determination to
make possible this purging Of the peo-
pie from pollution. Progress and
peace go hand in hand. Not on the
battlefield, but In the quiet times OF
industry, education. invention and 50
cial consciousness, q nation comes 70
its greatest height. This truth might
be amplified, 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 permitted
a return to idolatry. Good King Asa
is a striking instance Of wars deteri-
Grating 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 Je-
hovah had been largely superseded BY
the idolatries OF the surrounding ma
tons, 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 knowl-
edge Of say, the baser side Of Hindu
ism can understand 1t. War and Its
contacts and compromises had brought
into Judah all the denominations Of the
surrounding nations. Pure religion
and immortality cannot coexist, side Dy
side; and the true worship OF Jeno-
yah was engulfed by this food OF de-
pravity. No modern reformer ever
faces conditions SO bad as those met
| by young King Asa.
/ The Reformer's Mission.
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 reformer, sometimes botn
Offices being united in one man. a
world without these idealists would be
hopeless indeed. Consider how lar
Judah had deteriorated from the great
days of David and Solomon! Nobody,
be he the greatest Of kings, can estab-
lish social order that will endure