The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-11-05

If I were car of this Western world
in this present uneQual1ed crisis in
human events, there are three or four
fundamental things that I would set
the people to doing. Chief among
these 1 would require that all the
throughout the land receive fresh at
tention, and that as may be neces-
sary, they be rebuilt in their physical
equipment and spiritual organization.
Wherever there is breach in the
walls of the Enthusiastically or meta
phorically-it should be quickly re-
paired. The fashion of young king
Joash, of long ago, whose experience
in rebuilding the temple is today S
Sunday school lesson, is a fundamental
The reason is clear: such crises in
nations life as the present are to
be met first of all by spiritual forces
All the armies and navieS that mill
tary genius could devise or command
cannot safeguard nation whose peo-
pie have lost their vision and their
noblest purpose. Ideals are ulti-
mately the defence of nation. No
graver issue is before our time than
that of rehabilitating in the minds of
the multitudes the great old convic-
lions and purposes which first made
US strong. Nobody need lose sleep at
night from fear of a hostile invaSiOn
but there is real reason for sleepless
concern over the steadily undermining
of the integrities of faith and duty
which may be detected in process.
The nation looks to the Church for
spiritual strength and for the vision
that will meet the new duties of the
high hour that is upon us. What help
remains if, in this time of times in
stead of a Church with a clear, lofty,
ringing message to mems souls, we
have merely an agglomeration of
petty, contending, small-minded and
sordid ecclesiastical organizations, so
engrossed with trifling politics and
the material needs of self-subsistence,
that they are deaf and blind to the
heroic summons of God and human
ity?
Life Mirrors Religion.
Like every other national leader
who has had wit enough to know
anything about his business, Joash
understood that the prosperity of
Judah was bound up with the well
fare and fidelity of religion. No ma
ton ever comes to it's height apart
from the inspiration and support of
religious faith. Both France and
Germany year ago, were the subject
of many articles concerning their re-
ligious decline. Now, in the seven
times heated furnace of war both have
found their souls. Yet it is because
the nations had subordinated spiritual
concerns to material values that we
have this world war. Life mirrors
religion. When religion becomes per-
functory, mechanical or secondary:
then we have such collapses of
civilization as that which is today
staggering humanity.
Is it too much to hope that after
the awful obligations which this war
is creating have been laid upon the
survivors, and accepted open-eyed,
some nation will deliberately under
take to give religion the right of way
in its life? Can we imagine a peo-
pie dedicated whole-heartedly to
Gods highest purposes? What could
not such nation do in this re-made
world! Occasionally mankind has
seen what one wholly dedicated
Christian could accomplish. When
Dwight l.. Moody was a young man
he heard a speaker say, The world
is yet to see what God can do with a
wholly consecrated man" Moody re-
solved that he would be that man.
And Moody, whose bones are molder-
ing on Little Round Top in North
field, still lives as one of the world
greatest forces.
Making a Clean Sweep.
If anybody asks why the temple at
Jerusalem SO sorely needed repairing,
there is one sentence in the lesson
which makes answer. After the rec
ord of Joashs loyalty to God, we
read 'Howbeit the high places were
not taken away, the people still sac
places" That is a good picture of
modern life. Theoretically, we have
| Christian civilizations; actually, |
pride, arrogance, cruel
y, selfishness and avarice have kept |
he incense burning on their high |
places. There is no room even in the |
,ircumambient ether for the smoke |
If the rival incense from the affairs
IF Jehovah and the affairs of idol |
TRY and self-indulgence. God de-
hands that He be God alone.
queer notion is lodged firmly in |
certain piouS minds that the passive |
7irtues are all that are needed for |
he bringing in of the kingdom of |
heaven. Some folk don't want to be
lisagreeable even to the devil him /
elf. They would not speak i'll about |
ven the worst foes of society. This
s the more strange when we remem- /
ser that if anything at all is clear
n the program of God, as indicated |
n both the Old Testament story and |
he New Testament record of the life
# Jesus, it is that wickedness must
,e overthrown. The Christian is
allied to be an iconoclast, an idol
masher. There are some men who
re church pillars who do not weigh |
n ounce when it comes to driving
corruption out of a community. Yet,
o fight evil is surely a part of the
christian program as to proclaim the
GOD. The high places must be over
brown if the church is to be main
aimed in all its purity for the service
f the Lord.
And there are host of social ills
hat will have to be remedied if we
re going to meet the new day in the
piTit of the kingdom of heaven.
Overlooking the Preacher.
For a long time King Joash tried to
ave the temple repaired, but without
uccess. He was slow in finding out
he reason, which was nothing more
r less than that he had followed a
cry modern fashion of trying to have
he priests do it ALL He wanted the
RESTS to provide the money and to
o the work, but that was more than