Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-04-15
For Sunday Reading
Ill Sorts of Ooinien5
Renajah.
tRev H. D. Jenkins, d. D., in Sioux
City Journal

!
Benaiah.
itRev H. D. Jenkins, d. D., In sioux
| City Journal
| Eenaiah ." slew lion in a pit on
a snowy day.-u. Chronicles, XII. ~
| When General Washington arrived at
Cambridge, Mass. to take command OF
the continental army he brought with
him four commissions to be handed 70
as many major generals OF his own fe-
lection. He retained three for further
study, but the fourth he promptly
handed 10 Israel Putnam, man IA
nous since his boyhood as one who,
Having tracked q wolf to his lair, en-
ltered the cave whittier the beast had
| fed, killed him single handed ana
dragged him out-dead. The courage
iof the boy stood by him as a man and
made him the senior officer in the
army Of the Revolution.
Benaiah, son Of Jehoiada and grand
son of the famous fighter Kabzeel,
proved his mettle and won his promo
ton in the same way. The modern
hunter of big game. even with an ex-
press rife. doublebarreled or automatic,
does not care to encounter the lion he
Is tracking unless he can meet him In
the wide field with the way open to
retreat But Benaiah, when he heard
there was lion in one of the empty
cistern pits. could not wait Cor better
weather, or a more favorable arena. He
leaped down into the excavation, as
Putnam crawled into the VOLTS cave,
tackled the lion with his single weapon
and emerged triumphant. No wonder
it made him famous and no wonder
that David. when later he was organiz-
ing an army against the Philistines,
made him a captain in his new host.
Courage is a quality not easily ac-
quired and never lost. The brave boy is
father of the brave man. and where
courage rather than cunning Is needed
the commander who chooses such a one
for promotion chooses wisely. David
chose Bena!ah and never regretted the
choice.
When wellington said that the secret
OF success in war was simply hard
pounding he spoke as a soldier Of ex-
per.ence. In this present European war
We have learned that the determining
factor will not be any new form Of
strategy, but smokeless powder auto
matte guns and armed ships that swim
saurians. David was not hunting for
strategists. but soldiers when he put
Benaiah in charge OF a division. Our
civil war was won not because Lee, was
otityeneraled. but because he was OUT
fought. r.
1t Is lamentable fact that our ,vn
age Is at once an age demanding siren
uosity In business. but trusting to ag-
Mysticism and indifference IN religion.
Yet no age ever needed a mac, to live
up to a positive conviction more than
does this.
We had committee OF learned men
some years since who at the request Of
a bishop and college presiden. or two
undertook to investigate the drink
problem" And investigate 1t they did
"to beat the band" They brought iri n
report which filled seven printed vol
umes. But they never reclaimed q
drunkard. Meanwhile the Hadley mis-
sion In Water street, New York. and
the Oiivet mission in Chicago's Little
HELL planted at corner where TWEEN
ty murders have been committed with
in two years, have saved hundreds Of
drunkards and scorese OF abandoned
women and given little children homes
of virtue, light and opportunity.
For the redemption of the world one
Benaiah is worth a dozen Soiomoas.
There Is no difficulty in finding recruits
who will guard the baggage or wash
the chariots or feed the horses More
than one big church with famous
preacher in it's pulpit and opera sing
ers in it's choir and millionaires in its
pews would have been swallowed up by
the world years ago had 1t not been for
its hard working Sunday school teach
ers and Its brave parish visitors. whose
work is done not in the easy security Of
the palace, but in the pit where the
devil himself as a roaring lion RACES.
: y ..s.. ~ ~
remember very we'll the first time
ever heard the word environment"
did not think that before my life work
was done it would express the pitiful
philosophy Of an age nollycoddle In re-
ligion. Some profound philosopher fifty
or sixty years ago thought he had dig
covered that men reared among noun
tains had such and such characteristic
les. and they attributed these to; the
mountains. But I say that a man is
little better than q dwarf who 10 no.
bigger than mountain. And these
same scholars tell us the deep and last
ing effect Of the valley upon the soul
But am sorry for the soul that Is not
deeper than the Yosemite. And sonne-
body will rise up and discourse upon
the broadening power Of the ocean
view as seen by its neighbors. But /
know dwellers by The sea who never
saw anything in it nobier than an
oyster.
When David wanted man to lead
his soldiers In their war Of deliver
1 ance he did not ask for one who had
lived under the cedars Of Mt. Lebanon
or shifted the fumes rising from the
sulphurous region Of the Dead sen. He
wanted man whose guarantee of sue
cess was In his own soul, .iot In his
cradle. He sought for a man who could
raise up his environment till II an
swered HIS need, who could bend down
the heavens till they assured his vic
TORY; who could climb the A1otintnins
until he was ready to fall from their
heights like q thunderbolt upln the
iPhilistines. Il
J And what the state needs. Wsias the