Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1916-05-04
WHEN SAINTS HAD A CITY SENSE
The International Sunday School Les
son for May Is 1.-THE Missionaries
Of Antioch."-Acts II: 1890.
civilian T. Ellis.)

There is overmuch waiting about
the new problems which have been
created for the church by the modern
city. This lament seems to assume
that Christianity was constructed in
units Of rural congregations. Frankly,
this is nothing less than absurd. The
Christian church began in Jerusalem.
It's first notable victories were won
there, in the face of such opposition as
is found nowhere in Christendom to-
day. The greatest conquest of the
early church was in the third city In
the Roman empire Antioch, with it's
half million residents.
Now Antioch was no modern Phila-
delphia, predisposed by tradition
and aptitude toward Christianity.
The bitterness Of it's heathendom Is
glimpsed in ben Hur," with its pic
lures Of the denominations Of the
Grove of Daphne, five miles out Of
heather city that Christianity re-
ceived it's name; and 1t was In An
tioch that there began the mission
airy enterprise for the conquest of the
cities of the old world.
In Antioch vast number turned
to Christ. That result was won by
laymen, average folk who had been
scattered from Jerusalem by the
tribulations that arose over the mar
tyrdom of Stephen. AS they went
they preached The brands that had
been sent flying far and wide by the
foot Of persecution each started a
fire in some new place. Those early
disciples were like the modern Ko-
rean Christians, who sometimes move
their homes and their businesses to
new communities, for the gospels
sake. The first and final dependence
witnesses" who bear testimony,
wherever they may be put. to the
new life that is in Christ Jesus.
New Lioht On Old Places.
One is surprised when he realizes
how cosmopolitan was the early
church. We find the dispersed dis
ciples going to Cyprus, the British
island in the Mediterranean, where
now troops are garrisoned, and about
which the warships are sailing to-
day; and to old Phoenicia, the mari
time nation lying along the upper
coast of Palestine and Syria; and to
the great city OF Antioch. Antioch
has recently come into the news be-
cause Of the marvellous defense which
it's Armenian Christian made for
fifty-three days, on mountain out
side of the city, against the attack
ing Moslem hosts. ....-., .
The personnel of the church at
Antioch, which as the biggest city
in the whole region, became the ma
tural rendezvous of fugitives from
Jerusalem, was even more cosmopoli.
tan yet. We find among the names
Lucius, the Cyrenean-all students
of geography identify Cyrene as
within the modern Tripoli, which
Italy lately seized from the Turks !;
and Manaen, the foster-brother of
Herod; and Saul from the university
city of Tarsus, and Simeon the Black
who may have been the Simon OF
Cyrene who carried the cross of Jesus,
and Barnabas of Jerusalem.
With such leadership the new
church at Antioch could not be pa.
rochial or provincial. It had to
think in terms Of the then known
world. The sympathies and contact
and outreach of the church member.
ship ran as far as the Roman domin.
ions. Intolerance was impossible to