The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-05-12
International
Sunday School Lesson
For May IA is "Lo. We Turn to the
Gentiles."- 13:13-52.
By w. T. ELLIS.


Gentiles. Acts 13:1352.
When the Church Broke Bounds.
The Rubfcon.of the Christian church
was crossed by Saul and Barnabas in
what is now troubled Asia Minor.
They settled forever the question of
whether Christianity was for the Jews
or for the whole world. That story is
the Sunday school lesson for today.
Like all the present SERIES it has its
setting in the land to which the news
papers are calling our attention afresh,
troubled, distracted, blood-stained
Turkey. In the region where the two
first Christian missionaries were the
center of a riotous turmoil, the mod
ern Christians have been done to death
by bigotry and religious intolerance.
The bounds of the lesson are mark
ed by two Antiochs. There were six
teen of these cities in the old Alexan-
drian empire, named for his father
Antiochus by Seleucas Nikator, who
has the remarkable record of having
founded thirty-Seyen cities, which he
named after himself or his relatives.
The greatest of all was Antioch in
syria, the city where the disciples were
first called Christian. 1t was from this
place that Saul and BarnabaS set out.
Can Goodness Thrive in City?
The more we know about old An
tioch, with it's half million corrupt
heather, the more wonderful it seems
that this city should be the center of
Christian propaganda, and after the
fall of Jerusalem the true center of
the Christian church. Let me quote
from one authority "a picture of old
Antioch, which will give pause to those
extreme critics of our modern cities
who are fond of saying that vice is
winning new victories in our time:
I'm Antioch the Beautiful there
was to be found everything which
Italian wealth, Greek aestheticism,
and Oriental luxury could produce.
The ancient writer's however, are
unanimous in describing the city as
one of the foulest and most depraved
in the world. Cosmopolitan in dispo-
sition, the citizens acted as if they were
emancipated from every law, human
or Divine. Licentiousness supersti-
ton, quackery, indecency, every fierce
and base passion, were displayed by
the populace; their skill in coming
ScurrilouS verses was notorious, their
sordid, tickle, turbulent, and insolent
ways rendered the name of Antioch
byword for all that was wicked. Their
brilliance and energy, so praised by
Cicero, were balanced by an incurable
levity and shameless disregard for the
first principles of morality. So in
famous was the grove of Daphne, five
miles out of the city, filled with
shrines to Apollo, Venus, Isis, etc., and
crowded with theaters, baths, taverns.
and dancing saloons, that soldiers de-
tected there were punished and dis
missed from the Imperial service.
'Daphnic morals became a proverb.
Juvenal could find no more forcible
way of describinfi the pollutions of
Rome than by saying, The Orontes
has flowed into the Tiber.' In this
Vanity Fair the Jews were resident
in large numbers, yet they exerted
little or no influence on the morals
of the city,
What a soil to produce so fair lily
as the missionary. spirit of the Chris
stian Church! AS a matter of simplest
psychology, it was necessary for those
early Christians to be either militant
or moribund. Had they been inactive
and conventionalized, their faith
would have been submerged in the
mire of pollution amid which they
found themselves.
The only sure way to preserve in its
purity ones faith amid adverse cir
cumstances is to be outspoken and ac-
tive in its PRONUNCIATION. The boy who
goes to school and tries to keep secret
the fact of his church membership is
whereas the other who, from the first,
tries to do Christian work among his
schoolmates will find his faith grow
ing as he goes. The Christian man in
business can save his religion from
contamination only as he tries to in
fluence his business and his associates
by sedulous service. The only way to
keep ones religion is to continually
try to give it away. had the Antioch
Church not been missionary it would
quickly have been missing. In serving
the whole world it saved itself. The
III
that applies universally: HE that
loseth his life shall save it, What is
spent survives. The Surest cure for a
church or nation menaced by selfish
ness and materialisIn is a high conse-
Grafton to a large and unselfish ser
vice.
When the Crowd Stood Back.
Those Antioch Christians had too
much sense and too much religion to
feel that they needed to keep all their
strong members right in their midst.
There is a lesson here for the churches
which retain on their roll members
who have moved away and ought to be
active in some other church The
Antioch congregation freely gave Saul
and Barnabas to the wider work. In
fact, they held a solemn service to set
them apart for this mission
That is a good old fashion that
would bear reviving. Why should not
SOlSlillIly set It's
bers who have been called to any kind
of special ministry? We ordain pas
tors and a few of the other church Of
ficers. Why should we not solemnIy
set apart and dedicate the social SER
vice worker, the man who has given
himself to boys work, the secretary of
student activities, the superintendent
of girls clubs. the rescue mission
worker, the leader in young peoples
activities? Let the whole Church
stand together and behind every one
of its representatives who goes out in
its name to do larger service for the
Kingdom. On many a discouraged
day in their missionary journey Saul
and Barnabas thought with a glow of
JOY, and with a new accession of
strength, of the company of praying
Christians back in Antioch, whose rep
resentatives they were.