Arizona republican., 1917-09-17
JEWISH NEW YEAR CONTINUES UNTIL
 SUNDOW|V TONIGHT


 this morning and continuing until sundown this evening, with an inter mission at noon.
 Barnett E. Marks read a sermon in English at the beginning of the ser vices last night The remainder of the service was ritualistic, in the He brew. MT. Marks will also read a sermon today His subject today will be. What the New Year Means for Us" His sermons last night was en- titled Above the Flood" Following is the sermon:
 Text: q lift up mine eyes to the hills, whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth" Psalm 130.
 The year vanishes. In this twilight hour it takes leave of us, or rather we bid farewell to a part of our life Behind us and before us roar and rush the turbulent and turbid waters of time. The present-a narrow island a moment between two eternities. Un to us, too, the mighty waves are reach ing, and our life, like the ark in the Biblical story of the Flood, is borne upon the crest of angry pillows, tossed and beaten by the storms of fate, driven along the painless depths of time, while no one knoWeth whither his fragile ark will be carried, or where at last it will find rest; whether upon the mount Ararat of power and opulence, or in the vale of poverty and sickness. We look around us and we behold on all sides the devastations of engulfing' time. Where once there were blooming fields, peaceful homes, flourishing cities, today we find but ruins and fragments, emptl- ness and waste. Whatever is born of time is again swept away by it's ire sistible torrent. At the beginning of a new year we may rightly ask: What is the purpose, the end of this ever recurring deluge of time? What is the outcome of this repeated process of day and night, joy and sor- row, birth and death, growth and de- cay? Has time any compensation for our toll? Do we but SOW upon the waves, and build upon pillows? Above the storm and torrent of life we hear the voice of Him who bids worlds to come and to disappear. The voice of God is heard above the waters: The Lord dwelleth above the flood" He who is Timeless and Nameless breathes upon the mighty deep and the waters subSide. In this twilight hour comes to us a message from on high bringing the promise of peace and the tidings of a richer compensation for life's toll than change and decay. As unto the Iatriarch of old so to us comes the dove with the olive branch assuaging our pains, ailaying our fears and teaching us the divine lessons of faith, or hope, and of strength in the battle of life.
 Of all the beautiful symbols which nature holds forth to mans mental vision, none is so rich with meaning as the olive branch Its juice enlight- ems the eye, and changes darkness into day. The olive fruit holds within it's tiny form the promise of light, the unborn flame; it is a most befittine emblem of that invisible flame, that light hidden within the soul of man which alone has the power to enlight- en his darkness; the light of faith; faith in Gods loving care; faith in the abiding truth of Gods word; faith in the nobility Of virtue above the evil powers of passion. This living faitt was the patriarch's anchor upon the storm tossed sea. Such faith must also be ours if our ark of life is tC bear us above the flood. Then a thou sand may fall by our side, and ter thousand at our right hand, and nc harm shall come near us.
 Ours age, proud of it's achievements intoxicated by its victory over the ma terial world, has lost this priceless gem./ Blinded in the chase for dus we mistake the senseless mechanism of nature for the secret Power, tn, Living Spirit, the Eternal Cause nov ing all things. A self-sufficient wis dom has dethroned God, seeing in al this wondrous universe nothing bu blind force and unconscious matter set in motion by some capriciOus ac cident Evolution is the magic wor' that shall explain all, even the majest, of the spirit, the dignity of man moral nature. What is man? A chil is he of the dust, and the dust then his goal And the message and mean ing of life-man's mission and destin -is but strife and struggle, war an woe destruction and dissolution. With out the belief in an all-wise and all kind Father, in whose hand are tn lives of all beings and the spirit of a flesh. indeed would be meaningless: and this natal hour of new yea would be void of significance. Wh pause and ponder at the divisions ( time, when life throughout is barre of value, the earth but the battlefiel of cOntending creatures. The ravel living upon carrion, is fit symbol ( contending creatures. The raven, liV ing upon carrion, is a fit symbol ( this melancholy, merciless, godles view of life. He brings back no mes sage of peace Driven by hungry de sire he leaps from ruin to ruin, ovt death and debris, content to feast upo rotterness and corruption. Such WE the wisdom of ancient heathenisr sunk in the quagmire of sensualisl and vice, and, therefore, swept ava by the floods of history; such is u theory of modern atheism, the twt brother of materialism. Here on u threshold of a new time we long
 hear the sWeeter tones of the return ing dove, bringing to us the messas of peace, the tidings of joy. The lives a God, the office branch breaches there lives a God who is mightier ths the mighty floods of time His wor revealed by Israels seers, has enligh ened the world, has put new meal ing into the universe, has raised u child of dust to the dignity of a st of God. Hold fast to this faith,
 Israel, it is thy life In it thou ha
 the deepest assurance of the purpo
 of thy being, of the value of thine e
 istence
 For in the light of this noble fai
 comes to us also the message of hoI
 the sweetest, most blissful promi:
 Dark and cheerless is the life of hi
 who but tolls from week to wee
 month to month, from year to ye;
 panting under the load of cares. E
 tranged from that perennial spring
 Made ef Com,