The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-02-23


The Man Who Had No Friend.
Il am surprised to see. so many
persons with two legs and two arms
and no bandages, and apparently
nothing the matter with them" whim-
sically remarked a nurse, walking
the street for the first time after
week in the public wards of a great
hospital. She was familiar with that
world of pain, whose people are
great host. All unheeded by the busy
throngs on the great highways OF life
there dwell apart in loneliness and
suffering a multitude of prisoners of
hope-the crippled, the i'll and the
physically limited. Only the persons
who have themselves been inmates
of hospitals or sanatoria or sick
rooms, know the burdens and fears
of the class to whom the present les
son introduces U.s. If our knowledge
of this subject were greater our sym
pathies would be keener, and we
should walk more softly thru life,
with gentle hearts.
Lusty, vigorous folk, unconscious
of their good health, can understand
only by a deliberate effort OF mag
nation the sick man who had for
thirty-eight years been toilsomeiy
dragging his palsied form to the porch
of the Bethesda Pool, in the dim nope
of a healing. His counterpart is 10
be found in the army of inval1ds VINO
1OurneV
resort, from physician to physician,
in a vain search for health To all
such existence has only one supreme
aim, the recovery of heaitn. ihey
haunt the pools of possible meaning.
Toward them our attitude is 10 De
that of the Saviour, one OF compass
sionate helpfulness.
Those With Sick Wills.
The worst thing about sick BODIES
+l,+ +bai, i1lneSS often commune
oates itself to the will. Some 1nValldS
there have been-a shining company
among whom Robert Louis stevenson
is one of the bright ones-whose sous
have grown strong as their physical
powers have diminished. But most OF
ness lays us low. We let body con-
auer spirit That was the real diff
Guilty with the man at the pool of
Bethesda. He had resigned himself to
a state of chronic invalidism. HIS
was a severe case of paralyzed will
power. He was down and out and
whined his defeat to everybody who
would listen.
How abject life can really become
IS only known by those who are ia
miliar with the orient. l. can close
nv eyes now and see in imagination
a long line of beggars whom l have
encountered in Palestine, in India, in
China, in Japan-creatures miserable
beyond the vests power to under
stand. This man by the Bethesda
pool was afflicted first of all in his
manhood. To every sick and suffer-
ing one comes The summons OF Hen
ley's vigorous lines, which he, an in
valid, lived before he wrote them;
ct matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishment the goal ;
l am the master of my fate,
1 am the captain of my SOUL
I'm the fell clutch of circumstance,
l have not WINGED nor cried aloud,
Beneath the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
The Desperation of the Destitute.
The picture by the pool of healing
! challenges our attention. 1t is so
thoroly human, and oriental Native
seIfishness, plus the intensified self1sh-
ness of invalidism, ruled supreme. 1t
was every man for himself. Need
made people ruthless. L have seen
starving Chinese on the famine field
act in the same way. Reports tell how
| the destitute Armenians are like ra-
vening wild beasts when food appears.
AS the destruction of the poor is their
| poverty, so the curse of the weak is
| their weakness. Does not the picture
stir our compassion? What a parable
| this poor paralytic is of the left be-
| hind IN life
| Red. raw, ruthless selfishness was
the rule of life in that company of
sufferers on the porches of the Beth
esda Pool. Nobody expected unset
| fishness Yet there appeared one
whose rule was to help those who
could not help themselves. A vicious
proverb says that God helps those
who help themselves" the truth is
that we may count on divine aid when
we have reached the limit of our own
resources. 1t is when the arm of flesh
| fails that the Omnipotent Arm is
| stretched forth. The Pool of Bethesda
was surrounded by sufferers, but the
! one whom Christ helped was the one
who was the most helpless and had
waited longest.
One clear intimation for the larger
aspects of our own time that is
| wrapped UP in the story is that Jesus
Christ is not Indifferent to the need
and suffering of the poor. Profound
est of all the truths touching the un-
rest of our day is this one that the
| Commensurate Christ cares, deep
ly and constantly cares. for the desti-
tute and the down trodden. He is
/ their one supreme Champion Wher-
ever on earth injustice is done to mar
there the warm heart of Jesus glows
with sympathy and sorrow and wrath
whoever Expresses his fellow men
or causes disease to spread, or denies
any person a fair chance for health
|
the Christ who is a just Judge, as wei
as a loving Saviour.
Compassion in Shoeieather.
Like a flash of lightning which
makes wide landscape clear, 1t is sale
| of JESUS that He went about doing
good" He did not wait for opportun
tiles to come to Him: He looked then
iup. If He had remained quietly il
that friendly upper room in Jerusalem
holding profitable converse with Hi
4 disciples, or with any chance Nico
tdemus who might visit Him, the maj
nv the Pool of Bethesda would never
have been healed. 1t was Christ's Gus
tom to put His compassion into shoe
Heather. He deliberately sought fo
opportunities to do good Becaus'
suffering and need do not lie in on
regular path of life does not at all fire.
US from our responsibility to ministe
to them.
This Pool of Bethesda has long beel