The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-14
INTERNATIONAL.
SUNDAY SCHOOL, LESSON
By W. 7. ELLIS

call the Christian nations back to an
appreciation of the ultimate verities.
That these are bound up with mono
gamy, the Christian Sabbath, and with
the Christian conception of personal
virtue, is easily demonstrable. Such
teachers will prepare us to conduct
our common life on the same high
plane upon which this war for hui
mainly has been maintained The sac
.rificial lesson of the battlefield will
not have been learned in vain.
What Kind of Sunday?
Reactionaries and conventionalists
are not the ones to call the world back
to the great essentials. The men whose
religion is perfunctory, and acquired,
like a suit of clothes, in a theological
shop, can have small part in this rem
naissance. Illiberal and intolerant
folk, whose creed is a set of rules ana
negations, are likewise untitled for
this greatest of tasks imposed by the
war. 1t needs cosmopolitan men, OF
a charity like unto that of Christ,
and with measure of His own pas
sion for righteousness, and able to
see beneath the overlap of the centu-
ries the essential principle, to arouse
the world to an appreciation of the
heroic proportions of the religious
task that lies before the Church today.
Clearly. we cannot have back the
Puritan Sabbath. Nor do we want it,
1t savored more of old John Milton
than of the Bible. 1t was dark
some thing, with little of the sweet
ness and joy of even the Jewish Sab
bath about it. Who can tell the tale
of the children whose lives have been
shrouded by the gloom of this I'M
scriptural institution. with its heaped-
up rabbinical rules, all imposed in the
name of the Lord, who broke old
bondages on. that day of Resurrec-
ton. The Sabbath of infinite restric-
lions is gone.
But in it's stead we do not want a
Sabbath that is a mere holiday. For
what is only a holiday for some is
likely to become a workday for all
Britain has learned, during the stress
of war, that it is economically un-
sound to attempt to increase a manu-
featured output by seven day-a-week
labor. The principle of a Sabbath
was written in the nature of man
long before it was written on tables
of stone. The sacred first law of a
rest day underlies all true Sabbath
keeping.
If it may not be a mere holiday, it
surely must be a holy day, day with
a divine stamp upon it; day which
comes whispering softly, like sum
mer breeze, Il am not like other days"
The man who thinks he can keep the
Sabbath on the golf links, or in bed,
is either deceived himself or is deceiv-
for man, but it is nevertheless the
Lords Day. 1t is sacred to rest of
the body and refreshment of the spir-
it. That is why it should be a home
day-not, a merry making day-and
church-going day. Obviously, if
the Sabbath goes the church goes with
it; and if the church goes. religion
goes; and If religion goes. morality
goes; and, if morality goes, then civ
ilization goes. That is no new lesson.
1t has been written over and over
again upon the pages Of history
The issues at stake, at the present
time and in connection with this par
ticular subject. are not light ones
They strike their roots down to the
fundamentals of life. In the preser-
walton of a wholesome and holy Sab
bath, even though it differ greatly
from the institution as our grand
fathers knew it, there are involved
considerations as important as any of
those for which civilization is now
battling on the soil of Europe, Asia
and Africa