The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-03-16
For March IS, Is, Jesus Saves From I
Sin.''-John SIP, 31-37, 56-5S. A
Temperance Lesson.

. 0. "A
Temperance Lesson.
VitaIizing the Virtues.
Enlightened selfishness may do
much for the race. China, as a pro-
duct of Confucianism, is proof of this.
But it will not do enough; as China
also has demonstrated. Now that it
has become the fashion to put the
temperance reform upon an eco
nomic basis, let us be clear-thinking
enough to admit that this is not a
sufficient foundation for so great
cause. This present Sunday school
lesson OPPORTUNITY links the quarterly
temperance lesson with certain ire
mendous teachings of Jesus.
How to Vitalize the virtues, so that
they will be warm, living. positive
things, attractive to all mankind, is
one of the problems of religion. A
cold morality repels. Even the arti-
fetal glow and cheer of alcohol has
been more winsome in the eyes of the
thoughtless than the stern. gray. re-
pressive and apparently joylesS life of
some abstainers. This question is not
an academic one. 1t is of first i'm
portance in many communities which
have cast out the saloon, and have
not yet found a substitute. Negations
get the world nowhere. No people are
to be saved, spiritually, socially, eco
nomically, by the things they do with
out. The devils like nothing better
than an empty room.
So we turn to the great affirma-
tions-the majestic, incompatible ut
terances-of Jesus, in this passage
which has been assigned to us. to dis
cover what their bearing is upon tenn
perance. First of them is the sweep
ing declaration of the Messiah, Il am
the Light of the world Is it in fol-
lowing that Light that society has
come to the decision that the traffic
ated? The liquor habit belongs to
the darkness of the world. 1t comes
from ignorance and an inadequate ap-
probation of values. No thoroly wise
man would tolerate the traffic in al
cohol, if he could stop it. We are
abolishing it because We have ad-
vanced farther into the light of spirit
ual values.
The Worlds EnIigItencr.
AS it has followed the Light, what
strides society has made, Moral re-
form has ever followed in the train of
Him whose sway brings perfect light
and perfect justice to pass. Jesus never
said word about slavery, yet slavery
| has gone from all the civilized world,
| and at His behest. Jesus never men
toned the drink habit, yet the growing
wave of prohibition around the world
is essentially a Christian movement.
| He knew nothing about tenements;
| nevertheless, the irresistible impulse
! for better housing of the poor, which
is being written upon the statute books
] of civilization, is wholly in the spirit
of Christian love. All our modern
| moral reforms, against the social evil,
| against the drug habit, against I'M
| prepayment of labor and the denial
of the right of the child to a play-time
and a school-time, are direct conSe-
! quences of the light that Jesus has
| rf of 0l< ind Tha
| new light that is strea ming into our
prisons the illumination of the prob
| lens of the INDECENT and the defect
i've is but the reflection of the in
creasing radiance of the light of the
world.
| To attempt to separate reform from
religion is therefore to divorce cause
and effect. There is serious objec-
ton to the fact that so much of what
is good and constructive in sociology
lacks the active support of the
| churches In many places the tenn
perance cause. for instance, is no
longer a child of the church, but is the
| tool of politicians. Every Christian
| should be a militant in every move
ment that seeks to make this world
liker to the place that Christ means
it to be. 1t used to be the custom to
/ measure a mans religion by mere
| attendance upon religious services;
now we demand that he shall be doing
religious service. He may more profit
ably, at times, attend political meet
ing than a prayer service. Let US face
| candfdly the fact that the church
holds aloof from social service only
at her peril: for it is her function to
vitaliZe all good works.
| , Big words are sometimes used in
small fashion. Later, we grow up to
| them. Thus, we have freely talked
about the world with no such con-
ception of what the term involves as
| is now ours since we have matricu-
| lated in the great school of the war.
AS we have all of us learned geogra-
ply, and other lessons, in the war
| dispatches. and have grown into some
| measure of appreciation of the vast
| ness of this great human family of
which we are members, some of us
| have been taking thought of the hith-
erto unnoticed fact that Jesus had so
much to say about "the world" He
He said or did was in the language
of provincialism. Not understood at
the time, or for many centuries after
ward, it is clear that Jesus used the
word world with the prescience of
omniscience.
Nothing good exists anywhere that
| is not ultimately to come to pass
everywhere. Because temperance
principles were enacted into radical
| laws in the United States, Russia pro-
| hibited vodka, and every other one of
the warning nations took somewhat
| similar measures. We have come to
| the day of worldism. The light of
| the world has arisen for the entire
race. Missions and reform are now
seen to be one. There is no darkness
| of any sort so dense or remote that it
| will not be driven out by that light
which lighteth every man that cometh
| into the world Today a temperance
| lesson is also a lesson in cosmopoli-
| tanism.
The Slaves and the Free.
A friend of mine in Japan, a vet
eran missionary, was one day con-
| Quoting a service in the back coun-
| try, when a man took him aside mys-
| teriouslY. and WHISPERED. "Honora BILE