The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-16

Prayer Answered" Nehemiah 2:1-11.
A Statesman on His Knees.
These are the times of widened Wis
ion, with the whole world coming
daily under review by all of us, and
the welfare of far-separated parts in
extricably bound up with one another.
1t is easier now than it was five years
ago to understand this patriot Nehe-
miah, who, in comfort and affluence
and honor himself, yet wept soul
tears for his people and for the city
of his fathers. Go to any Zionist
meeting today-and there are plenty
of them-and the Nehemiah spirit
will be found still alive and active
With all the woe that it has wrought
upon the earth, this war has also
brought many boons, not the least of
them being passion for large pa
frlotism. Rich and poor, wise and
illiterate, are vying with each other to
do service for the nation in its hour
of need. In all time there has never
been such a lavish dedication of life
to great ends as has been witnessed
during the past three Years A few
days ago 1 saw a Russian general who
was travelling on the same train as
myself, and whom 1 had mentally APP
praised as fop and a martinez Of the
Old regime, go weeping into his COM
partment, upon receipt of the news of
the retreat of the Russian army He
would not eat or talk; his patriotism
was so real and deep that it mastered
all other emotions.
Petty purposes perish in a passion
OF PATRIOTISM The Nehemiah spirit
| is exemplified in every part of the
land and of the world. There is
something sanctifying about true pa
trIotism. 1t lifts men out of their
nttIeness and selfishness, and makes
them rejoice to do any sacrifice or
! service. Personal ambitions are .-iven
up, and food and profits and personal
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT are forgotten. This
IN part explains the socializing in
fIuence of the present war, in Great
brlta IN and elsewhere. Patriotism
mas A1ted lie up to a higher plane,
even as it made a hero and a states
man out OF the courtier Nehemiah
The Torch Lighted by God.
II was a God-lighted flame of pa
trlotlsm that burned in Nehemiah
clearly from the Psalms, associated
God and the country In all their holt
est thoughts and noblest aspirations
Nehemiah, like the psalmist, loved
Jerusalem above his chief joy
Hearth-fires are atari fires. 1t is q
mission of religion-and one who il
wandering in far lands wonders how
the church at home is living up t.
| this imperative duty-to keep strons
and vital the ties that unite love o.
country with loyalty to God. Back OF
| all allegiance to land should pulse
that living spirit of religion which
made Nehemiah a great patriot. The
| most popular of modern poets ha:
breathed this spirit of place loyalty
into his poem about Sussex:
'God gives all men all earth to love.
! But. since our hearts small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
BELOVED over ALL
| Each to his choice, but l rejoice
i The lot has fallen TO me
| In fair land. a fair land,- r.
In Sussex byt the sea- r.. -
No greater peril besets society to
day, with it's intensified social con
science and its passion for humanity
than the so-called 'internationa1ism
| which processes to have no countr,
save all the world. Unthinking sen
timentalists. who have not discerne'
how the particular is always essentia
to make the general effective, deer,
patriotism as something narrow ant
local and selfish. They cannot see tina
it is necessary to love the whole b.
means of loyalty to a part. The hes
thing anybody can do for the institu
ton of the home in general, for ex
ample, is to make his own home happ,
and wholesome. The finest servic
any woman can render the cause o
womanhood elsewhere is by living
sweet and beautiful and noble life her
self. And we do most for the caus
of democracy in China and Russi
and even in Germany when we stant
steady and strong for the ideals o
democracy in our own beloved land.
There 'internationa1ists," who d
not understand what loyalty means
and who wrought such hurt in Rus
STA. are usually of the same groul
who do not believe in marriage, 70
example, but in free love; nor in prop
erty rights but in communism, il
which everybody will get and nobod
will give or sacrifice. In short, senti
ment without sense. like love withou
loyalty, is capable of more harm thai
good. No "internationalist" was Ne
hemiah but a passionate patriot, AM
God blessed him in it.
Some Things That Have Passed.
In the background of this romanAi
oriental story we see the Persian mon
arch, a despot All of Nehemiah
ambition was dependent, humanl
speaking upon the will of a king.
am writing this lesson while sailing
down the Volga, whose waters FLOW
to the shores of Nehemiah's Persia
whittier 1 also am bound; and al
about me l have been seeing, 70
mans power could do. 1t needed tn
fall of the car and of the RUSSIAN
autocracy to make clear what abso
lutte power means. In the church a
in the state, one weak mans word a
supreme Out of this grew the evil
that now afflict Russia; but the pres
| ent ferment is More to be desired thai
the apparent smoothness of the OLE
order.
Jerusalem, the city for which Nehe
miah prayed, stood for the opposite
thing. It was the mother of democ-a
cies. The first real democracy wa
among the Jews. They will come I;
power once more in the Land o
Promise, if at all. by the principle o
democracy; that is. by the votes of tn
people of Palestine. after the Jew
have settled in the Holy Land in sui
ficient numbers to give them contro
of the situation. It is unthinkabh
THAT the Syrians who have lived OF
the land for thousands of years
should be dispossessed. against thei
will even to make way for Zionism
a There. is No ArtaXerxes on earth todal