The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-10-26
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
By w. T. ELLIS

taminated brethren in building. As
it is SO often the case with the prac-
teal man." his shortsightednesS leads
him to steps which really defeat his
purpose. Had these Jews scanned a
larger horizon, they would have re-
called that they were voluntarily
adopting the method which an an
cient ASsyrian conQueror had used to
destroy the national integrity of the
Jews. They were taking heather
wives and thus losing their identity
as nation.
The tendency to conform to ones
environment and associates is as COM
mon a temptation as mortal meets.
Ask the old resident in the East what
he has seen befall newcomers. World
illness always sits seductively at the
door of the church, and usually she is
invited inside. BE We not corformed,
but be We transformed" is the word
for all chosen people. Some one says
that the church is in the world. which
is her privilege; but when the world
gets into the church, that is her peril.
Clean Up The Town
An evangelist has come to town.
| Why is this? Did we not have an
! evangelist last year? Is another re-
| vivial necessary? Alas, and alas so
it is. There are few churches or COM
, munities that do not need frequent
reviving. Jerusalem which within
the memory of living men had wit
| CeleDT3l1On.
| was now sorely in need of another
| spiritual experience.
She was in such bad case that il
| took all the courage of this man OF
books to meet the emergency Ezra
had a grip upon the law That was
| sort of evangelist whose stock in trade
is sentimental stories and shopworr
pious phraseo1ogy. Emotional ap-
PeaIs would not do for Jerusalem, sc
Ezra laid down the law, the stern an6
| 1rrevocable law of Jehovah which the
Iapsed city was violating.
Sugar or Salt?
Some folks can't see why piety doe
not atone for lawlessness Coatesvfll
attempted TO justify herself in tn
eyes of the world by pointing to he
special righteousness. The world said
| prove it by convicting the criminal
| in your midst" But Coatesville haC
not religion enough for that In thi
extra ordinarily perverted and danger
and loyalty to law lies a deep peril O
our modern times. The Jews oh
served their temple ritual, but the
kept heather wives. Ezra understood,
that his mission was not to be sugar
to make himself agreeable to people
but to be salt, to purify and preserv
society. So he drove the terrors of tn
law into their consciousness unit
something like an epidemic of fea
and remorse seized them. His not
was borrowed by Sam Jones, who wa
forever urging people to quit you
meanness."
The sentimentalist would say tina
Ezra's demand that these Jews shout
relinquish their wives involved
hardship. So it did Likewise it
always a hardship when the thief
deprived of his income. 1t is a wors
hardship, however, to his family whe
he is sent to Jail. Whoever said tina
the wages of sin should be anythin
else than hard? To break the laN
always brings trouble: and often trou
BILE to the innocent as well as the gull
ty The cleaned up church create
havoc in some quarters, yet a clea
church is worth all that it costs. No
body doubts now that Ezra's ster
measures were the means of preserv
ing the life of the Jews, and in savin
the returned exiles from a moral de
teriorization that would perhap
amount to the extinction of the Jew
. ish people.