Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-02-23
The MAN WHO HAD NO FRIEND
The International Sunday School Lesson For February
Is Is "Jesus at the Pool of Bethesda" John 5:1-15
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS

L am surprised to see so many per-
sons with two legs and two arms and
no bandages, and apparently nothing
the matter with them," whimsically
remarked a nurse, walking the street
for the first time after a week in the
public wards of q great hospital. She
was familiar with that world of pain.
whose people are a great host. All un-
needed 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 sanitoria or sick rooms, know the
burdens and fear of the class to whom
the present lesson introduces US. If
our knowledge of this subject were
greater our sympathies would be
keener, and we should walk more
softly through life, with gentle hearts.
Lusty. vigorous folk, unconscious OF
their good health, can understand only
by deliberate effort of imagination
the sick man who had for thirty
eight years been tollsomely dragging
his palsied form to the porch of the
Bethesda Pool, in the dim hope of a
healing. His counterpart is to be
found in the army of invalids who
journey from health resort to health
resort, from physician to physician,
in a vain search for health. To all such
existence has only one supreme aim,
the recovery of health. They haunt
the pools of possible healing. Toward
them our attitude is to be that of the
Saviour, one of compassionate help
fulneSS.
Those With Sick Wills
The worst thing about sick bodies
is that their illness often communi-
cafes itself tho y1-iil Snn1n ipN a dc
there have been-a shining company,
among whom Robert Louis Stevenson
is one of the bright ones, whose souls
have grown strong as their physical
powers have dimished. But most of
US lose our grip" when severe ILL
ness lays us low. We let body con-
quer spirit. That was the real difficulty
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 de-
feat 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
my 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 suffering
one comes the summons of Henley.s
vigorous lines, which he, an invalid,
lived before he wrote them:
1t matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the
goal;
| am the master of nv fate
l 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
Ny head is bloody, but unbowed."
The Desperation of the Destitute
That picture by the pool of healing
challenges our attention. 1t is so
thoroughly human, and oriental. Ma
tive selfishness, plus the intensified
selfshness of invalidism, ruled su-
preme. 1t was every man for him
self. Need made people ruthless. I
have seen starving Chinese on the
famine field act in the same way. Re-
ports tell how the destitute Armenians
are like ravening 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 parable this poor paralytic is
of the left behind 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 unself-
ishness. 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 Beth
esda 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 wrap
ped up in this story is that Jesus Christ
is not Indifferent to the need and suf-
fering of the poor. Profoundest of
all the truths touching the unrest of
our day is this one that the Compass
sionate Christ cares, deeply and con-
stantly cares, for the destitute and
the down trodden. He is their one
supreme Champion. Wherever on
earth injustice is done to man, there
the warm heart of Jesus glows with
sympathy and sorrow and wrath.
Whoever oppresses his fellow men, or
causes disease to spread, or denies any
person fair chance for health, may
count upon having to reckon with the
Christ who is just Judge, as we'll as
a loving Saviour
Compensation in Shoeleather
Like a flash of lightning which,
makes a wide landscape clear, it is
said of Jesus that He went about
charge of the c. E. meeting in the