The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-11-01
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL
LESSON
By WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

| LESSON |
By WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
For November is, Appetite and
Greed."-Genesis 5:27-34. (World's
Temperance Sunday
Kaiser and Booxer on Run.
Wars casualties are not all printed
in the newspaper lists. There is John
Barleycern, for instance; he is as sure
ly doomed as the kaiser. Into these
tremendous days we have telescoped
the processes of generations, so that
greater social progress is being made
in a year. than formerly was achieved
In a. century. Mars keeps a school
Of Intensive training. We are learning
to the accompaniment of guns the
great lessons of life. That is why even
liquor men admit that the business Of
strong drink will have been wiped
out for the United States and Canada.
and ultimately for the whole world.
by this war. Civilization has stead
lastly resolved that there shall be
new and better order for mankind;
and, inevitably. there is no room in it
for the hurtful liquor traffic:
see, will have been worth all it cost;
terrible and tragic as is the toll at
present being taken. Dimly we now
envisage the priceless results to our
children. Soldiers glimpse the great
ness of the future they are buying
epitaph in France is said to read:
When you go home. tell them OF
US, and say for their Tomorrow, we
have given our Today"
1t is for a world freed from the
blight of Prussianism. militarism, au-
tocracy, greed, cruelty injustice and
lintemperance that they have died. The
world has 9fven of its best in battle
to save itself from the worst Of woes
in peace.
Some Blessings of the War.
There. has been a majestic moral
sense marching over the earth within
the past five years When the old
order of world-peace collapsed the
leyes of all far-seeihg men and women
were opened to the coming of a new
era With nobler ideals and impulses.
Each passing month reveals the mag
nitude of this spiritual. political and
ecohomic upheaval. We are headed
toward a new heaven and new earth.
Five years ago it seemed as If ma
terial might and physical indulgence
held sway among mankind. A passion
Wealth. the symbol of authority and
purchasing ability, was the avowed
goal of effort. In the cultivation of
forms of entertainment. and m the in
yentfon of new sensations. the world
was rivaling ancient and degenerate
Rome. There seemed q bunting. of
| the. finer edge of spiritual sense.
81 Then fell the war bringing us to
ourselves, and causing deepest soul
tsearchings. Facing the issue. all the
best that is in us-our inheritance
from forefathers who battled for lib
| erty and for God; our innate idealisnl,
our sense of, responsibility for the
| worlds tomorfow-rose up to assert
ITSELF We had strayed, but we had not
become lost. With all oVr faults, we
ness and religion The supremacy of
spiritual values emerged. At present,
i thank God, all the English-speaki king
world is at war for our spiritual in
heritance.
This struggle is not localized in
strategic battles are now being fought
| in the centers of the homelands.
Every woman and every man who ad-
here steadfastly to the standards of
the Christian religion, and 70 the vast
integrities of life which the centuries
have tested, is a co-Worker with the
brave boys who fling their lives over
the top in France. Together they
fight for the pre-eminence of what
is spiritual over Grass and brutal ap-
tpetite. What would it avail us to
break the Hun in Europe and suffer
his ideals to conquer us in the home
land? Every Sunday school teacher
every parent, every preacher. every
editor. every teacher, who in this
crisis sees clearly the indispensa bility
! know of a surety that he or she is a
fellow worker with God and the al
lied armies for the triumph of our
| sacred cause.
A World Battle.
On the basis of this familiar Old
| Testament story of appetite-ruled
Esau, who sold his birthright for q
mess of pottage, we have today the
annual lesson for worlds temperance
| Sunday. In these days Of jubilation
over the spectacular victories of the
| temperance movement, 1t is not to be
| forgotten that for many years. the
| Sunday schools OF the world have bNeT
laying siege to the citadel of strong
drink. The war has been the oc-
casion, but the cause runs back thru
long and dark years of tireless tenn
perance teaching and struggling.
] Today there comes to my desk 9
call for an international conference
| of allied and neutral countries, to be
i held in Columbus, Ohio, November
elimination of the beverage liquor
traffic turnout the entire world. THAI
Canada and the United States are te
be permently dry" now seems as.
sured. But this old earth cannot con.
tinue, under the new conditions OF
solidarity. half wet and half dry. Oul
| allied problem contemplates a new
| and better order Of lie for all peo-
pies; and we know that this cannot
be so long as appetite rules mankind
| or principles are ub-ordinated to pas.
| sion.
Clearly, the question is larger thar
one of booze or no booze. 1t is the
ancient issue Of the flesh versus the
| spirit. Our supreme task, as it lies
peculiarly within the domain of re-
ligion. is to help the human race tc