The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-12-14
CHARLES N. SHELDON
Pastor of the Central Congrega
tiOnal Church.
"For Others."-A Sunday Thought.

"EOr OthcrS."-A sunday InOugnt.
In the midst Of all the strange and
terrible things which have marked the
last four years, there is running all
thru them the golden cord of thought
for others, so universal, so constant
and insistent that it has made an inn
preston upon the whole mind Of the
race.
The average program of the aver
age man has a large and emphatic
place for his own comfort and pleas
ure. He plans to get all he can and
rive without too much self denial.
He says and thinks Il" many times in
a day, and his circle of ambition is
comparatively small, because it is
drawn near the top Of his own world.
But the hard habits of millions of
people have been changed. 1t is not
possible for man to think very long
about himself when someone is ask
ing him every other day or hour to re-
or the Y. VIC. A., or the Salvation
Army, or the Red Cross, or the
Armenian Relief or the Jewish
Welfare Board. 1t is difficult for the
average man to maintain a cool and
self-satisfied attitude towards his own
ways that over 100000 little children
are starving to death in Armenia and
that famine threatens the entire eX-
tinction of the Jews in Russia and
Poland.
One might be successful in self
satisfied attempt to live a self CEN
tered existence in some conditions, but
if one has a boy at the front who is
in danger of being horribly killed any
moment. it is not so easy to make the
the place of the three that spell boy"
And SO Mr.. Average Man in America
and the world has for the last four
years been thinking of others, and he
has q new definition of himself. He
has learned that there are others be-
sides himself. When a man has once
learned that. he has learned more
than all the universities in the world
! sometimes try to teach
- The greatest thought in the Bible
world, and Jesus Christ was born to
prove it. If any one ever had a good
right to think for all eternity of him.
self, We might say that &c had, on
account of the creation of the world.
But the greatness of God is proved,
not by the fact that He created the
world, but that He loved it.
The greatest thing. Therefore. that
the last four years have done for US
is to give us Gods thought of others.
The individual church can no longer
think of it's own denomination. The
individual business can no longer
think of itself as thing apart from
the worlds industry. nation can no
longer think of itself and leave the
fate of other nations out of its reck-
oning. 1t must take account of others.
i We are, in the most solemn sense, our
brothers keeper. And as We come
nearer to the celebration of the birth
! of the Prince of Peace there is no
/ thought that can SO quicken the soul
| of the individual and stir the con-
| science of the nation as the thought
of common humanity knit together
. by the closest of ties. moving along
! the track of life's highway in common
! friendship. NO man liveth to him
+, self. and no man dieth to himself"
/ The first cry OF the pria-.tive man
! IS Il. myself" But the cry Of the
: man who has found himself, and de-
tined his place in the world is, There
are others Men are better now
/ than they were four years ago, be-
i cause they have learned that lesson