The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-02-15
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
BY w. +. ELLIS

For February II Is, Jesus Teach
| ing by PARALLELS: Four Kinds of
Ground" Mark 4; Is, 1920.
This Old Worlds New Harvest
| Wars red ploughshare has been
driven deep into the soil of the spirit
of mankind. Even the densest dull
| harvest is ahead of US. Otherwise the
fields watered with blood and fertil-
lied with the lives of our fairest would
have been prepared in vain.
For this reaping tomorrow there
must be sowing today. To all con-
| cerned for ideals and for the world
welfare and to all who covet spiritual
gains from this time of carnage, the
message of the old parable of the
sower is just-sow! SOW! sow. The
same eternal seed awaits planting to
insure the promised results. Not a
mere mechanical scattering of the
printed VIC I'd is sufficient; but a wide
spread, deep and Intelligent dissemina-
ton of the everything truth of God
The Peerless Parable.
The most vivid bits of literature
which the world possesses today are
| the little stories from everyday life
| told two thousand years ago to groups
of open-eyed peasants by the new
Teacher from Galilee. Jesus invested
the common and material incidents OF
life with an uncommon and spiritual
significance. He made the world OF
ordinary things to glow with divine
truth. One of the best known of
these parallels, as they are called, is
that of the Sewer. Phrases from 1t
abound in our daily newspapers ana
common speech and the books we
read.
! A parable. is both a revealing and a
concealing of a truth. A little girl
once said that "a parable is an earth
! ly story with a heavenly meaning.
! Natural facts are made symbols OF
spiritual truths. The oriental mind
thinks in imagery and is better In
structed by Illustration than by logic.
The adroit use of a parable conceals
certain hidden meanings that the
teacher would have unfolded only to
those who are fit to receive them. or
profound significance is the word of
| the Master. in connection with this
parable to His twelve friends: Unto
YOU is given the mystery of the king
dom of God: but unto them that are
without, all things are done in para
bles-' The way to understand The
mind of Christ is to live close to the
| heart of Christ. A husband and wife
may say more by a single glance of the
eve than strangers can tell in an hours
| conversation. Friendship with Christ
is the rad to comprehension of His
teachings. Spiritual things are spi-
| H.
who reads the Bible does not find in it
the same luminous truth as the devout
| disciple who opens its pages to learn
the will of his Master and Friend
| 1.-The Great Idea"
! Among the Christians of the Levant
runs a phrase, 1.-The great idea" by
which they mean the restoration of
the cross to the Mosque of St. Sophia,
which was a sixth century church. In
their mind this symbolizeS the restor-
alton of Christianity's dominion on the
| BoSphorous. The great idea repre-
sents a large loyalty. Something of
| this eagerneSS for the Kingdoms conn
ing. and in clearer comprehension. is
abr DAD IN the earth today. The whole
passion of many noble souls in our
| times is for the contamination of that
| ideal condition which is the Kingdom
| of Heaven on earth.
| This present parable was spoken
concerning the Kingdom. To allow
the lesson to pass without meditation
upon the Kingdom and its coming
would be to miss the first Significance
of the lesson: it would be failure to
get the Urinary thought which Jesus
| meant to convey to His hearers as they
first heard this story warm from His
terder lips. This is an occasion to
pass in review the servants of the
Kingdom who are toi1ing all about us
the preachers, the Sunday school
l
tors and writer's. social settlement
workers, physicians, nurses, labor
| leaders, reformers-what a countless
company are living and laboring with
an eye single to that Kingdom which
is the contamination of Gods glory
| and mans welfare.
| For the sake of this service, men
| and women are sowing beside many
waters" The unmechanical, uncalcu-
lating lavish ways of the Oriental ag-
I xt<.5s1 ID -
means and by all means men and wo-
men try to bring in the Kingdom for
which, following in the train of Christ
they would give their lives. Today
We find greater variety of forces at
work for the Kingdom than ever be-
! fore in the history of the universe. The
Kingdom gospel is being preached to
all classes of people everywhere The
coming ofsthe Kingdom has created
a social ferment turnout the earth.
Books are being written, churches are
| even advertising in the newspapers,
meetings are being held in shops, or
CARNATIONS of boys and girls are being
perfected. and in a multitude of other
wrys the business of the coming King
dom is being DONE
SIDE by side with the worlds mill
tary activities today goes a Christian
service for the men that is without
parallel in all the history of the
/ church. Tossing aside conventional
indictments and usages, religion has
attired herself in new fashion to the
soldiers in ministry with a MESA ge.
The war-pioughed fields of France are
good soil for the word of life.
The -Four Kinds of Soil.
Some knowledge of Palestine is
needed to make clear this parable of
the sower. 1 RECALL one evening on
Mount Carmel when 1 saw, in one of
the fertile valleys of that famous spot,
all four of the conditions indicated in
the parable. The farmers in the Holy
Land live in villages and not amid
! their fields. There are no fences, but
! beaten paths, or "waysides," as they
are called in the story, between, the
| fields.
| Underneath the soil of Palestine lies
the great sub-stratum of rock which