The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-04-26
For April % Is Jesus Rebukes Self
ishness. Mark 9:30-50.

America, after five months in Russia
and before returning to Britain and
France. Naturally, my mind was
sensitive to first Impressions. I saw
my country with new eyes-eyes that
had been focused on the great world
struggle and that had come to look
upon all of life in it's relation to this
war for righteousness and the eman-
cipation of mankind.
My first shock came upon finding
that the United States did not really
understand that it was at war. and
what the war meant. OF course, in
the hearts of an uncounted host of
people there had arisen the great
purposes of the war and a new vision
of life's ultimate verities. But to the
man coming back and looking at the
surface of things, there is apparent
an undiminished gayety; the same
old extravagant devotion to styles in
dress, sumptuous feasting in hotels
and clubs and public functions, and
much of the formal round of prosper
recurring in my mind was, MY peo
pie do not understand"
The Little Amid the Big.
This engrossment in littleness in an
hour of bigness is paralleled by the
experience of Jesus with His disci-
pies shortly after the TRANSPORTATION.
He opened His heart to these init
mates concerning the ultimate things.
Weighing upon His spirit was the be-
trayal and the crucifxion and the
resurrection-the uttermost meaning
of His mission He had taken them
apart in Galilee in their journey to
Capernaum, expressly that He might
talk over without interruption from the
crowd, the profound things that were
forthcoming. 1t was the supreme les
son in His school that He was trying
TIL 81 he
not understand. The word was too
great for their comprehension. Had
they been able to grasp it they would
have been saved from their abySmal
depression after the crucifixion. for
the Master clearly told them what was
forthcoming.
The tragic aspect of this misunder-
standing is not primarily that the men
could not rise to the high level of the
new meaning of the Messiahship. 1t
was that in this splendid and sublime
hour the disciples were busy about
talking of the fulfillment of His mis-
sion. They were talking of places for
themselves. He was unfolding d1-
vine purpose. They were engrossed in
petty personal plans. He spoke of the
climax, of remuneration and suffering
and NERVOUSNESS; they were interest
ed only in their petty ambitions and
who should be first among them.
Ecclesiasucism or Ministry.
That misconception of His dearest
friends, who could not enter with Him
into His greatest experience, must
have torn the tender heart of Jesus;
but worse indeed was it for Him to
know that in the hour when He spoke
most fully of loves sacrifice they were
occupied with the things of selfish
ness.
Paralleling that incident is the man
icI OF hiS Of
many men and organizations are fail
ing to comprehend the meaning of
the worlds crisis and to fling them
selves with Self-abandonment into its
purposes, but instead are striving to
get individual advancement out of it.
/ see ecclesiastical organizations of va
rious sorts and institutions without
number. who are trying to get aboard
the war chariot as if it were a band
wagon, bending the great cause and
the peoples devotion thereto to their
| own small and selfish ends These are
interpreting religion in terms of eccle-
siasticism and not ministry. They
strive to get rather than to give. They
are like the disciples, ambitious for
place when their Lord would teach
them sacrifice even unto death.
Clear, comprehensive and forever
applicable is the teaching that Jesus
gave to the twelve: IF any man de-
sire to be the first, the same shall be
we look upon the magnificent min
istry of mercy that has followed in
the wake of the war-tenderly reared
women toiling like scrub women at
the humb1est work; leaders in the
realm of business casting all their in
terests aside to work for a dollar a
year for the government; young men
abandoning their careers to go into IL.
trenches or to drive am balances at
the front: women and men at the
home base toiling with unflagging zeal
and unpretentiouS devotion and self
effacement to serve the great cause
and mankind in this hour of supreme
opportunity.
The One Whom Children Liked.
In the home1y everyday fashion of
using illustrations and parallels that
marked all His teaching, Jesus under
| took to show His foolish disciples the
better way by taking little child and
setting it in the center of the group,
declaring that it is the child mind of
simplicity that inherits the kingdom
and that to minister to one of these
! little ones is the same as ministering
| to Jesus himself.
| light upon the personality of Jesus.
He was the sort of man to whom a
child would naturally give his conf
| dence. Mark pictures Jesus with His
arms around the child while He talked
with the disciples. Not every doctor
of divinity or eminent church official
would find a child so responsive to his
personality. 1 once heard DR.. jam
A. Worden say, THAT the judgment
which a, little child has of you may be
taken as a slice of the great Judgment
Day." We cherish the picture of Je-
sus as the congenia1 companion of in
nOcent childhood.
The Child as a Cure.
Harried and troubled. men and
women often find the company of a
| little child the best .,r cures for their
cares 1t seems as If the presence of
| the little one whom Jesus had used
as an illustration turned even His
| thoughts away from the suspicion,
strife and contention of His Disciples
and set Him to thinking about the
grace of the simple heart and of