The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-10-10
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL
LESSON
4 :14-2c.
On the Way to a Better Day.
BIZ WILLIAM z. ELLIS.


Lake OF Galilee. 1t carries passen-
gers from the station of the Haifa-
Damascus railroad at the foot of the
| lake to the town of liberals. the only
surviving community on the edge of
this once populous sheet of water.
Capefnaum is a ruin; Bethsaida and
Chorazin and Magdala and Gadara
have disappeared Tiberias is a Jew
ish town. where rival sects of old
world Jews maintain their theological
and ecciesiastical orthodoxy to the
mint and eumn1in degree-in a town
of Understandable stencil and unsani-
tary conditions.
Fellow passengers on the motor
boat are Jewish colonists, British SOL
diers, Turkish prisoners. and native
Arabs and Galileans. While we wait
for our journey across the lake to be-
gin, olive skinned small boys sport in
the water, diving for coins, and show
shining, smiling, winsoTne faces, with
Iustrous black eyes and beautiful teeth,
reminding one of that Other Boy who
used to trudge across the hills from
Nazareth in order to go in swimming
here; and who later made His home
and did His work and spoke His words
by This very lake.
OF course 1 went swimming in Cali
lee, overheard from a native boat in
the middle of the lake; and of course
went fishing there, thinking all the
while of the other fishermen, brawny,
dusky fellows, just like my boatmen,
who quit their nets in order to become
fishers of men and moulders of the
new world order which is still today
the highest hope of mankind.
One Prophet Dead. Greater Comes.
Back of the short story which is the
basis of today's Lesson lies a great
principle. John the Baptist, the rising
star of his time, the most promising
pertent upon his days horizon, was
dead. That news sounded like the
kneI of hope to many who had been
fired by his assurance that the king
dom which spelt deliverance for all
bufdened hearts was near at hand 1t
seemed as if the very existence of this
better day which he heralded was de-
pendent upon the continuance OF the
message and ministry of John himself.
If ever a man seems Indispensable to
a critical time, that man was John the
Bap tist.
And he was dead. What now of his
good news and his promised kingdom?
God removes the worker, but He car
ries on the work" Sometimes He has to
remove the worker in order to carry
on the work. John had gone his linn
it: had spoken his word, had uttered
his call. He could dc no more. HIS
place was only that of herald and
fingerboard. His success depended
upon Somebody's coming after him.
with larger vision and a greater
word. Nobody knew this SO well as
John. He joyfully laid down his tools,
and gave up his life, for he saw that
another could fulfill his beginning. In
Whittiers words:
'.What matter, 1 or they?
Mine or another's day,
SO the right word be said
And life the sweeter made?
| Hail to the coming singersi
Hail to the brave Hght-brtngers-
+ Forward 1 reach and share
All that they sing and dare.
/ ring. bells in unreared steeples,
The joy of unborn peoples.
Sound. trumpets far off blown,
Your triumph is my own
The Key of Life's Puzzles.
Back to work went the men who
had followed John the Baptist Did
it seem a slump from the exciting
times of the revival by the Jordan
with the crowds, the comnfotion and
the everchanging scenes OF interest!
AS those fishermen turned back to the
heavy, monetonous, arduous task of
fishing in Galilee, their first instinc-
tive feeling, doubtless. was akin to
that of the soldiers returned from the
great war to humdrum tasks of peace.
They were wise enough, tho. to know
that work is the sovereign remedy:
to have work to do, and a will to do
it, is to be in possession of the pana-
cea for most of life's ills. The wise
men of our own time are crying
aloud this truth as g remedy for pres
| ent social economic and political
troubles. Work has slaekened; pro-
duetion is below normal; labor is COM
ing to be looked upon as an evil and
not as boon. Now is the time for all
of US to follow the example of the
| apostles of old, and in a period of I'M
certainty and of waiting, betake our
selves to labor. hard. engrossing. I'M
grudging labor. Much of what is
be righted by sheer industry of a pro-
ductive character.
| While we wait and work. the way
cut will appear. God seems not to
like to do business with idleFs: where
as the devil traffics chiefly with per-
sons who are not busy. The four fish
ermen were toiling at the drudgery of
their heavy calling-I am thinking of
the huge oars and cumbersome boats
| of Galilee-when Jesus appeared to
them. Nets were weighty. and the
men worked, often, up to their mid
die in water. 1t was no fly-casting
sort Of fishing that these Galileans
were doing. but the back-aching work
| of manual laborers when they heard
the voice that called them to their
careers.
News Sense in a Leader.
Some men have that pictorial and
pertinent quality called a news
sense" Their, conception of timeliness
and opportuneness is highly developed.
The living present is their meter.
They speak and write to the occasion
and to the hour. Such a one was
Jesus, the most vivid of teachers. On
| this tour of Galilee, wherein he called
the four first disciples, he was preach
ing the present good news of a king
| dom near at hand-''the time is full
! filled"-and echoing Johns great call
| to repentance.
| This fact is often forgotten. Jesus
| began his ministry by proclaiming a
better social order. He was the ex-
! ponent of kingdom, an organization
of men and women with God as their
king. Anybody who says that religion
| has nothing to do with conditions in
the world. and in the welfare of pee-
pie economically and socially. has been
| a blind reader of the RihIe Mora