The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-03-14
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL
LESSON
For March 16. is 1.-The Cities of
Refuge. Joshua 20.
Wars Wake of Crime.
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

For March 16. is 1.-THE Cities of
| Refuge. '-Joshua 20.
/ Wars Wake of Crime.
| Great Britain and France, more
than our favored land, underwent
| veritable wave of juvenile crime and
moral laxity during the later years OF
the war. The loosening of old re-
straints and conventions: the absence
of fathers and officials; the apotheo-
sis of violence in the public mind; the
concentration of public interest upon
overseas problems-a1 these consider
ations have been factors in producing
/ a condition which. is an after-the-War
problem. Even the returned soldiers
themselves, men of action, do not find
it easy to submit to civil law.
i Obviously, the war will have been
won il vain if the safety of all men
and all the orderly processes of or
ganized society, and the sanctity of
! Justice are not now firmly established
in the earth. All the considerations
that led to the overthrow of the lawless
Hun should now operate to preserve
us from a reign of lawlessness. 1t is a
timely lesson from the story of an
/ cient Israel that the Sunday schools
study today.
/ Justice should have a heavy hand
in dealing with offenders. With the
| Jews, as with all other Orientals. the
| shedding of blood meant one thing:
swift and certain punishment in kind.
Whose sheddeth mans blood" ran
the sure law, "by man shall his blood
/ be she'd" Crime was vigorously dealt
with. There was no maudlin senti-
| mentality shown to a murderer; con-
demned slayers of their follows did
not in those days receive baskets of
flowers and fruit from sympathetic
/ women
Undoubtedly one cause for the in
crease of capital crime is the fact that
SO many murderers go unpunished:
That TOO, is why lynchings have at
tanned the proportions almost of an
epidemic. All of this is closely related
to the fact that certain classes of pow
erful criminals have been able for
years to defy the law with impunity.
1t is impossible thus to overthrow jus
tice from hers seat in one case, and
then to expect her to resume her sway
in another. Except law be unhindefed
always, its operations cannot surely
be counted upon ever America has
been more sorely wounded than she
now realizes, by the men who have
tempered with justice.
i A sorry sight greets the eye of one
who looks around him to find justice.
The wheels of the courts move slowly
for one who has pull or pelf. Prisons
kstrangely open their doors for the re-
lease of such who may have been
forced to enter them. Law is quite
commonly looked upon as something
to evade; lawyers draw largest fees
for their skill in finding technicalities
thru which the plain purpose of stat
|, uteS may be evaded. Even courts
. sometimes show an excess of zeal in
interpreting the most rigid letter of
the law, to the neglect of it's spirit.
Corporations pay salaries which at
tract the brainiest legal talent, in or
der. usually, that they may defeat, in
! enactment or administration, legisla-
ton which conflicts with their inter-
ests. All this is one with the vast
popular demonstrations in behalf of a
labor leader on trial for his life; and
with the unrestrained utterance of
others in condemnation of him before
he is convicted. The Sunday school
teachers of America will be doing pa
triotic service if-they seize this proper
: occasion for laying stress upon the
sanctity of law
A Bedouin's Tale
Private vengeance is by no means
synonymous with justice. The ayenger
is seldom noted for his calm udgment
and discriminating temper. That is
why "Cities of Refuge became neces-
sary. For family feuds, whether in
Breathitt county, Kentucky, or in
Canaan, do not work out the social
well-being of the people. They are
the cause of great injustice and ter
rible loss of life.
The east hasAnot outgrown the sys-
tenn of privately administering law of
the sort that the wise Mosaic legisla-
ton .endeavored to overcome. SWING
ing along on the backs of dromedaries
over the Libyan desert, one day, my
Bedouin dragoman told me a tale that
| illustrates the theme under discussion.
In brief and shorn of its picturesque
local color and the quaint speech in
which Abdu1lah told it, the story is
this: lad of twelve one day was
in quarrel with some playmates
They tainted him with/the fact that
4 h
that the slayer still lived. The crime
had happened in the boys infancy, and
he had grown up ignorant of it. Co
ing home, he awaited his opportunity.
and when he found his mother near
the fire, he suddenly grasped her and
held her face near the blaze. threaten
jung to burn her unless she should re-
veal the slayer of his father.
The woman, who had kept the Sc
Icret from her son, out of dread for the
! bloody feud. was forced to name the
murderer. a prominent citizen of the
: next village. The boy went to the
village, having first borrowed neigh
u RS gun, and having found the man
elders. he approached him with the
: words, You killed my father; I am
. going to kill you" This he did
: straightway. Thereupon the elders
S the blood debt was due, and that the
boy had done right Thus a continu-
arce of the feud which might have
E resulted in the defamation of the
i neighboring villages. was averted.
. The Cities of Refuge.
/, From prehistoric times this custom
: has been practiced in the East II
was a custom attended by grave dam
= gers-the danger of making the blood
: avenger. or "goel. as the Hebrew has
it, an instrument of private revenge;
the danger of creating long bloody
feuds, with the determination of the