The Topeka state journal., 1919-07-11
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL
LESSON
By WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

friend and compan-
ion, Prof. C. P. Russell, of Assiut. This
man Mohammed belongs to some
dervish order or other which finds
him friends continually. On the
trains. aboard ship, in the desert, ap-
parent1y everywhere in this part of
the world, he runs across fellow men,
bers of his order who help him thru.
I have seen him, in a strange city,
greet one of his fellow members most
solemnly with three claps of the
hand, and three touchings of the
breast and the forehead. The incident
naturally started thoughts of the de-
STABILITY of Il great fraternity, open to
all people everywhere, which would
and all the other obligations of broth
erhood.
Really, such a tie already exists.
There is a fellowship, circling the
world, made up of rich and poor, wise
and unlettered, old and young, and
as our man Mohammed has been eX-
periencing. That fellowship is the
Christian faith, and its initiatory rite
is the sacrament of baptism. Bap-
tized believers form the greatest
order in the world. They are bound
by the strongest ties. Their common
concerns and obligations are vaster
than any that the Berbers could pos
sibly know.
In a day Of theories. this is not
theory. The greatest bonds on earth
or in heaven are those which unite
the disciples of Jesus. For the sake of
a secret society or a social club or a
political organization, few men would
care to die Thruout long centuries,
tho, men and women and even lit
tie children have gone smilingly to
death for the sake of the church OF
Christ. That church is today the most
widespread, the most potent, the most
hopeful of all organizations into which
mankind has been gathered. Some
times she is laggard, and slow to dis
Germ the signs of the times or to hear
the voice of divine opportunity; never
theless, the church possesses the power
to save our imperilled civilization, and
to give vital effect to the new pro-
grams of human welfare which
have emerged from the war.
The Admission Fec
There is a price to membership in
this biggest and best of bodies. Our
vague thinking time is attempting to
create-as witness recent experiments
in New York aud Cairo-a new sort
of church without tests or obligations,
wherein Christian, 'Moslenl, Jew, and
agnostic may stand on a common
basis of membership. This is no new
-folly; but it is still folly. There is one
ship in the Christian church, and that
is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as
| Saviour and Lord.
Societies and clubs galore may be
constituted on a looser foundation;
and in business and politics and So
cial relations people of all creeds may
rningle fmoniously. But the Chris
tan church is composed exclusively
| of the disciples of Christ, who have
| paid the admission fee of surrender
| of their own wills to his sovereignty;
| SO that they no longer belong to
| themselves, but to him. This unity of
obligation and Of spirit, so that the mind
| of Christ may work out in the acts of
| his friends, is what gives the church
| her unmatched potentiality a force
for good will and brotherhood and
progress among mankind. Thru
| her the sublime ideals of Jesus be-
| come operative. She would lose her
power if she relaxed the essential con-
| dition of her membership. The doors
of church membership are open to all
people everywhere who will consent
to pay the price of entrance.
| A Universal Rite
One condition that Jesus himself
attached to the work of fdisciplining the
world was that all recruits should be
| baptized into the name of the Father,
ISon and Holy Spirit. Varying views
of baptism are held by different
/ branches of the Christian church. but
all accept the instttution-although
the Society of Friends discards the
outward symbol and regards only the
| spiritual baptism. With this single
| exception, so far as 1 am aware, all
groups of Christians everywhere
Greeks, Latins. Protestants, Grego-
rians, HISTORIANS, Abyssinians and the
| other representatives of the eastern
church-employ the rite of baptism
by water. Save for a few Protestant
bodies, all use the method of sprink-
ling, rather than immersion.
URon this point there used to be
heated controversies. especially in
America. Our days mood is opposed
to these discussions: whatever the
| mode, baptized believers are truly
baptized into the mystical body of
Christ, who himself ever deemed the
spirit, and not the letter, the essen
tial thing. Friends and followers of
Jesus have too serious business on
! hand in these days to permit them to
| differ about interpretations of forms
| Reunion for service and union with
Christ are the essential things which
are not to be hindered by the amount
of water used in carrying out the sac
rament and symbol of baptism.
The meaning of this rite is three
fold. It suggests submission to the
salvation and sovereignty of Christ;
the baptized one is offered up to the
ordinance and the obligation. 1t is
a masters mark on the forehead
Then the use of water is a symbol OF
cleansing; all who Join Jesus must be
washed of their sins and their self
will That is what mankind needs
most A holy heart-cIeansing would
do more for the world than the
League of Nations
At the very portal of admission t.
the Christian fellowship stands thi:
sign of purified nature. Nobody i,
truly baptized into Christ who persist:
in known sin. The sacrament of bap.
tisrn VIII not save such. It is the out.
ward token of an inward reality, Only
clean church can conquer corrup
world.
In the third place this rite is a mys
terry. 1t represents a spiritual unior
between the human heart and the di
vine Lord. No man can tell how thii
I takes place; any more than the scien
lists can explain the union of two hu
man hearts in true love. Despite anC
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