The Topeka state journal., 1919-12-26
International
SundaySchoolLesson
BY WILLIAM 7. ELLIS.

/ BY WILLIAM 7. FILLS.
For December rs Is, "The Training Of
Peter and john John 1:1-9.
! Two Workingmen Who Changed
| World
| Upon the clouded horizon of the
| restless world today the most hope
full sign is the fact that Jesus and
most of his apostles were calious-
/ palmed workingmen.
| That pportends peace. When the
| worlds toilers turn from the shrill,
harsh and hate-filled voices of pres
ent day leaders" they will be ready
| to listen to the quiet, confident tones
of the fellow workingmen who, altho
they lived in Asia nearly two thou
sand years ago, still have the most
modern messages for today.
Most of what is wrong with this old
earth-its injustice, its evasions, its
nesS-ls due to plain miSunderStand-
| ing. Whatever peril there is in our
own present situation arises from the
lack of confidence of masses of people
in the sincerity and sympathy of law
makers and executives They feel
that their viewpoint is not the view
point of the dominant few.
Jesus and his associates are not
! subject to this suspicion. They were
plain people, workers with their
hands. They experienced the lot of
the poor. All their teaching revealed
a sympathetic comprehension of the
loads that the mass Of mankind carry.
One of our modern poets. Sara n.
Cleghorn. has strikingly voiced this
message from the Bible:
Thanks to Saint Matthew, who had been
At mass meetings in Palestine.
We know whose side was spoken for
When comrade Jesus had the floor.
Among the great unwashed dwell I =
The tramp, the convict, am he:
Cold shoulder him, cold-shoulder me-
"By Dives door. with thoughtful eye,
he did tomorrow prophesy =
Ttn ne KIN knhg1om gate Is low ana small
"a dangerous man, said Caiphas;
An ignorant demagogue, alas!
Friend of low women, 1t is he
ISLANDERS the upright Pharisee.'
For law and order, it was plain.
For Holy Church, He must be slain.
The troops were there to awe. the crowd,
And violence was not allowed.
-Their clumsy force with force to foil
His strong. clean hands He would not soil.
He saw their childishness quite plain
Between the Hghtnlngs of His pain.
"Between the twilight of His end.
He made His fellow-felon friend:
with swollen tongue and binding eyes,
Invited him to Paradise.
"AhS let no local Him refuse!
G9mTade Whatade Jesus etSs- hath St paid his dues
Comrade Jesus hath his red card'
Where 1t All Occurred.
This is the time for the long look
backward. The international Sunday
School Lesson Committee has assigned
for this Review the topic 1.-The Train
ing of Peter and John" They were
the two apostles who figured in the
years studies So we are to take a
broad, far survey of them, and Of the
conditions amid which they lived. Per-
haps we may catch a new glimpse of
the Importance to our own world of
these two Asiatic workingmen of the
long ago.
That there is such g. thing as
place providence, no reverent student
of history will deny There is a geog-
raphy of God. He has chosen certain
lands as the scene of his major opera
tions. A myriad preachers have seen
such significance in the situation OF
this western continent. Anew, as of
old, the shores of the Mediterranean
are the theater of vast and world
Transforming events. The Holy Land
has been the battle-ground Of the ages
and the living spring Of waters from
which world-encircling streams have
flowed.
gent should know where Palestine is
The vagueness with which all foreign
lands are regarded as "over there" is
not creditable to the general education.
once asked a class of college stu
dents to tell me how to go to Jerusa-
lem; not one could do so: most of
them got only as far as Paris. The
men of the Bible will never be real to
us unless the places of the Bible are
also real. The Book is not in the
category with Mother Goose and the
Fairy Tales; altho Christian people
not few regard it with somewhat the
same sense of unreality. A map will
make clear why Peter and John were
at place of universal potency.
Orange Trees and Men.
I have seen orange groves bearing
at the same time blossoms and ripe
fruit. Which is symbolical. Certain
lives, like those of the two GaliIean
under review, are bearing the Bios
SONS Of tomorrow's fruit, even while
producing fruit today. Peter and
John have profoundly affected human
history; they are among the races
few. shaping men; yet their greatest
work is yet to be done.
1t seems as If the world today is
all of a sudden and all in the new.
plastic, and formative. We have
come, as it were. to a time of uni
versal social new birth. All the old
forces and institutions are being re-
valued. Some are being rejected,
after centuries of use. Others are
coming into fresh power, The char
acter. and message of the great build
ers, like Jesus and his apostles, are
now entering into a remade oppor-
tunity. Like a discovered die, they
may stamp their impress upon the
currency of humanity. In all the long
stretches of time, has there ever been
an hour so full of possibility as this
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.,
The George NJ