The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-03-21
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL
LESSON
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.

4
BY WILLIAM 7. ELLIS. IL
For March % Is Israel Warned |
Against Compromise" - Joshua j
23:i-24:2s. |
Facing the Facts.
The first test of intellectual hon. |
esty is willingness TO face and admit |
all the facts. Lacking this. a man is
a negligible quality. No milder words
than coward and weakling will serve
to characterize the person who will
not accept any demonstrated truth.
This is the heresy which oftenest pa
rades as orthodoxy. No man is ortho-
dox who goes back on what is true.
This pusillanimous course may save |
him some hard knocks. but it will
shrivel up his own soul, which, after
all, is the one great disaster most to
be feared.
The call of the day is the call to
face the facts. Let a man examine
himself, to see where he stands on all
of lite's big questions. Stock-taking
in character is not so common as In
business Even in the commercial
world there is occasionally to be found
a man who will not admit to himself
what are the real conditions; he
lodges the actualities until. one day,
! the great crash comes. That sort OF
self-deluding temperament always
|
able explanation of the many moral
catastrophes in life is that the victims
have simply drifted into ship-wreck.
| Their life was never steered. They
had no definite purposes. They sim
| ply went along, letting chance winds
and currents direct him. Amazingly
few persons think things thru for
| themselves, or have frequent reck-
oning with their own life.
Stock-Taking in Life.
| The wise man occasionally takes
time to Sit down and cross-examine
himself He does as Israel did. under
Joshua's dying instructions-have an
understanding as to where he stands.
Taking nothing for granted, he retra-
| verses the old ground of first princi-
pies. He goes down into LIES deep re-
lationships. First. he renews his own
character: just what sort Of person is
he at heart?
| Then he sings a song of praise for
his physical we'll being. 1t rarely &C.
ours to one to be thankful for good
health until it is gone. Home and
amily are themes for meditations and
gratitude; oftentimes a man is so en-
crossed in making money that he does
not find time to entertain the thought
that in his wife and children he has a
priceless fortune.
A mans neighbors congratulate him
when he is promoted to a five thou
sand dollar job, or when he falls heir
T to few THOUSAND dollars. They are
not aware of the greater fortunes that
come in life's spiritual relationships:
nor frequently is the man himself. An
, intelligent acceptance of the fact that
real riches are of the heart. and that
life's most important concerns are
those which belong in the realm of
/ the spirit, would cause many person
to write down as his greatest asset the
old, old fact of-God.
He is following the wisdom of the
, | Israelites who reviews his position
with respect to Jehovah. A reaffirma-
ton Of ones fundamental religious be-
lief wondrously clears life's atmos-
phere. For or against, every think
| ing person owes it to his own char
acter and capabilities to decide the
question of his attitude toward God.
The Idols Under the Floor.
4 A ,side-Iight upon the situation in
Canaan is shed by old Joshua's ex-
hortation, Put away the gods which
your fathers served beyond the river.
In this plea to serve Jehovah In sin
Fcerity and in truth there is an 1mpii'
cation that Israel was covertly cling
ing to the old idols.
That is understandable. The break
with heathendom on the part or q
Christian convert requires tremend-
Gus wrench. 1t is break with al
the 'past-with the ideas, fears, super
| stitions and associations which have
been ground into his consciousness
since earliest infancy. The wonder il
scarcely that so many converts relapse
into the old worship, but that so Few
do,
Missionaries have told me that
sometimes converts, instead of throw
; ing away or utterly destroying theil
idols, have put them under the fioor'
of their houses, so that in case they
should ever want them again the,
y would be on the safe side" In Homo
/ T
Hawaiian Islands have been Christian
lied, yet in the very capital itself-a
modern, civilized American city-th'
old idols rites and spirit worship are
, still practiced.
] Without going so far away from
home as Hawaii or Japan or Canaan
we may find in every one of our Noitf
American cities today relics of bar
barism and superstition. walked
down a principal street of Middle
t West city, and I saw a succession Of
1 signs of mediums" "palnlists," clair
: voyants," and other fortune-tellers
Some big hotels and steamships have
: no room number thirteen Nam
. adults who have passed thru our mod
t ern educational system will not begiI
= a journey on Friday, and the breaking
= of a mirror, the upsetting of a sal
| cellar, or the sight of a black cat arr
< matters of real concern to person.
n not a few The reversion of Israel Il
f its idols is not without present-da!
. parallels.
e The Competition OF Gods.
7 This western world is 80 monothe
. istic in all its thinking that II Otter
:. fails to read the Bible sympathetical
1y. Undoubtedly there existed, in tn
q Old Testament era, in the minds o
= both the Jews and in the surrounding
? nations, the idea that Jehovah wa
: | merely a national Diety. as opposed I,
: the deities of other nations The idei
, that Jehovah was in competition will
other gods clearly runs thru the his
q tory of early Israel. Joshua put /
: BADLY when he said, in the word
Y which are the nub of this lesson, "Ant
r IL it seem evil unto you to serve tn
v Lord. choose ye this day whom y
: will serve: whether the gods which