The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-01-31
INTERNATIONAL
SUNDAY SCHOOL
LESSON
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
For February 2, is 1.-The Giving of the
Manna.''-Exodus 1916.

glad for the experience. AS every
traveller knows, the British are
famous grumblers about their food;
I have heard them grousing clear
around the world. Yet when the
rationing schemes was put into effect
for all, from king to coster, l never
heard q whimper. All men adjusted
themselves to the rigorou regime
cheerfully, for the sake of an ideal
1t revealed the truth that character
has made great advances since the
days of the whimpering Jews who
would have exchanged their liberty
for the flesh pots of Egypt.
Nobody can contemplate the spirit
in which the allieds nations carried
on under wars restrictions without
a sense of pride in the wholesome,
brave and ideahstic spirit of our peo-
pie. The spectacle is a discouraging
one for pessimists. North America
voluntarily rationed itself in order to
feed the world. With plenty in its
hands, it denied itself for the sake of
a service and a conviction.
Bread Lines, Old and New.
This far have we advanced, that
the number of persons who will volun-
tarily go hungry for the sake of an
ideal is not SO small. The enamel
pated Jews were not among them.
When the pangs of hunger attacked
them, they forgot all about the joys
of liberty, about the marvellous cross
ing of the Red Sea, about the miracles
of the plaques, about the Passover and
about the twelve springs at Elm, and
remembered only the flesh pots of
Egypt. They preferred bread with
beatings to hunger with honor.
One ailment of these wanderers, as
of persons not a few today, was their
backward or forward. They could not
see beyond the present. When l shiv-
cred in the cold of Manchuria I
thought that 1 would never again
grumble at the heat; but in India
temperature of $50 degrees smote me
zero weather. Past and future were
blotted out for these Israelites by the
consciousness that they were hungry;
if they could only be fed. they foolish
ly reasoned, they would mind no other
ills.
Facing the Vcrities.
A certain mild-spoken son of
preacher remarked, in commenting
upon one of his Boyyille quarrels,
Il don't know why it is, but somehow
L never get to be really good friends
with a fellow until have licked him.
There is philosophy lying back of the
youngsters remark. Jehovah could
never get along with His chosen peo-
pie until He had shown them His
sovereignty, and that they were de-
pendent wholly upon Him. Now once
again in the wilderness as in Egypt
and at the Red sea, the Israelites had
to be brought face to face with the
great verify, that it is God who pro-
vides.
This was the lesson that was being
taught, line upon line, precept upon
-precept," in that forty-four session of
The Wilderness School. The Jews had
to learn before they could become in
truth a nation, that Jehovah alone was
God, and that He was their God, their
guide, their protector, their provider.
Proud man ha sto be made aware of
his insufficiency; earth is utterly de-
pendent upon heaven. In the face of
storm, a drouth, flood, he is as help
less as a cockleshell upon the wind
tossed ocean. To learn the existence
of heaven it is worth while to feel the
shaking of earth beneath ones feet.
The tremendous and vital truth of
Gods providence may not be OBJ
scured by secondary causes. What if
He chooses to send our daily bread
by the way of the wheat field, the mill
Ter and the bake oven, instead by rain
from heaven? as Maltbie d. Babcock
sang:
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
And back of the flour the mill
And back of the mill is the wheat and the
shower,
And the sun and the Fathers WILL
Greedy and Grumbling
Loyalty is the mark of the good
soldier A really fine fighter is sure
to be a man who trusts his leaders
in adversely as well as in prosperity.
The universal revulsion against the
German outburst of whimpering and
faultfinding shows that there is
wholesome and instructive repugnance
in human nature against a lack of
loyalty and stamina. In what glaring
contrast it has been to the spirit of
that brave Englishman, Henley, who
sang:
"In the fell clutch of circumstance,
l have not WINGED nor cried aloud;
Beneath the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.'
Those ungratefu1 slaves, 1.-The whole
congregation of the children or
Israel" turned against their leaders
as soon they felt the pinch of hard
ship. Hear them: Would that we
had died by the hand of Jehovah in
the land of Egypt, where We sat the
flesh-pots. where we did eat bread to
the full; for We have brought us forth
into this wilderness to kill this whole
assembly with hunger
Poor Moses, He deserves the sym
pathy which every great leader always
deserves and rarely receives; and
especial commiseration should be ex-
tended to him because he had to work
with an uncommonly forgetful, I'M
grateful. unappreciative and rebellious
aggregation of followers. Everybody
finds it hard to work with people, and
many are prone to say that they have
the most uncongenial and difficult
company of associates. BUT Moses
really did have a rare lot oftspineless
grumblers on his hands. What a SER
mon he could preach on the grace of
good naturei
Among earth's martyrs must be
counted those who have to live with
complaining, fault-finding, whimpeT-
ing and petulant persons. More un-
happy homes are caused by nagsing
and Miniature than by marital infidel-
ity. Just as this wicked habit Greatly.
is drunkenness much worse?) turns
the married state, which God meant to
be a blissful one. into a state of tor
ment, so fretting. worrying and fear