The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-13
International
SundaySchoolLesson
By WILLIAM T. ELLIS,

For February Is is peter and Cor
nelius."-Acts 10:30-4S.
A soldiers Religion.
Among the overlooked words of to-
day Use ''crisis': it has become shop
worn and edgeless. Some other term
must be used to express the grave and
decisive condition in which the world
finds itself. Humanity stands at a
cross roads. Destiny is to be deter
mined by present choices.
| History is 1andmarked by these
epochs of determination. One of them,
! in the early days of Christianity, was
| the experience of Cornelius. the Roman
Centurion, with Peter, the orthodox
| Jewish apostle. 1t settled that the
! gauge and not narrowgauge; COM
| prehensiVe,- and not national; liberal,
and not sectarian. The incident at
\ first reading may seem but a rivulets
| trlckle; but times vastest river was in
| its beginning. The analogous condi-
! tions today are bigger and clearer;
even a duilard cannot fail to see that
| this old world has come-to one of it's
momentous times of decision, on
which the future hangs.
| AS it was, so it is; the essential
religion of a soldier was the factor
| that precipitated the issue. Cornelius,
| in old Caesarea, had no more to do
| with Peters commission to go outside
| of Jewish bounds with the Good News
| than the soldiers of the great war
| have to do with the. bringing in of our
present era of multiplied movements
! for Christian unity, cooperation and
| tolerance. Religious narrowness was
| one of the casualties of the world war
! The bigot today writes himself down
las an intellectual Stacker. 1t is out of
+ the universal strife that the Inter
church World Movement, and the
other comprehensive forward move
| ments of the Christian Church have
| come.
y Public officials Faith.
It would be Interesting, if there
were room, to go into the fascinating
theme of the soldiers faith: instead
we can only glance at Cornelius, who
was not a church member but one
| of the great body of high principled
reverent-souled believers in God. He
| later followed the light he had into
the fuller light he needed. Meanwhile.
let US pause to pay tribute to the Of
ficials everywhere who sincerely
recognize their obligations to God.
| find in a late christian Observer" a
quotation from the recent inaugural
address of Edwin p. Morrow, governor
! of Kentucky, which has the Cornelius
tang to it:
81 am about to enter upon the dis
! charge of the arduous duties of my
| office. In my weakness I appeal
| for strength to the One Great Source
| OF strength. and humbly pray that
the God who makes and unmakes
nations. and who holds his children
| in the hollow of his hands, will give
| me vision to see and strength to do
| the right. that he will keep my feet
in the paths of duty and sustain me
| in the administration of law and
| justice-all to the end that I may
maintain the honor of this state and
promote the welfare of its peo-
| ple''
All over the military area of the
! Near East 1 found myself running into
sentiments of reverence and religious
expectancy on the part of soldiers.
| mostly British officers. Not a few of
them suggested the possibility of the
rise of a new religion. or the advent
of a great prophet: for they We're as
sured that such portentous conditions
as the world today confronts can be
met only with a spiritual remedy.
Here I set down, with hesitation,
lest it be misunderstood, a strange
fact in my own recent experience.
Over and over, within the six months
| that I have been back. in my native
land, I have found secular leaders, edi-
tors, officials, publicists expressing the
firm conviction that this is a time of
special religious questing and need ::
| that men and women feel unusually
eager for spiritual illumination and
| leadership. On the other hand, among
churchmen I have met little echo of
this, but only daZed sense that some
thing is amiss, and a rather hectic
eagerness to strengthen the material
and outward expressions of Christian
ity. There never were such financial
and organization Campaigns" among
the churches; but, aside from certain
I1A
and adventist theories, I seem to miss
the deep. yearning note of spiritual
hunger which is so manifest in the
world. Has the Visitation come to
Cornelius before the Vision is given to
Peter?
Two Ends of a Cannon.
Whenever we. lift the curtain of
literature and thought. The expert
ence of the young Christian church al
the time of this lesson was singularly
akin to our own. 1t was a period OF
peace after great strife. The Roman
Emperor CaIigula had sought to i'm
pose the worship of himself upon the
provinces. With irresistible fierceness
and fanaticisn, the Jews, including
the Christians, had withstood him for
a year and a half. The battle against
idolatry and the extreme form of the
divine right of kings was won.
Then came peace, a period in which
the Christians were free to trave
everywhere, and to pursue their mis-
, sionary operations without interfer-
ence. This accounts for the presence
Iof Peter at Joppa, the modern Jaffa
the city which, until the advent Of the
war was the principal port of entry
Into Palestine. Peter had already
grown liberal. for he was lodging with
tanner, a man of a despised calling
There befell one end of the story
, the other was being enacted up the
coast, in the city of Caesarea. Be
tween, was God. One man prayed ir
Caesarea, another prayed in Joppa
t neither community knew nor cared
, yet these prayers were the most his
toric events in the experience of both
cities Their consequences are de-
: scribed by one writer thus: we stand