The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-03-05
: International
SundaySchoolLesson
For March is. Christian Love. .
John 4:z-21.

Getting a Big Idea of God.

sions are held by every wide observer,
home from the war zone. The first,
which startles and chills him. is that
the home folks nave not awakened to
the real meaning of the world cata-
clysm and that the churches especially
are plodding along in the beaten
paths, almos tas if nothing had hap
pened. The second impression, which
is largely one that he has brought
back from overseas, is that out of the
present universal human upheavaI
| there is emerging a vaster, nobler con-
ception of religion and of God.
Tribal faith has been everywhere
shaken. Plagiarism, Northumberland,
and Christian sectarianism have all
been Jolted out of their ancient COM
placencies. While the rank and file of
church members may not know it.
Christendom has been set to examin-
Ing anew the foundations of its beliSs.
and especially of it's ecclesiasticisr1.
Already there have resulted move
ments for closer Christian co-opera-
ton and fraternity that are fairly
worldwide.
Even the rigid and intolerant
ancient churches of the old world
| nave felt the revolutionary and vital
lzlng force of the new times In the
presence of the world transformation
denominationalfsm and provincialisn
ana intolerance seem strangely pl1ny
and out of place. None of them has A.
god great enough for the present hour.
Nobody openly holds the conception
OF heaven which is
| AN aristocracy of virtuous souIs
" mere the self-righteous sun themselves
forever
Petty matters of ritualism and
church forms and orders and dtsci-
! PIES sink into deserved insignificance
alongside of the awesome truth thar
| GOD is reveal limo
IN larger aspect to our troubled time.
Are We Learning Wars Lesson?
Prejudice and craftsmanship beyond
count went down before the war. Nom
essentials naturally gravitated, like
burnt-out Goals. to the ash-pit. All
thinking persons everywhere got, more
or less vaguely, a larger idea of God
| vast events implied a Vaster Cause.
ReVerent spirits could not escape the
conclusion that the Infinite is doing
/ something tremendous with our world
something beyond our power to
Each in his own fashion of speech
! cried, In fear or expectation.
| Our God is marching ont"
There was period. during the last
! two years of active warfare, when
J from the depths the chastened spirits
of mankind saw glorious significance
In the struggle. That was the time
| -1O~~--0NAAI
Tennyson,
| All when shall all mems good
Be each mans rule and universal peace
/ Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And IKE lane Of beams athwart the
sea-"
| Those were the days of war aims
| which sought a world safe for de-
mocracy, and proclaimed liberty for
all the oppressed of earth. Then we
| glimpsed a golden age of Righteousness
| for mankind.
Now we are in the time of world
| slump, and of reaction from this ex-
allied mood. Our ideals have become
strangely perverted. A saturnalia of
i selfishness prevails thruout the earth.
Antipathies are many and bitter. II
| almost seems as If our best had be-
| come our worst; and that huma nifty
! had emerged from the war impenitent
unchastened and untaught.
Spelling the Big Word.
/ Even at the present hour. however.
there are discernible deeper tides
flowing over the earth. Politicians
/ everywhere are wrangIing over bor-
| derS and spheres" and rights and
htreaties; but the spiritual sense of the
race perceives that the results and re-
wards of the war should be greater
than these relatively small and con-
| mountaineering things. So terrible a
school should have taught the great
est lessons. Therefore we discern.
PAL tlCu1dIly among the nOn-reASlouS,
! If we dare use such a phrase a reach
| ing out after God. New faiths and
new forms are having great vogue,
! only because they profess to make the
! Unseen near and real. Like a sick
man who in desperation tries all new
! remedies taht appear. so humanity in
! its hurt and it's hunger is reaching
tout in many directions for satisfac-
ton.
What the world really wants and
also needs-for wants an dneeds are
not always the same-is just that
I often neglected revelation of God
which we have in the present Sunday
School Lesson. as written in his old
age by John, the beloved disciple, who
! leaned on the Masters breast in the
very heart of God. That revelation
| is simply that God is love" Below
the register of the clamorous and con-
tending worlds outcries, all who will
call of Incarnate Love to mankind
/ An old anonymous poem puts the
basic teaching quantity:
MY blood so red
For thee was shed.
Come home again, some home again;
| You've gone astray
Out Of the way.
Come home again, come home again.
Rather frequently we hear quoted
nowadays the familiar words oil
I Augustine: Thou hast made us fol-
Thyself. o Lord. and our hearts will
never be at rest until they rest ii
Thee"
a Lovers Litany.
p A man travelled far. from time tc
time, to visit the woman he loved; ant
they never separated without reading
together this Lovers Litany, which il
the days Lesson. Their human love
had been born and blessed and beau.
titled in this Divine love, for, as the
text runs. I'VE love. because He frs
loved u.s." Love so begotten and rec
ognized outlasts changes of temper
and time and condition. There is nj
by-path from this chapter leading Il
!, the divorce court. It is no mere co
incidence that the homes of happiness
and love are homes whose acknowl
edge head is the Christ of love.
Let US quote, from the American
Revision the Divine Word that sur
passes all comment:
Beloved, let US love one an
| other: for love is of God: and every