The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-01


News! News! News! What a part
it plays in everybody's life-newS ex-
changed over the fence between neigh-
bors: news wherever folk gather; news
in every mail; news in overwhelming
and strangely assorted volume from
the press big news and little news;
fresh news and old news; good news
and sad news. Here is one mail 1
have this afternoon messages from
friends whose wives have passed on
to await them in the land of no part
ings; news of a friend who has taken
a bride from afar; and news of an
other friend who has done deed OF
heroism and derring-de in Bible lands
Most news is of passing. trivial inter-
est. Other news transforms life. Some
news has come down the centuries,
exercising more power than armies or
auteerats. Such is the news assigned
as today's Sunday School Lesson, the
Good News which is good udings
of great Joy" For the Sunday schools
now enter upon course in the Lire
of Christ: aptly classified as "Fhe
Gospel of the Kingdom" That is what
everybody wants to hear now-good
news of a social order that is today
desperately perturbed. The world was
never reader for tidings of the king
dom than now.
The Cry of the Babe.
Around newspaper offices and he-
tells and clubs, and the usual haunts of
city men, there are no babies. Per-
haps that is one reason why so much
eff eur writing and discussion is out of
perspective and aside frem the mark.
Broadway is a problem because no
babies are to be seen there
This summer 1 have been expert
encing a great reinsurance; for nave
been travelling from small town to
small town over the land where the
babies abound. Hundreds of them
have been in my audiences, but even
when they cry 1 am not disturbed for
they have helped me see present
problem in a new and brighter light.
The fact of the existence of all the
countless babies of the world is good
news-good news in the large, even as
1t is good news to individual family
circles
Here is the old. old idea that has
suddenly been made new to me; that
God inaugurates a better day for the
world by the Dirt h of the babe. Even
as the Kingdom of Heaven dawned
at the manger of the Bethlehem
Child, so the nebler social order Is
primarily assured by the needs of
every child and the love it calls forth.
Mankind is not going to run wild, de-
spite the fears of the timorous, be-
cause of the primal instinct of every
man to make a safe and comfortable
home for his children, and their
mother
There is ne other stabilizing in
! fluenee an earth to equal the touch
| of a beby's hand upon the heart of
strong man.
| Who has not watched young people
who were. but yesterday Needless boys
and girls, become Shgrossed in q. wee
pink bit Of huma Hity as if it versa
new wonder and king of the world?
AS indeed it is. For that child makes
nam and woman of its parents, and
squares their shoulders to the respon-
I sibilities of life. In the Orient, the
land OF, Jesus birth, the greatest of
sorrows to a man or woman is net
% become the parent ef,a son. There
is no. Sinking the cares of parenthood
in the oldest part of the world. s7No-
/ body -dger there would eyer put the
possibility ssof a 'eareer'' above the
privilege Of parenthood.
! One OF Sthe, most heaEtening sights
of the Holy Land to me las. year was
the daily pilgrimage of British soldiers
from all parts of the empire, to the
/ Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem:
where, at this hour, a British soldier
standi guard at the grotto wherein
Jesus was born.
The Lure of the Highest.
Truth, highest truth, is of such a
nature that it allures to itself the al
legiance of all noble souls. Wise men
/
Humanity's hope lies in tho tremen-
dous truth that SO many choice spirits
are born with the supreme am bition
to follow the gleam." The attractive
power of the best is one of Gods laws
of spiritual gravity. Wherever on
earth there shines a star of hope and
promise, men rise 10 pursue it. Be it
a newly discovered truth. or a mere
device for the worlds service, or a
useful plant or other substance, the
eworld goes after fit. Consider, for a
hemely illustration. the worldwide dis
sen}ination of soap and of the auto
mobile.
/ Away down in Mesopotamia, near
old Babylon, dwelt the star gazing
Magi: and they followed the new light
until they came to Bethlehem, where
their quest was satisfied by a Babel
The picture is a preaching one. 1t re-
minds US that our eager search for
good times, for good clothes, for COM
Portable living. for leisure and for
money may distract our attention from
the highest quest Of all.
enthusiastically nothing-shouid
hinder US from pursuit CT the King
dom of Heaven and it's King. They
who are wise keep the souls finer per
lceptions keen and sensitive, that their
eyes may behold and their feet may
follow every reckoning beacon of God
When Autocrats TrembIe.
Truth is the most troublesome forcf
in the universe. It is forever upset
ting the old order. disturbing aQeien'
cofnplacencies. and dashing to earth
sparkling goblets of pleasure. Just as
Jesus in a manger-unwelcome in the
inn-imperilled proud Herod on his
throne. and all his dynasty. SO truth
tho seemingly but-a Graded infant
holds in its frail hand the destruction
of all outHorn errors and systems.
We are perceiving today that tbs
allied war aims, formulated by Presi
dent Wilson, have wrought mors
nightly in the world at large thar
even the heroic armies in France. The
principles therein enunciated are lit
orally aking over the maps of thu
tearth. The truths which they con
Ttained have been grasped by entire ma
tons and races; and they are settint