The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-04-22

out the Bibles teachings upon poverty
and wealth. The issue is upperniost
i IiticaI and social upheavals lies this
Economic question. Universally. pow
| erty and wealth have assumed an at
! titSf6e of open anita gonism. The two
extreme positions are represented by
! Bolsheyiks and reactionaries. The
former are usually bitter, the latter
are usually blind. Together they are
precipitating upon the world what may
be the most colossal cataclysm of his
tory.
| So it is well that the millions of the
Sunday schools are to have their think
| Bible teaches about poverty and
wealth. The need for clear. sane
thought upon the subject was never
| so great as now. We hail with graft
fication the fact that some thirty
million persons are to study the days
greatest problem in the light of the
word of~God.
| A New Vogue of Old Prophets.
Three portions of Holy Writ are as
signed as Tire days lesson. Two are
from the Old Testament prophets.
During the past few years these old
Hebrew seers have come anew to their
| own. as apostles of righteousness and
opponents of an era, of social justice.
The words flame and burn with a d.
ern reformers in that they have a
sense not only of mans wrongs, but
also of Jehovahs righteousness. 1t is
their consciousness of the character of
GOD that makes their words weightier
than any utteranceS of our own So
cially sensitive era.
Despite the progress of democracy
| in the past century, we have not yet
lcaught up with the Divine program
for the Jewish theoretic- democratic
state. Social justice was inwrought in
the Mosaic law. The year of jubilee,
which every half century provided a
redistribution of land, surpasses any
other known scheme for the pre-
/ vention of monopoly and proverty.
There have never been written in
dictments of the greed and cruelty of
the rich to match those found in
the Old Testament. They should be
oftener read and preached upon.
Amos's portrayal of the commercial
interests that resented the encroach-
ment of Sabbath-observance upon
their money-making, and who gave
short weight and adulterated food and
/ juggled exchange, is altogether up to
4 date.
Wealth has ever tended to become
arrogant and oppressive. 1t is absurd
! and inexplicable, but nevertheless a
fact, that the possession of money
seems to give persons a sense of su-
periority. Exclusive social circles are
Il commonly built upon mere money.
Anybody who is rich enough and per
sistent enough can force his way into
4 any social group. The divine right
| of the dollar is one of the CHASTITY in
Il congruities of civilization. The CEN
81 turtles have shown few more hideous
spectacles than the wartime prof1teers
and their immunity from legal punish
ment and from social ostra cism. Only
an Old Testament prophet could ade-
| quately paint the picture OF these Vio-
lators of the laws of God and OF the
rights of men
ssThc Man With the Hoe.'
Something of the old Hebrew
lprophet1c spirit was caught by Edwin
; Markham, in his poem, THE Man
With the Hoe" written after seeing
Millets famous painting. The lines
t are familiar, and true to the OLD
Testament spirit in their appeal to Di-
. vine justice;
Bowed by the weight of centuries, he
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
| The emptiness of ages in his face
| And on his back the burden of the world:
Who made him dead to rapture ana
A thing that grieves not and that never
Stolid and stunned, brother to the OK
Who loosened and let down this brutal
jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back
whose~breath blew out the light within
this brain?
; us this the thing the Lord God made and
gave
} To have dominion over sea and land,
To trace the stars and search the heavens
! for power,
To feel The passion of Eternity?.
| Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped
And PilIared the blue armament with
light?
E Down all the stretch of hell. to its last
There is no shape more terrible than this
; More tongued with censure of the world s
| blind greed
More filled with signs and portents for
7 More fraught with menace to the uni
80 masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this
. Man?
How answer his brute question in that
? When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the
: world?
! How viii it be with kingdoms and with
With those who shaped him to the thing
r When this d-mb Terror shall reply to
After the silence of the centuries?"
: OF one thing the Bible writer's are
sure, and that is that, ultimately, God
4 wiil square accounts. To them the
problem of human relationships was
inexplicable except on the basis of a
: future life in which justice would be
y done. As Amos quotes Jehovah as
saying, Surely I will never forget
. any of their works" There is com
: fort in the consciousness that God If
forever on His throne. and that the
\ Judge of all the earth will do right
! This conviction makes for patience
and largeness of view.
+ This not merely an Old Testament
teaching: it is the message of the
Masters parable of Dives and Laza-
. rus. Earth's inequities are all straight
+ ened out in the next world. We are
! nowadays losing the sense of heaven
from our social consciousness Like
the Russian radicals, we want the
. millennium to come here and now, by
= political or revolutionary action So
I much of what is wrong, however, has