The Topeka state journal., 1922-08-18
International
SundaySchoolLesson
By WILLIAM r. ELLIS.

For August 20 is, THE Second Re-
turn From Exile. Ezra 7:1-s- So.
When the Right Man Comes Along.
Few tasks are finished, once for
] all. Most good work has to be done
over again and againl Consider how
many times, since the war began, the
savedi Reform movements succeed
and, after a time, have to be re-
peated. Revivals sweep communities
but other revivals are needed in a
few years. Every business has to be
reorganized ana readjusted period
icallyA 1t is the way of life.
The Jews returned to Jerusalem
under Zerubbabel from the Babylon
ian exile and established a great re-
Iigious reform-and eighty years later
there was a second returR and re-
! form, under Ezra. Yet to this day
some of the families of the Jews of the
exile still dwell in what was Baby
lonia: they have never returned. I
once had a grave conference with the
Grand Rabbi of Bagdad and his ven
erable council as to the. identity of the
miserable Jews of Mesopotamia: and
they solemnly assured me that these
were the children of the exiies from,
the whole twelve tribes of Israel.
There is a near and homely lesson
in this old story of the second return
of the Jews, which the Sunday schools
mothers who are tired of washing
faces and clothes and dishes: to the
teachers who weary of repeating the
same lessons, year after year; to the
men who are irked by the monotony
and drudgery of their daily tasks.
There is a glory and an honor in do
ing good the second and the hun
dredth time that is wholly equal 10
the merit of the first doing of it.
Ezra ever improves on the work of
Zaruhha hp1 Life is a tier of
tition and improvement. Blessed Be
Drudgery,' was the title of an old
book: great are the endurers and con-
tinuers- A man sat by the roadside
cracking stones for the highway: again
and again he struck a stone with his
hammer until at last it broke. THAT
last one was the blow that did it,
remarked a bystander. mo" re-
sponded the wise workman; 'it was
the last blow, and the first blow ana
all the other blows together that did
it."
A Man for the Occasion.
This historic story of the second
return of the Jews would probably
never have been written but for Ezra.
Behind every movement there is a
man. Show me an organization or
community or a cause that is
progressing and succeeding notably
and will engage to find some in
dividual back of it all. There really
other tales are conIprehended within
the familiar phrase, "Once upon a
time there was a man." 1t was Ezra
who made his generation immortal
He was the sort of man who, in the
face of an apparent need, did some
thing about it. OF course, for eighty
years there had been futile folk talk
ing about what needed to be done;
until Ezra, the doer. came, along.
Count noses in your own neighbor-
mood and behold how IInUitaI
folk there are, and how few real ef-
IectIVeS. For every one who actually
puts things thru there are a hundred
who criticize him while he does il.
the few who really do things and the
many who talk about the few who do
things There were tens of thousands
of safe and sane" Jews in exile who
disapproved of Ezra and his project
but their names are on no records.
One trouble with our own time, in the
large concerns of statecfaft, politics,
social relations, literature and re-
Hgton. is that we have too many
critics and too few constructors.
These Russians think that when they
have expressed an opinion they really
have done something" commented a
shrewd young American in Petrograd
during the decisive days of Novem Der,
1917. God send our needy world a
new breed of doers.
or course, the tale begins far back
OF Ezra; and he was man enough to
know it. Our lesson text takes eleven
lines to tell his ancestry. Most of us
pass by those dry stretches reciting
the son off, in the Bible Really.
they are the meat of the matter. Our
hero makes it plain that it was
This Ezra" who went up from
Babylon, carrying with him a long
line of ancestors. Or rather, theV
were driving him up. They were ali
IN 1t, according to modern science.
They were his ghostly guard of honor.
Because they had been the men they
mad been, Ezra became the man he
was. This paragraph from the Old
Testament reads like a bit of a mod !
ern essay on heredity. Ezra come !
only from Seraiahs and Azariahs and |
kllkiahs. 1 heard a successful father |
say recently About all there is to this |
business OF raising boys is to be the |
right sort of man yourself, and then |
TO keep close to your sons
The Ready Scribe.
Everybody has heard practical" |
men, with no more brains or charac-
ter than are necessary to accumulate /
sneer at literary men" and
mere writing fellows" Butt they did
not do it in writing; for wheh a man
takes his pen in hand he cannot help
revealing what brains and personality |
he really possesses, or does not pos
sess. Most great doers have also been
clear writers. Think back over the
long roll of achievers and consider
how many of them, like Ezra, were
ready scribes. Like him, they both
made history and wrote it. Altho he
was patriot, pioneer, statesman and
leader, Ezra was content to be knowIf
as scribe. The gift of writing is
handle to every other accomplishment.
AS of Rome's greatest, Shakespeare
wrote:
That Julius Caesar was a mighty man.
With what his valor did enrich his wit
His wit set down to make his valor live"
Somebody should write a book
about the scribe-office of the Chris
ian ministry. Clergymen do not write
nftan ernI1eh or well ar1nnph for the