The Topeka state journal., 1922-03-03

An Old Story'S Present Message
One of the tragedies of literature is
that most persons know notlIing about
the Book Of Jonah except the whale
! which is never mentioned therein.
! Childish talk about the whale, which
! is sure to raise a laugh in any group
of immature minds, has obscured al
most entirely the meaning and mes
sage of one of the most advanced and
/ significant books of the Old resta-
ment.
/ hood OF Nineveh, read book by an
English author who had covered
practically the same route as myself,
! and he spoke derisively of Jonah's
having been cast up by a whale at
/ Nineveh; and Proof-reader and pub
/ Usher let his stupid blunder pass He
simply had not read this wonderful
| little book itself; wherein the most
| important fact is certainly not that
Jehovah prepared, a great fish to
swallow up JONAH" but that Jehovah
| had a message of mercy for the
! heather that was too great for a He
brew prophet to accept or to carry.
For the love of God is broader than the
measure Of mans mind,
And the heart of the Eternal is most won
derfully kind"
The Substance of the Story.
Jonah was a prophet of Israel, a
Galilean whose home was near NaZ-
areth, where Jesus was raised. He
! lived at the height OF the glory of
Assyria. whose capital was Nineveh.
He was summoned by God to journey
/ to Nineveh and cry out against its
wickedness, calling it to repentance
in the name of Jehovah. Jonah was
a reluctant missionary, because he be-
lOnged to that school of prophets who
would rather see their own doctrines
fulfilled than see the people saved.
By his conception of orthodoxy. Nine
veh was not entitled to repentance
and salvation; that boon was for the
Jews alone.
My servant. when travelling in the
land of the Lesson. on a journey down
the Tigris river upon a goatskin raft,
was. a Chaldean Christian, and he
Christians IN Bible Lands this Jonah
eSque type of theology. He said to
me one day, ''Moslem. him go to
Mecca-bim pray five times a day
then him go to helli' The bitterness
with which the old man snapped out
the last phrase recalled that other
oriental Christian who declared that
the reason God has let so many Mos
lens live is in order that hell may be
filled upi Jonah could conceive of
only one end for Nineveh, the city of
the heather oppressOr, the, type of
1sraefs foes, and that was that it
should sink into utter destruction, for
the glory and vindicatiOn of Jehovah.
So this proud and orthodox prophet
who thought he knew more than God,
tried to run away by catching a ship
from Joppa to Spain-as if anybody
could ever escape Jehovah whose
ministering servants are the winds
and the waves. A great storm ar
rested the boat; and it was realized
by the sailors that Jonah, as he con-
fessed, was trying to flout his God. /
So, after incidents wherein the best
qualities of both sailors aud passenger
appear, Jonah was thrown overheard.
great fish''=there have several
times been found fish great enough
IA h. +, - 3
him, and after three days. cast him
up again on the shores of the land
whence he had fled.
After a prayer and a song of |
Thanksgiving for deliverance, Jonah |
chastened, obeyed the repeated com
mand to go to Nineveh; where his
message so aroused the people that |
they did repent-to his great chagrin /
ne even desired to die; for Jonah. was !
not as great as the MESA ge he car
r1ed. He wanted vengeance visited |
upon Nineveh. not salvation. There |
was not a drop of missionary spirit |
IN the hard old Hebrew prophet.
New Interest in Old Place.
Probably not one person in a million 1
mixed up the battling little press dis 1
patch of few weeks ago, to the ef- |
rect that the kurds from down MosuI /
way have raided Van, in Armenia, with /
the historic facts that the Assyrians |
from the same region three thouSa nd /
years ago fought and captured this |
same old city of Van, with its imme- /
mortal rock citadel. y Nineveh and Mo- I
sui are almost interchangeable words; |
for the latter is the comparatively ,
modern city on the western bank of |
the Tigris, across the river from the |
site. of Nineveh, and connected by a /
bridge of boats.
Women of AIosu1 nowadays do their
laundering under the crumbled walls |
of old Nineveh. AS I stood on the I
highest point of the palace ruins one |
day, and looked around at the clearly /
visible remains of the walls of this /
once proud capital of Assyria, 1 real
lied that il was great city, to which |
the prophet was sent
A curious fact is that the only exist
ing life within the boundaries of an
cient Nineveh is a little village perched /
on a hall which covers the reputed |
tomb of the prophet, and is called /
"Neby Yunus." or Prophet jonah
is to say, the very name of the city I
of Ninsveh has disappeared, but the /
name of Jonah persists to this day. |
The Moslems have two other shrines |
or 'tombs" of Jonah; one on the Medi- |
terranean shore just above Sidon.
which I have visited; and the other at (
his birthplace in Galilee.
Some readers will be turned to the )
fascinations of Layard's ''Nineveh, :"
or of Barton's Archaeology and the /
Bible by this lessons illusions to the |
excavations that have been made on |
the site of the old city The visits of l
the British troops to Mosul during /
the MesopotaniSn expedition. also
heightening interest in the place. /
will be a station on the Bag
dad railway and so accessible to orcI-
nary travellers if ever the rival Eu-
ropean powers cease their quarreling
in the Near East and complete the
line.
That the walls of the old city were
wide enough to let three chariots drive |
abreast-which is still true of the 4
present walls of Pekin-concerns the
modern reader less tIan the fact that /
is situated at the CROSSROADS
of today's problems of the Near East.
British and French, Turk and Arab,
Persian and Kurd, Armenian and Nes-