Pueblo chieftain., 1922-03-11
PROSPERITY AND A
PROPHET
lAs International Sunday School
ssiIesson for March 18th is Amos
Warns Israel".-Amos. 6:1-S.
BY william T. Ellis

M BY William T. Ellis
What is, has been. Hard times fol-
!ewing prosperity is an experience as
I'D as nations. Sobered spirits in
Serious days should cause for the long,
kng, backward look over the ages and
he earth. Strange and helpful paral-
bis with our own day may easily be
discovered. If clear voices as to pre-
gent duty are lacking here and now,
they may still be heard speaking
Across the centuries.
ene such, the Prophet Amos, is in
troduced to the world anew today by
the International Sunday School Les
SON. Little did our clcar-cyed work
ingman from the hills below Bethle-
hem dream that his fearless message
would, twenty-scven hundred years
later, be the theme of study by many
millions of persons scattered over a
world which would have seemed to
him Of unthinkable vastness.
Fls-Pinchsr and Shepherd
One day, when I was travelling in
the Holy Land with friend, the late
DIR. Franklin Il. Hoskins, We were
resting our horses in a grove outside
tho old city of Sidon. DR.. Hoskins
reached up to an overhanging branch,
and, nipping of tho end of an unripe
fig, he said, "That is what the Pro-
lphet Amos used TO do; he was fig
srincher from Tekoa. Tho natives still
use this method to hasten the ripening
of the fruit, even as they did in the
DAYS of Amos. Only ablc-bodied and
ilow-paid workingmen arc hired for
this labor"
Evidently, Amos was only an timer
ant day labcrcr part of the time, and
. shepherd at other seasons. The type
i, common in the East. His work
carried him about from place to place,
and he had eyes and cars. and mind
that could appraisc the values of life.
Some sailors and commercial travellers
9end their years in going over the
earth and seeing nothing; while a
James Bryce will write volumes with
Aalf their travel. Broadly classified,
poople are of two classes. those who
~ and those who do not see; eyes
md no eyes.
Scotch Fisherman and Jewish Laboror
d il not rather startling that this
poor peasant, Amos, this day lnborer,
this rough shepherd from the rocky
hills ef Tekoa, whence he looked out
On the sterile heights surrounding the
Dead Sea, should be one Of the clear
sst-voiced prophets OF the ages, tho
[ hrst bearer Of tho great social mes
sass that is the burden of tho most
enlightened thought of our own timef
] Not at all; tho mission OF tho fg-
pincher Of Tckos, about which I am
reading in the Old Testament today,
is scarcely moro dramatic than that
Of Jack Troup, the Scotch cooper. and
his fisherman companions, OF whom I
road in yesterdays newspaper, who
arc carrying thru Northern Scotland
the torch of what the canny commit
tee of the Presbyterian General As
sembly declare is a real revival Of re-
hgion. The ablest men in the church
es Of Great Britain have been praying
thruout the days of postwar orgies
and Of present depression for spirit
nal awakening-and 10, the sacred
flamc appears. not in conclsve of
leaders and not in great city, but IN
humble fishing villages on the bleak
coasts north of Aberdeen.
As surely as tho law of tho Lord
runs true. that same flaming recall
back to the living God is going to be
heard In our own land Its messenger
may be-is likely to be-some person
unexpected and unknown. The revi-
val will not come by an claborately
organized and financed Campaign"
or movement, but bv the impart-
ed message of some servant or ser
wants of God, aflamc with passion
to reveal Him as the solution of our
worlds sorc needs.
Who Cares About Unemployment?
I know a preacher, n good man.
though not very discerning, who ex-
ults in his pulpit that the favor of
the Lord is manifcstly upon his con-
9rcgation because thero are so few
deaths and so little poverty; and that
the distresscs OF life pass them by.
He has never read undcrstandingly
tho passage about the suffering Ser
want Who "hath borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows'. and Who Is
f".ouched with a feeling of our in
fhrmitics". It is phnrisaism and pa
gansm 10 thank God that VIC have
escaped our share of the common sor-
rows and the common load, unless VIC
are at the same time in fellowship and
service with the needy.
Unemployment hasn't touched
|us,'' says one man, smugly. Prob
ably there are multitudes who have
no personal knowledge of or interest