The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-03-10
International
SundaySchoolLesson
BY WILLIAM 7. ELLIS.


What is. has been. Hard times fol-
lowing prosperity is an experience as
old as nations. Sobered spirits in
serious days should pause for the long,
long, backward look over the ages and
the earth. Strange and helpful paral-
lels with our own day may easily pc
( discovered. If clear voices as 10 pres
ent duty are lacking here and now,
| they NAV still be heard speaking cross
| the centuries
| one such, the Prophet Amos. is in
| troduced to the world anew today Dy
the international Sunday sehooI les
SON. Little did our clear-eyed work
4 ingman from the hills below Bethle-
hem dream that his fearless message
Il would, twenty-seven 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-
Ffg-Pincher and Shepherd.
One day, when I was travelling in
the Holy Land with a friend. the late
| Dr. Franklin E. Hcskins, we were rest
/ ing our horses in grove outside the
old city of Sidon. DIR. Hoskins
| reached up to an overhanging branch
and, nipping off the end of an un-
ripe fig, he said, THAT is what the
Prophet Amos used to do; he was
fig-pincher from Tekoa. The natives
still use this method to hasten the
ripening of the fruit, even as they did
in the days of Amos. only able-bodied
and low-paid workingmen are hired
for this labor
Evidently. Amos was only an timer
ant day Iaborer part of the time, and
a shepherd at other seasons. The type
is common in the east His work
carried him about from place to place,
and he had eyes and ears, and a mind
that could appraise the values of life.
Some sailors and commercial travellers
spend their years in going over the
earth and seeing nothing; while
James Bryce will write volumes with
half their travel. Broadly classified,
people are of two classes-those who
see and those who do not see: eyes
and no eyes.
Scotch Fisherman and Jewish Laborer
Is it not rather startling that this
poor peasant, Amos, this day laborer,
this rough shepherd from the rocky
hills of Tekoa, whence he looked out
on the sterile heights surrounding the
Dead Sea, should be one of the clear
est-yoiced prophets of the ages, the
first bearer of the great social mes
sage that is the burden of the most
enlightened thought of our own time?
Not at all: the mission of the fig
pincher of Tekoa, about which 1 am
reading in the Old Testament today.
is scarcely more dramatic than that
of Jack Troup, the Scotch cooper.
whom I read in yesterdays news
paper, who are carrying thru North
erno Scotland the torch of what the
eanny committee of the Presbyterian
general assembly declare is a real re-
viYal of religion. The ableSt men in
the churches of Great Britain nave
been praying thruout the days of post
war orgies and of present depression
for spiritual awakening and 10, the
sacred flame appears, not in conclave
of leaders and not in a great city, but
in humble fishing villages on the bleak
coasts north of Aberdeen.
As surely as the law of the Lord
runs true, that same flaming recall
back to the living God is going to
be heard in our own land. Its mes
senger may, be lis likely to be-some
person unexp ected ana unknown The
revival will not come by an elaborate
" organized and financed Campaign
or movement" but by the impaired
message of some servant or servants
of God, aflame with a passion to re-
veal Him to the solution of our worlds
sore needs.
Who Cares About Unemployment?
know a preacher, a good man,
tho not very discerning, who exults
in his pulpit that the favor of the
Lord is Inanifestly upon his congrega-
ton because there are SO few deaths
and so little poverty; and that the dis
tresses of life pass them byi He has
never read understandingly the pas
sage about the suffering Servant Who
hath borne our griefs and carried
with feeling of our infirmities." 1t is
pharisaism and paganism to thank
God that we have escaped our share
of the common sorrows and the COM
mon load, unless we are at the same
time in fellowship and service with
the needy.
Unemployment hasn't touched u.s."
says one man. smugly- Probably there
are multitudes who have no personal
knowledge of or interest in the pres
ent prevalent depression and suffer
ing; but they are the kind OF people
against whom Amos preached. A fail
ure in brotherlinesS and mercy and |
social justice was to him a, reason for
divine condemnation. He pictures the
self-indulgent rich of his period in a
way that recalls our luxury-loving,
gluttonous, jazz-dancing debauchery
of recent days:
"They who lie on ivory couches.
And sprawl upon their dlvans.
And eat lambs from the flock.
And calves from out the stall;
They drawl to the sound of the Tyre,
instruments of song
They drink bowlfuls CT wine,
And anoint themselves with the finest of |
But they q, not grIeve over the ruin Of J
Joseph"
That Is damnation for you The |
man who does not care for his world, |
for Gods world. and who never feels |
a pang or spends a penny for the hum
cry in his own land or in Russia and /
China, is the sort upon whose head |
faithful Amos, and every other true |
prophet of God, pours the walls of di- |
vine justice.
Who Is the Patriot?
William Penn coined a phrase that
should be immortal public /
mind" 1t is the first requisite of a /
patriot and a prophet Amos had it. |
He was only a workingman, going to /
and fro in search of job. and many /
a season without work, but he was /
before all else a lover of the plain /
people and q searcher after the Di- /
vine will He may have been called a |
'radical' in his time: but he like