The Topeka state journal., 1922-08-18

of today in our leadership. Given a
constraining sense Of obligation to the
living and Almighty God, and a man
will do something about 1t. Simple
telJectual sophistication: the more I
talk with learned doubters and crit
les, and perceive how little of working
value there is in their negative criti-
cisms, the more I long for men with
biGaess enough to hold a chiidike
faith such as Ezra's, that will really
charge things in this troubled world
We shall never have a great spiritual
crusade, for the redemption of
straitened and suffering race, until
ut is the will of GodI" That spirit
got the Middle Ages to Jerusalem,
even as it got Ezra there.
The Concern of Kings.
Apparently something had gone
wrong with Persia, that made King
cause in an affronted Deity. Chapter
seven, verse twenty-three, implied
this: Whatsoever is commanded by
the God of heaven, let it be done ex-
heaven; for why saould there be
wrath against the realm of the king
and his sons?" So the heather mon
arch was quick to acceGe to the re-
that a contingent of the Jews should
return to Jerusalem for distfnctively
religious purposes.
1t recalls the war days of travel
along the Russo Turkish front, with
in what once was the realm of Ar
taxerXes, to read how the king sup
piled Ezra with transportation and
letters of privilege. That is the way
once went from headquarters to
front line; from area to area, with
the ungrudging hospitality of the
Russian army. Years earlier, I had
gone all the way from Constantinople
to Bagdad, with similar letters from
the sublime porte to local wallis. or
governors. 1t is still the way of the
east. Only Artaxerxes, of his royal
bounty, gave great stores of gold and
supplies, together with all necessary
permissions and exemptions from
tolls and tariffs, to Ezra and his conf
pany.
Would God that in America or
Great Britain today there were some
high official great enough, in char
liverance to the exiled, suffering AS
syrian Christians in the land of
XerxeS who still speak the very Ian
guage in which this part of the Book
of Ezra is written, the language of
Jesus Himself; and who day and
night cry aloud to God and Christen-
dom for succor.
Down near the present village of
Hit, where Sir William WilIcocks and
others locate the Garden of Eden, Just
Mesopotania begins Ezra gathered his
loyal Jews for the difficult and
dangerous journey across the desert
1t was a matter of face with him
not to ask a special guard from the
king; since he had already declared
his trust in Jehovah. The note of
child-like confidence in God runs all
thru the Book of Ezra; and the sum-
mary of the fullment of the great
dream and deliverance is And on the
first day of the fifth month came he
to Jerusalem accoI ding to the good
hand of his God upon him" Except
the Lord build the city, they labor in
vain that build it,
What British airplanes are doing
today within one day, on the regular
air mail service between Cairo and
Bagdad, it took Ezra's company four
months to accomplish. [ myself once
did it in little more than a month,
under adverse weather conditions, by
the river route on a kelek, or goat
skin raft. Journeys woes are soon
forgotten in journeys goals. Ezra
says nothing about his hard times by
the way. But he arrived; gave care
full account of his stewardship, and
then turned to the further work of
religious reform that awaited doing.
Copyright, 1922, by The Ellis Sergice)