The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-08-04
International
SmdaySchoolLesson
BIZ WILLIAM r. ELLIS.

L DIX ElA11Gs
For August 6 is 'eThe Temple Rebuilt
and Dedicated. Ezra 3:1-6:22.
The Religion OF Nation.
Beneath all questions of coal strikes
and rail strikes and prohibition en-
! forcement and tariffs and Gerria n
and movies and high prices and the
latest crimes and scandals, and the
| hundred and one other forms of cur
rent news that fill our news page COL
umns, lie, deep and constant and often
overlooked, the real questions of the
day. Destiny is determined. for ma
! lions and for individuals by factors
and forces that are really fundamental
such as mems attitude toward one
another and toward God. Ideals and
motives are more potent than events
| in shaping history. What people think
about the abiding concerns of life
| means more than any contemporary
| agitation or upheaval. Religion thus
| or other news" as the supreme in
| terest of a people; and as the most
powerful force operative upon society;
| for Christianity alters or controls the
| instincts and purposes of men and
women, and plants new and masterful
desires in their breasts.
| Religion seldom gets on the first
pages Of the newspapers 7altho it is
all the while engaging the thought of
more persons than care especially for
the subjects of the days scare-heads.
With all our talk of Christian public
ity, we have rot yet reached any prac-
tical conception of low to deal in print
with this Oldest and dearest of the in
there to be found a published interpre-
tation, broad, fair, fearless and SYM
pathetic, Of the spiritual currents of
our day. When the subject is touched
L. -
superficial aspects, and usually in
revelation to organization, rather than
to thought or life.
All the while, the most meaningful
and fruitful influence in our national
existence is the peoples religious sem
timents. AS the old pagan Plutarch
wrote, long centuries ago, "a city may
sooner be built without ground on
which to fix it, than a community be
constituted without religion, or being
SO constituted be preserved" We are
studying the ancient Jews most vitality
when we consider them in relation to
the rebuilding of their temple. The
church is more central to Comrnu-
nifty than the town hall. Whoever is
dealing specifically and vitality with
neighborhoods spiritual welfare is
most definitely serving it's civic pros
perity. 1t is as true a public service
to teach a Sunday school class as it is
to help make the laws of the nation.
Civilizations -Four Pillars.
Our western civilization stands to-
day on four pillars-the home, the
church, the school and the state If
any one of these decays and collapses,
or is maHcjously cut away, the whole
structure Is likely to topple.
=, Short-sighted critics who dispar-
age the Church need to have their
attention called to the indisputabie
fact that actively Christian families
are not found in our crowded divorce
courts; Christian man and women are
not involved as victims of blackmail-
ing plots; the Crime wave" does not
take in Sunday school boys; the pro-
blem girls of our time, if I amy so
call them, are not the earnest Chris
tians of our Endeavor societies and
are not the church-going neighbour
hoods
Scatter drained theorists and par
lor Bolshviks have had too patient a
hearing for their patent. medicine
remedies for the ills of the state. Let
US be brave and sensible enough to
proclaim instead that the Church,
with her new vision of social respon-
sibility along with individual CONVEX
sion, is the best agency for the ameli-
Grafton of poverty and the abolition of
social injustice. Socialism has moth
ing to offer that is an improvement
over the truly Christian community
controlled by the spirit of Jesus. Peo-
PIE VINO i've In6 rule OIL SIlTlSL )
will do not break laws or Cypress their
neighbors. Little children are safe,
and education is progressive, where
the church is a living influence. In
word, applied Christianity is the only
workable remedy for all that is wrong
with our world.
All of which Is but another way
of saying that the fashion of the exiled
Jews is still the best fashion; in
time of trouble and disunion, rally to
49, ~ D,YfI If
God if you would restore and make
strong the nation. Let the repressed
and unformulated spiritual passions
of the people find expression, and 10,
it will be-found that they are at the
same time afire with patriotism. Re
build the temple of religious devotion
and public worship and all the other
institutions of the state will stimuli
taneously be strengthened. The most
direct service of the multiform inter- |
ests of civilization is to attend to the /
needs of religion
Zionism-Without a Temple.
On that great day in history when /
the magnanimous King Cyrus, OF
Persia, gave the order permitting the
return of the exiIed Jews to the Land
Of Promise, he thought of the temple
and the religious institutions of the
people. The home coming was a re-
Iigious experience even before 1t was
an expression of patriotism The first
work was to begin the reconstruction
Of the destroyed temple.
As these lessons upon the fall and 7
of the ancient Jewish ma
ton inevitably call up thoughts of the
present Zionist movement, (which |
many deem analogous, we are con-
strained to point out that modern
Zionisn avowedly has no place in its
program for a rebuilding of the |
temple in Jerusalem Its leaders
declare that there will never
be any attempt to interfere with the /
Mosque of Omar, the Mohamm edan |
shrine which now occupies what was
the temple enclosure. Some irrespon-
sible Zionists, it is true, assert that
all the Christian churches and Moslem !
will be driven out of Jerusa-