The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-03-17

and his venerable associates what they
thought had become of the Lost Ten
Tribes of Israel. who disappear from
history in the present Sunday school
lesson Thereupon followed much
comforting and shaking of heads and
stroking of long white boards, after
which the Grand Rabbi assured me
that all of his fellow rabbis present
concurred in the judgment that the
ten tribes never were lost: that the
children of those carried off from Is
rael still remain dispersed turnout
Mesopotamia and Persia.
This answer not only confirmed my
own observation of the many COM
munities- of Jews, in abJect poverty,
scattered over the region which used
to be AsSyria, but it also singularly
supported the words of our lesson, 80
Israel was carried away out of their
own land to Assyria unto this day."
A generation ago any consideration
of this bit of Bible history would have
ulative discussion of the fate of the
lost ten tribes Nowadays, it pri-
marily arouseS a solicitude for the
welfare of the remnant of the Jews.
and a comparison of old 1sraeIS fate
with present world conditions; as well
as a study of national problems and
destiny. This lesson finds its millions
of students thinking in world terms.
Squaring Today With Yesterday.
An uncanny similarity exists be-
and those which accompanied the col
lapse of the kingdom of Israel, when
the AssyrianS Conquered the land and
carried many of its inhabitants into
captivity. Even vast depOrtationS are
again under way Once more the
great powers are contending for that
strategic strip of territory called the
Holy Land: and the two greatest Eu-
ropean nations almost came to war
over il.
Once again there is a conveyance
OF both assimilative and disruptive
forces there. The springs of revolt,
against suzerain powers are bubbling
anew. Pan-Islamism is at war with
Zionism, and natiOnalism contends
with European imperialism The drift
of power toward the east is as marked
as ever. In curious reversal of con-
diionS. the remnant of the ancient As
syrians, now a Christian people, are in
exile and suffering, and crying to
America as their only hope. Truly,
this is n lesson to be studied with a
Bible under one hand and a newspaper
under the other.
In a Wireless World.
1t is easier today to study this les
son of IsraeFs collapse than it was
a decade ago, for We have grown ac-
cUstomed to thinking in larger units.
Even the average person now is ac-
cuStomed to speak in national and in
ternational terms Great forces have
zon-the war and the returned sol
diers; the discussion of the league of
nations. the universal economic de-
preston; new conceptions of trans
portation by land and sea and air, the
Washington conference; the reading
of such comprehensive books as Wells
Outlines of History" the new social
movements-these modern forces that
are lifting mankind out of life's little
ness, suggest Tenpyson's
fho ,oFo Fa In,
By gold chains about the feet of God" o
In recent months the magnitude and
meaning of wireless telephony has be-
gun to dawn upon peoples minds. and
manufacturers are unable to produce
radiophones fast enough. There are
no ends to Gods lanes. A new era
of internationalism has dawned, when
a boy with an amateur wireless outfit
in Brooklyn can be heard by another
amateur in Scotland. Gone is the an
cient loneliness and isolation; the Arc
tic explorer and the remote rancher
may now keep in daily touch with the
life of the world, hearing not only the
news. but also the varied forms of en-
tertainment.
1t almost seems as if God had sud
denly become in a hurry TO force
closer relationship and kindred inter-
ests and n common speech upon man
kind. The present-day prophet of
truth has such agencies for broad
casting the message for the hour as
never were within the imagination
of Elijah or Amos or the Apostle Paul.
If enlarged opportunity means in
creased responsibility, some of us have
a heavy obligation to meet in the
present emergency.
Amid all these amazing changes of
our era, one factor abideS changeless
the moral character of men and
nations as a paramount consideration.
1t is as true today for America as it
was twenty-five hundred years ago
for old Israel that righteousness
exalteth a nation, but sin is a reprOach
to any people" Nations rise and fall
according as they are true or false to
the great religious ideal. Many coun-
tries have gone the way of Israel and
for the same reason. He is an unob-
servant reader of history who does not
discern the clear connection between
a nations morality and its felicity, and
between its righteousness and its con-
tinuance.
What Our Generation Has Seen.
Everybody who reads this lesson has
seen great nations collapse within the
past eight years. What is more. every
thoughtful person may put his finger
upon the nations that have fallen and
say, This nation by its conduct re-
pudiated God and his laws. Now His
clear judgment has overtaken it. 1t
has gone the ways of Israel and for
substantially the same reason" Re-
cent history Is the DeSI OF common
taries upon the downfall of the north
ern kingdom of the chosen people.
Success, for a nation as for an In
dividual, comes by loyalty to the high
est conceptions of character. Israel
knew the better and did the worse
and that is forever the most tragic of
failures Before it lost its territory
Israel lost its soul.
Long and black, the shadow of a
false leader lay upon broken IsraePs
ruins-that OF Jeroboam, who made
Israel to sin" He compromised his
country's character in the beginning,
and it never got right. From its
place as Jehovah's peculiar people, he
led it into the procession of worldly
ways, so that the Jews worshipped