The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1926-12-16
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
Prepared Especially for Readers of
The Republican by Rev. U. S.
Wright, D. D.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1926.


Direct your hearts unto Jehovah, and
=, serve Him Only.-I Samuel 7:3.
THE WORK OF SAMUEL.
Israel had drifted into idolatry.
That Ark of the Covenant had become
confused with the Maker of the cove
nant as is true so often in human
life. A Baltimore Catholic be-
moaned: 81 have lost my God" when
universally carried from representa-
ten to prc antation of Deity and that
which was meant to aid thought in
concentration upon God becomes a
clog upon the mental journey and the
symbol becomes the center of devo-
tional attitudes. When the armies
struggled for mastry and Israel was
beaten they sent for the Ark that its
presence might protect them from the
onrush of the Philistines. But the
symbol failed to perform. Horse
shoes and lunches usually do unless
accompanied by good bit of energy
and judgment. They were utterly de-
feated and the symbol was lost. 1t
was a good thing for Israel that it
happened else they would have been
so firmly fixed in their devotion to a
golden box that the progress of spirit
would have been out of the question.
And for twenty heart-breaking years
they CROPPED for something to which
to tie their dropping faith. Samuel
used the period to clear their under
standing of the numbering symbolism
that there might be space in which
God could dwell. Many regarded him
simply as a fortune teller to whom
they might apply for direction in
finding lost stock, locating water for
new wells and other ministries of
that sort. Yet across the years his
influence grew as he walked the high
ways and formed the religious guilds
that held much still of superstition
but were alive with religious feeling.
Presently he called gathering at
Mispah and the people responded
from all quarters. 1t was a gather
ing for reforming the religious
thinking of these leaders of Israel
and symbols were ruthlessly shat
tered. He sat as judge and many a
case was cleared in the high atmos,
phere of religious conservation. How
long it lasted one can not know but
it was long enough for the news of it
to reach the cities along the sea and
for the Philistine Lords to decide
that it was a dangerous proceeding
to call together their troops and as
cend the hills to dispense the crowd.
1t was an old time camp-meeting like
those of our wilderness period and its
first interest was religion and the
quickening of devotion for God. Pos
sibly small group made up the rep
resentatives from the more distant
tribes. Israel and Philistia may have
gotten the news in the same fashion
and by the same lips.
THE TEST OF HIS WORK.
Faced by the determined effort to
break up the camp-meeting the same
situation faced this crowd that had
been faced twenty years earlier.
There was the same anxious fear
that had sent them scurrying for the
protection of the Ark in that earlier
day. Now there was no suggestion of
its need. The symbol had been dis
counted and was being replaced by
soul. Here is the real test of the
prophet in any age. Can he lead the
people into the shrine of the spirit or
will they worship the stones from
which it is made? Money or man
hood, force or friendliness, profit or
service, denomination or kingdom are
merely some of the shapes taken by
the old thought-forms in newer days.
Yet the test of the prophet remains
the same thru all the centuries and
only as the symbol, whether it be a
word like the Khan, or figure like
the dollar mark, or book like the
Bible, loses itself in the spirit that
created IL can lHe OplTll OIL Lille Sulue
the race up the hills to new world
dominated by the living God. And in
the hour of testing in that old day Of
Israel the fact that they no longer
called for symbols but asked for
prayer to the God of their Fathers
shows the real progress that had been
making during those hidden years.
Samuel's teachings were bearing real
fruit and those weeks of constant in
tercourse upon this hill summit were
having the highest sort of influence in
the lives of those who listened. And
the stone set up the mark of a spirit
ual victory far more vital than the
physical repulse of the Philistines
which after all does not seem to have
, shaken their overlordship of the land
if one may judge from later devel-
opment. But that stone is a waymark
of progress and there should be many
a one in every mans life.
THE LARGER ACTIVITIES.