Yes, men have separated from each other, slandered each other,
murdered each other in that name, and blasphemed it by that very act. But
when did they unite in any name but that? Look all history through--from
the early churches, unconscious and infantile ideas of God's kingdom,
as Eden was of the human race, when love alone was law, and none said
that aught that he possessed was his own, but they had all things in
common--Whose name was the, bond of unity for that brotherhood, such as
the earth had never seen--when the Roman lady and the Negro slave partook
together at the table of the same bread and wine, and sat together at the
feet of the Syrian tent-maker?--'One is our Master, even Christ, who sits
at the right hand of God, and in Him we are all brothers.' Not self-chosen
preference for His precepts, but the overwhelming faith in His presence,
His rule, His love, bound those rich hearts together. Look onward, too,
at the first followers of St. Bennet and St. Francis, at the Cameronians
among their Scottish hills, or the little persecuted flock who in a dark
and godless time gathered around Wesley by pit mouths and on Cornish
cliffs--Look, too, at the great societies of our own days, which, however
imperfectly, still lovingly and earnestly do their measure of God's work
at home and abroad; and say, when was there ever real union, co-operation,
philanthropy, equality, brotherhood, among men, save in loyalty to
Him--Jesus, who died upon the cross?"
And she bowed her head reverently before that unseen Majesty; and then
looked up at us again--Those eyes, now brimming full of earnest tears,
would have melted stonier hearts than ours that day.
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