The Crime of Caste in Our Country

by Benjamin Rush Davenport

Would you, fair dames of fashion, assist at the coming into the world of a child in a stable, whose cradle was a manger, whose curtain was the straw thereof? You ladies of America, whose crests adorn your carriages, affect to view with adoring eyes a hundred-thousand-dollar painting of the Madonna and her child, yet gaze with contempt, and avoid with averted glances, contact with the pure but poor wives and mothers of our land.

St. Paul, who, of all the early teachers of Christianity, was probably the “most respectable,” as soon as the angel of God appeared to him, became converted to the doctrines of Him who was Truth personified, and threw “caste” to the winds. In the seventeenth chapter of the Acts, St. Paul, upon Mars Hill, at Athens, proclaimed the equality of man; in the twenty-sixth verse, he says: “And hath made of one blood all the nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” As God has made us all of one blood, how contrary to the teaching of Him whom you say you follow, to endeavor to establish a theory that birth makes a difference and inequality, that there is any peculiarity about one drop of human blood that makes it better than another. The teachings of the divine philanthropist, the Saviour of mankind, took deep and permanent root in the minds of men, because the very essence of it was that no matter whether the believer in those teachings be a poor, oppressed Jew, or an outcast Gentile, or a Roman Cæsar, he stood only before his God as an equal of any other of God’s children. It was the leveling, the equalizing of rank and power that gave the impetus, at first, to those truths which are the pillars of the faith of the Christian nations of earth. “Come, ye who are heavy-laden,” is the doctrine that appealed to the “Common People.” As lasting and as abiding as the faith that we have in the Christian religion, so long and enduring will be the sentiment of the human soul believing in the equality of man. It has been so from the beginning, and will be to the end, and surprise and astonishment at each fresh evidence of its outburst is unnecessary. The plebeians of Rome, before the coming of the Lord, asserted the same right, and would have sought the Sacred Hill to establish a city of their own had not the patricians made concessions. It is the same spirit that cost Charles I. his head, Louis XVI. his head, the British Government this vast empire, and the same spirit that, November 8, 1892, cost the Republican party its hold upon power; because, in the minds of the people, that party was thoroughly impregnated with the much-hated principle of the inequality of man.

The rich and powerful were the last to be converted to Christianity. They trembled and said, as the Roman Governor did, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,” but not quite, because the very fundamental principles of the Christian religion are Love, Charity, and Equality. Their conversion would mean the surrendering of their cherished claim of “caste.” Many a conversion among the mighty, when at last effected, was the result of policy upon the part of the converted, who had commenced to feel the power of the “Common People” who had listened and become imbued with the divine teachings of the doctrine of Christianity.

Had it been necessary, as now, to pay salaries of from one to ten thousand dollars to those teachers who, in the early age of Christianity, promulgated the doctrines of their God, how few conversions would have been made at all. These wayfarers, obeying the divine injunction of our Saviour, to “go and teach all the people of earth,” took no heed of the morrow. They did not teach in temples which required thousands of dollars to build; they did not find it necessary to be surrounded with luxury; they needed no vacations and excursions to recuperate their exhausted natures. Had it been necessary for those “fishers of men” to have carriages, temples, and salaries, the Christian religion would have made exceedingly slow progress. There were no Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, in the congregations that surrounded the early teachers of the doctrine of the meek and lowly Jesus.

We hear on every side (when this idea is advanced), proclaimed by the gentlemen of the clerical profession, that “the conditions have changed.” If such be the case, then history is terribly misguiding. We are told of the luxuries that surrounded the rich of the Roman empire. We read, in the Scripture, of Dives, and the rich men of that day. We know—unless history is entirely in error—that Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, existed then. But the early teachers of Christianity loved their Lord and followed his footsteps, in that he came to give hope, comfort, and rest to those who were heavy-laden.

The meetings held by the early followers of Christ were not “club meetings,” at which expensive music entertained the audience. The audience was not addressed by high-priced elocutionists, nor entertained by the mental gymnastics of some word-painting acrobat.

Humbly and meekly, hopefully, trustingly, the people sought the presence of that Teacher whose earnestness and faith was evidenced in His life and manner of living. His words were blest, all untutored as he was, with the eloquence of that truth with which his soul was filled. He did not say to the people, “Give alms,” and at the same time live in a brown-stone front. He did not say, “Take no heed of the morrow,” and keep a bank account. He did not preach to his cold and hungry brother that the Christian religion would give him comfort, and keep the warm overcoat on his back while doing so.

In their very lives the early teachers of Christianity made the truth of their own convictions apparent. Is it any wonder that in this, the nineteenth century, doubt arises in the minds of the people? They doubt the doctrine because they doubt the sincerity of the teacher. It is so utterly inconsistent in a man to preach, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,” while his hearers know that within a few blocks of where this teacher lives in comfort and luxury, some poor family is starving.

Let us find men to teach us, who, when they find a poor, shivering wretch, but a brother, on the streets, will take off their warm coats and throw them round his shoulders. Let us find our leaders in the path made plain by the divine Master, taking off their shoes to clothe the benumbed feet of the outcast tramp. Then, and when that day arrives, there’ll be no such thing as “caste” and class distinction in the house of God. Then will the house of God be sought by the multitudes, as of old they sought the mount whereon the Lord did preach. When the privilege of entering the house of God and occupying a seat therein is not sold to the highest bidder, to furnish the ten-thousand-dollar salary for the teacher of the doctrine of that lowly Master, who had nowhere to lay His head, then will the multitudes gather to do the bidding of the teacher. When there are no high places in the temple to be sold to the representatives of “caste” and sham aristocracy, then will the house of God be a home and refuge for the people. When the charities of Christ’s church on earth are not controlled by snubbing, scornful, shoddy aristocrats, when the wife of the poor man shall feel welcome to give her mite, along with the contributions of the rich, without enduring their scornful glances, and subjecting herself to the insult of their assumed social superiority, then will the people become charitable. The church, the Sunday-school, the church society, the charitable committees, have all become impregnated with this crime of “caste,” which crucified the Saviour.