Our Debt to the Italians. An Italian, Columbus, discovered the New World. Who, then, has a better right to inhabit it than his own countrymen? An Italian captain, Verrazano, was the first man to push the prow of his ship into the harbor of what is now the greatest city of the new world. Roman law rules the world and her treasures of art and literature have enriched every nation on earth. What school boy would like to be without the story of Julius Caesar, or not to have heard of the cackling of the geese high up in the Capitol the night the city was in danger, and how that cackling awoke the citizens and saved Rome?
Our Debt to the Russians. As to the Russian, it is an ungrateful American who forgets the service rendered this country in that saddest war of history, when brothers of the North and South rose in arms against each other. France had determined to found an empire in Mexico. She knew that this could be done only after the American Union had been destroyed. Russia refused to join with France and England in the course that might have made possible this division of our country. In the darkest days of our struggle the Russian fleet appeared at American ports as a pledge of her friendship and a protest against the attitude of these European powers.
Our Debt to the Jew. If we said nothing more than that through the Jew has come the Bible, that gift would place all of us forever in his debt. No other sacred book tells us so clearly of God; no other book shows us so truly how we may obey Him and be useful, strong, and holy. In no other place are we told the secret of that
“City builded by no hand,
And unapproachable by sea or shore,
And unassailable by any band
Of storming soldiery forever more.”
It is true some of the Jewish people did oppose Christianity, but other Jews were the founders of the Christian church.
Through the Jewish nation came our Lord. Upon the streets of Jewish cities “walked those blessed feet that nineteen hundred years ago were nailed, for our advantage, to the bitter cross.”
Kind neighborliness to these strangers is one way of repaying our debt.