WE ARE VERILY GUILTY CONCERNING OUR BROTHER.
BY MRS. A. McDOUGALL.
From the day when we come to Him for rest, taking His yoke upon us, we give assent to the oneness of God’s people in Christ, and to the oneness of the work given them to do. We sing of the sacred tie that binds our hearts into one, we preach about it, we pray over it, in a theoretic way we believe it; but it seems as if it requires something like the fountains of the great deep to be broken up to make us practically realize all that the singing, preaching, praying and believing involve. Our loyalty to the Union slumbered and slept, as securely as the ten virgins, till the trumpet blew all over the land. Who then felt his life too dear to offer it for the Union? What lady’s hand was too delicate to scrape lint, make bandages, or pack boxes of home comforts for the boys at the front? How many timid hearts made themselves brave to endure the sight of horrible suffering, that they might minister and so help; but now we have grown careless and secure, as if we had no part in the work which the war left for us to do. In travelling through the southern part of this great commonwealth, along the highways and byways, over long reaches of dark country, the between places, outside and beyond the centres where mission and educational work is being done, we see the vast crowds of people “who have not come to their own;” people who have a triple hunger consuming them, the hunger of poverty, the hunger for knowledge and the hunger after righteousness. We are compelled to see ignorance, helplessness and consequent shiftlessness, contending hopelessly with the might and meanness of greed. This great need in a professedly Christian land—people perishing for lack of knowledge, where knowledge is a birthright—causes our hearts to burn within us, and we say, how long until the whole body of Christ feels this pain? Oh, if they only knew! And we take the task willingly of telling of it. Alas, they are so busy, the farm, the merchandise, the different enterprises of ecclesiastical masonry and millinery, and we find that the need is too far away for general sympathy.
I am reminded of an incident in the lumber country. One of the workmen, an exceedingly tall man, cut his foot with an axe, literally splitting his great toe. A sympathetic little one inquired anxiously, “Will it be long till you feel it? It is so far away from your head, you know,” she added apologetically. The pain in the Southern limb of the body politic has not reached all the members yet. If it had, the fair hands that erstwhile scraped lint would do as much as the women of Brittany did for the ransom of Bertrand Des Guesclin, spin one day’s spinning; the men, who gave themselves, would give a crumb of their cake to preserve the fought-for Union. On the Church of the living God this work must fall, by the people of God it must be done, if it is done at all. There are people who have given themselves, who are in the forefront of this battle. We do not all recognize that we, who hold the Head and are all members one of another, live under the rule of the Beloved, our New Testament David. “The part of those who go forth to battle and they who tarry by the stuff shall be alike”—alike in the cost, the danger and the glory of triumph. Then, when we restore that which we took not away, the blessing that multiplies falls upon us until we have not room enough to receive it.
We must have our eyes touched with His eye-salve to see clearly the Christ in these helpless ones whose hands are stretched out to touch our hearts. Human nature, even renewed human nature, has some queer inconsistencies. The way in which we fulfill Scripture by turning everyone to his own way is wonderful. One of our own ways is how much readier we are to give charity than to pay debt. One of the best men I ever knew paid the new hands in his establishment less than they could hire their board for, and subscribed liberally to a home where boys could get plain board at half price. Now, God’s way is: “The worker is worthy of his meat.” This dear, good man believed he was doing something religious when he gave the part he kept back from wages in charity. This is an instance of a widely-spreading delusion.
Give, and give liberally, for the conversion of the polished Japanese, the philosophical Brahmin, the filially-trained Chinese, the monotheistic Mohammedan, the heathen of distant Africa and the isles of the sea. You are right. The marching orders of the Grand Army are: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” “All” and “every” cover every inch of ground. Go on and prosper and the Lord magnify thy work.
But, stay, there is here a debt to be paid, restitution to be made. “Leave there thy gift before the altar, go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift.”
Thy brother in black has a controversy with thee. And his Advocate is thy Judge. Listen to the plea: “All the fields cleared and tilled in this broad south land, we cleared and tilled them. The roads that are made we made them, the bridges built we built them. We have been like Joseph in Egypt, whatever has been done here we have been the doers of it. We are American citizens. We have bought our citizenship dear with the sweat of our bodies and the blood of our backs. We have waded the red sea to freedom. The hands that reaped your fields for nought are held out to you for knowledge. We ask for our share of your civilization and your Christianity.” Fellow Christians, the back pay must be made up.