[pg 302] These Samaritans were not only degraded and despised socially, but they were also superstitious in their religious beliefs, and semi-heathen in their forms of worship. It would take generations to bring them up to a level with the Jewish Christians. They could not comprehend much of the intelligent preaching that Christ addressed to the Jews. Why not appoint a special missionary for them, and then quietly exclude them from the ordinary gatherings? This course would avoid criticism; it would not violate the established ideas of social and religious propriety. Nothing need be said about it. It would not be best to put it on parchment; just let it be quietly whispered about that the disciples thought it was better for the Samaritan Christians not to meet with the others. The disciples were surrounded by prejudiced people, to be sure, but these prejudices were very old; time would correct all these social and race inequalities. The disciples thought it better to ignore them, and just organize and carry on their work with no reference to these degraded and superstitious Samaritans. Such seems to have been somewhat the reasoning of these timid disciples. It was not our Lord's reasoning; the doors of his blessed kingdom opened to all. It required no magic sesame of race respectability to throw back these gates of pardon and hope. Sin must be left outside, but the sinner of every race and tribe was welcomed to all the privileges of this kingdom. We now see the wisdom and the divinity of our Lord's course.
Had these marveling disciples had their way, the sect of the Christians would have been added to the sects of the Herodians and the Sadducees, and been buried in the same grave centuries ago. The voice that talked with this Samaritan woman is heard round the globe now, and every century only adds greater authority to its divine utterance; and it is heard because it spoke with this despised Samaritan woman. Our Lord did not ignore this race prejudice; he rebuked it. And so these timid disciples, realizing only the temporary danger that threatened, marveled that he talked with this woman. God pity them! But how human they were. So to-day, in India, the missionaries of the cross, true to their Lord's great example, talk with pariah and Brahmin, and welcome them both to equal privileges in the kingdom of his grace—and men marvel. And so in Alabama and South Carolina, the missionaries of the cross, true to the same divine example, talk with black and with white, and welcome them both to the same privileges in this kingdom—and even some timid disciples marvel. But the principles of this divine kingdom do not change; the Lord of that kingdom, who talked with the sinful, weary, despised Samaritan woman, would, if here in bodily presence now, talk with the sinful, weary, despised black woman, no matter how much his worldly-wise disciples might marvel. His kingdom is built upon this eternal truth of human brotherhood, and it will endure because it is. Nothing short of this is of his kingdom, but will crumble to dust.
The Congregationalist
[pg 303]
Forty-Second Annual Report Of The Executive Committee,
FOR THE YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30TH, 1888.