No man, he said,
sinned or suffered to himself alone; his error and his pain darkened
and afflicted men who never heard of his name. If a community was
corrupt, if an age was immoral, it was not because of the vicious,
but the virtuous who fancied themselves indifferent spectators. It
was not the tyrant who oppressed, it was the wickedness that had
made him possible. The gospel--Christ--God, so far as men had
imagined him,--was but a lesson, a type, a witness from everlasting
to everlasting of the spiritual unity of man. As we grew in grace,
in humanity, in civilisation, our recognition of this truth would be
transfigured from a duty to a privilege, a joy, a heavenly rapture.
Many men might go through life harmlessly without realising this,
perhaps, but sterilely; only those who had had the care of others
laid upon them, lived usefully, fruitfully. Let no one shrink from
such a burden, or seek to rid himself of it. Rather let him bind it
fast upon his neck, and rejoice in it. The wretched, the foolish,
the ignorant whom we found at every turn, were something more; they
were the messengers of God, sent to tell his secret to any that
would hear it. Happy he in whose ears their cry for help was a
perpetual voice, for that man, whatever his creed, knew God and
could never forget him. In his responsibility for his weaker
brethren he was Godlike, for God was but the impersonation of loving
responsibility, of infinite and never-ceasing care for us all.
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