_THE NEMESIS OF BIGOTRY_
JOHN xi. 46-57.
A fearful nemesis waits upon the spirit of bigotry. Oliver Wendell Holmes
has said that bigotry is like the pupil of the eye, the more light you
pour into it the more it contracts. The scribes and Pharisees became
smaller men the more the Lord revealed His glory. In the raising of
Lazarus they saw nothing of the glory of the resurrection life, nothing of
the joy of the reunited family, nothing of the gracious ministry of the
Lord! "Darkness had blinded their eyes."
And it is also the nemesis of bigotry to be bitter, cruel, and violent.
They sought to kill the Giver of life!
It is the ministry of light to ripen and sweeten the dispositions. "The
fruit of the light is in all goodness." It is the ministry of the darkness
to make men sour and unsympathetic, and revengeful, and to so pervert the
heart as to make it a minister of poison and death.
And yet, how powerless is bigotry in the long run! It can no more stay the
progress of the Kingdom than King Canute could check the flowing tide!
Bigotry slew the Lord, and He rose again! And so it ever is. "Truth
crushed to earth shall rise again; the eternal years of God are hers."