"And hath made of one blood all nations of men."--ACTS xvii: 26.
Some have supposed that God originally made an Asiatic Adam and a
European Adam and an African Adam and an American Adam, but that
theory is entirely overthrown by my text, which says that all nations
are blood relatives, having sprung from one and the same stock. A
difference in climate makes much of the difference in national temper.
An American goes to Europe and stays there a long while, and finds his
pulse moderating and his temper becoming more calm. The air on this
side the ocean is more tonic than on the other side. An American
breathes more oxygen than a European. A European coming to America
finds a great change taking place in himself. He walks with more rapid
strides, and finds his voice becoming keener and shriller. The
Englishman who walks in London Strand at the rate of three miles the
hour, coming to America and residing for a long while here, walks
Broadway at the rate of four miles the hour. Much of the difference
between an American and a European, between an Asiatic and an African,
is atmospheric. The lack of the warm sunlight pales the Greenlander.
The full dash of the sunlight darkens the African.
Then, ignorance or intelligence makes its impression on the physical
organism--in the one case ignorance flattening the skull, as with the
Egyptian; in the other case intelligence building up the great dome of
the forehead, as with the German. Then the style of god that the
nation worships decides how much it shall be elevated or debased, so
that those nations that worship reptiles are themselves only a
superior form of reptile, while those nations that worship the natural
sun in the heavens are the noblest style of barbaric people. But
whatever be the difference of physiognomy, and whatever the difference
of temperament, the physiologist tells us that after careful analysis
he finds out that the plasma and the disk in the human blood have the
same characteristics: so that if you should put twenty men from twenty
nationalities abreast in line of battle, and a bullet should fly
through the hearts of the twenty men, the blood flowing forth would,
through analysis, prove itself to be the same blood in every instance.
In other words, the science of the day confirming the truth of my text
that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men."
I have thought, my friends, it might be profitable this morning if I
gave you some of the moral and religious impressions which I received
when, through your indulgence, I had transatlantic absence. First, I
observe that the majority of people in all lands are in a mighty
struggle for bread. While in nearly all lands there are only a few
cases of actual starvation reported, there is a vast population in
every country I visited who have a limited supply of food, or such
food as is incompetent to sustain physical vigor. This struggle in
some lands is becoming more agonizing, while here and there it is
lightened. I have joy in reporting that Ireland, about the sufferings
of which we have heard so much, has far better prospects than I have
seen there in previous visits. In 1879, coming home from that land, I
prophesied the famine that must come upon, and did come upon, the
deluged fields of that country. This year the crops are large, and
both parties--those who like the English Government and those who
don't like it--are expecting relief. I said to one of the intelligent
men of Ireland: "Tell me in a few words what are the sufferings of
Ireland, and what is the Land Relief enactment?" He replied: "I will
tell you. Suppose I am a landlord and you a tenant. You rent from me a
place for ten pounds a year. You improve it. You turn it from a bog
into a garden. You put a house upon it. After a while I, the landlord,
come around, and I say to my agent: 'How much rent is this man
paying;' He answers, 'Ten pounds.' 'Is that all? Put his rent up to
twenty pounds.' The tenant goes on improving his property, and after
awhile I come around and I say to my agent, 'How much rent is this man
paying?' He says, 'Twenty pounds.' 'Put his rent up to twenty-five
pounds.' The tenant protests and says, 'I can't pay it.' Then I, the
landlord, say, 'Pay it or get out;' and the tenant is helpless, and,
leaving the place, the property in its improved condition turns over
to the landlord. Now, to stop that outrage the Relief Enactment comes
in and appoints commissioners who shall see that if the tenant is
turned out, he shall receive the difference of value between the farm
as he got it and the farm as he surrenders it. Moreover, the
government loans money to the tenant, so that he may buy the property
out and out if the landlord will sell." Mighty advancement toward the
righting of a great wrong! But there and in all lands, not excepting
our own, there is a far-reaching distress. And let those who broke
their fast this morning, and those who shall dine to-day, remember
those who are in want, and by prayer and practical beneficence do all
they can to alleviate the hunger swoon of nations.
Another impression was--indeed the impression carried with me all the
summer--the thought already suggested, the brotherhood of man. The
fact is that the differences are so small between nations that they
may be said to be all alike. Though I spent the most of the summer in
silence, I spoke a few times and to people of different nations, and
how soon I noticed that they were very much alike! If a man knows how
to play the piano, it does not make any difference whether he finds it
in New Orleans or San Francisco or Boston or St. Petersburg or Moscow
or Madras; it has so many keys, and he puts his fingers right on them.
And the human heart is a divine instrument, with just so many keys in
all cases, and you strike some of them and there is joy, and you
strike some of them and there is sorrow. Plied by the same motives,
lifted up by the same success, depressed by the same griefs. The
cab-men of London have the same characteristics as the cab-men of New
York, and are just as modest and retiring. The gold and silver drive
Piccadilly and the Boulevards just as they drive Wall Street. If there
be a great political excitement in Europe, the Bourse in Paris howls
just as loudly as ever did the American gold-room.
The same grief that we saw in our country in 1864 you may find now in
the military hospitals of England containing the wounded and sick from
the Egyptian wars. The same widowhood and orphanage that sat down in
despair after the battles of Shiloh and South Mountain poured their
grief in the Shannon and the Clyde and the Dee and the Thames. Oh, ye
men and women who know how to pray, never get up from your knees until
you have implored God in behalf of the fourteen hundred millions of
the race just like yourselves, finding life a tremendous struggle! For
who knows but that as the sun to-day draws up drops of water from the
Caspian and the Black seas and from the Amazon and the Mississippi,
after a while to distill the rain, these very drops on the fields--who
knows but that the sun of righteousness may draw up the tears of your
sympathy, and then rain them down in distillation of comfort o'er all
the world?
Who is that poor man, carried on a stretcher to the Afghan ambulance?
He is your brother. If in the Pantheon at Paris you smite your hand
against the wall among the tombs of the dead, you will hear a very
strange echo coming from all parts of the Pantheon just as soon as you
smite the wall. And I suppose it is so arranged that every stroke of
sorrow among the tombs of bereavement ought to have loud, long, and
oft-repeated echoes of sympathy all around the world. Oh, what a
beautiful theory it is--and it is a Christian theory--that Englishman,
Scotchman, Irishman, Norwegian, Frenchman, Italian, Russian, are all
akin. Of one blood all nations. That is a very beautiful inscription
that I saw a few days ago over the door in Edinburgh, the door of the
house where John Knox used to live. It is getting somewhat dim now,
but there is the inscription, fit for the door of any household--"Love
God above all, and your neighbor as yourself."
I was also impressed in journeying on the other side the sea with the
difference the Bible makes in countries. The two nations of Europe
that are the most moral to-day and that have the least crime are
Scotland and Wales. They have by statistics, as you might find, fewer
thefts, fewer arsons, fewer murders. What is the reason? A bad book
can hardly live in Wales. The Bible crowds it out. I was told by one
of the first literary men in Wales: "There is not a bad book in the
Welsh language." He said: "Bad books come down from London, but they
can not live here." It is the Bible that is dominant in Wales. And
then in Scotland just open your Bible to give out your text, and there
is a rustling all over the house almost startling to an American. What
is it? The people opening their Bibles to find the text, looking at
the context, picking out the referenced passages, seeing whether you
make right quotation. Scotland and Wales Bible-reading people. That
accounts for it. A man, a city, a nation that reads God's Word must be
virtuous. That Book is the foe of all wrong-doing. What makes
Edinburgh better than Constantinople? The Bible.
Oh, I am afraid in America we are allowing the good book to be covered
up with other good books! We have our ever-welcome morning and evening
newspapers, and we have our good books on all subjects--geological
subjects, botanical subjects, physiological subjects, theological
subjects--good books, beautiful books, and so many good books that we
have not time to read the Bible. Oh, my friends, it is not a matter of
very great importance that you have a family Bible on the center-table
in your parlor! Better have one pocket New Testament, the passages
marked, the leaves turned down, the binding worn smooth with much
usage, than fifty pictorial family Bibles too handsome to read! Oh,
let us take a whisk-broom and brush the dust off our Bibles! Do you
want poetry? Go and hear Job describe the war-horse, or David tell how
the mountains skipped like lambs. Do you want logic? Go and hear Paul
reason until your brain aches under the spell of his mighty intellect.
Do you want history? Go and see Moses put into a few pages stupendous
information which Herodotus, Thucydides, and Prescott never preached
after. And, above all, if you want to find how a nation struck down by
sin can rise to happiness and to heaven, read of that blood which can
wash away the pollution of a world. There is one passage in the Bible
of vast tonnage: "God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life." Oh, may God fill this country with Bibles and
help the people to read them!
I was also impressed in my transatlantic journeys with the wonderful
power that Christ holds among the nations. The great name in Europe
to-day is not Victoria, not Marquis of Salisbury, not William the
Emperor, not Bismarck; the great name in Europe to-day is Christ. You
find the crucifix on the gate-post, you find it in the hay field, you
find it at the entrance of the manor, you find it by the side of the
road.
The greatest pictures in all the galleries of Italy, Germany, France,
England, and Scotland are Bible pictures. What were the subjects of
Raphael's great paintings? "The Transfiguration," "The Miraculous
Draught of Fishes," "The Charge to Peter," "The Holy Family," "The
Massacre of the Innocents," "Moses at the Burning Bush," "The
Nativity," "Michael the Archangel," and the four or five exquisite
"Madonnas." What are Tintoretto's great pictures? "Fall of Adam,"
"Cain and Abel," "The Plague of the Fiery Serpent," "Paradise," "Agony
in the Garden," "The Temptation," "The Adoration of the Magi," "The
Communication," "Baptism," "Massacre of the Innocents," "The Flight
into Egypt," "The Crucifixion," "The Madonna." What are Titian's great
pictures? "The Flagellation of Christ," "The Supper at Emmaus," "The
Death of Abel," "The Assumption," "The Entombment," "Faith," "The
Madonna." What are Michael Angelo's great pictures? "The
Annunciation," "The Spirits in Prison," "At the feet of Christ," "The
Infant Christ," "The Crucifixion," "The Last Judgment." What are Paul
Veronese's great pictures? "Queen of Sheba," "The Marriage in Cana,"
"Magdalen Washing the Feet of Christ," "The Holy Family." Who has not
heard of Da Vinci's "Last Supper"? Who has not heard of Turner's
"Pools of Solomon"? Who has not heard of Claude's "Marriage of Isaac
and Rebecca"? Who has not heard of Dürer's "Dragon of the
Apocalypse"? The mightiest picture on this planet is Rubens'
"Scourging of Christ." Painter's pencil loves to sketch the face of
Christ. Sculptor's chisel loves to present the form of Christ. Organs
love to roll forth the sorrows of Christ.
The first time you go to London go into the Doré picture gallery. As I
went and sat down before "Christ Descending the Steps of the
Prætorium," at the first I was disappointed. I said: "There isn't
enough majesty in that countenance, not enough tenderness in that
eye;" but as I sat and looked at the picture it grew upon me until I
was overwhelmed with its power, and I staggered with emotion as I went
out into the fresh air, and said; "Oh, for that Christ I must live,
and for that Christ I must be willing to die!" Make that Christ your
personal friend, my sister, my brother. You may never go to Milan to
see Da Vinci's "Last Supper;" but, better than that, you can have
Christ come and sup with you. You may never get to Antwerp to see
Rubens' "Descent of Christ from the Cross," but you can have Christ
come down from the mountain of His suffering into your heart and abide
there forever. Oh, you must have Him! We are all so diseased with sin
that we want that which hurts us, and we won't have that which cures
us. The best thing for you and for me to do to-day is to get down on
our bended knees before God and say: "Oh, Almighty Son of God, I am
blind! I want to see. My arms are palsied. I want to take hold of thy
cross. Have mercy on me, O Lord Jesus!" Why will you live on husks
when you may sit down to this white bread of heaven? Oh, with such a
God, and with such a Christ, and with such a Holy Spirit, and with
such an immortal nature, wake up!
Once more, I was impressed greatly on the other side the sea with the
wonderful triumphs of the Christian religion. The tide is rising, the
tide of moral and spiritual prosperity in the world. I think that any
man who keeps his eyes open, traveling in foreign lands, will come to
that conclusion. More Bibles than ever before, more churches, more
consecrated men and women, more people ready to be martyrs now than
ever before, if need be; so that instead of there being, as people
sometimes say, less spirit of martyrdom now than ever before, I
believe where there was once one martyr there would be a thousand
martyrs if the fires were kindled--men ready to go through flood and
fire for Christ's sake. Oh, the signs are promising! The world is on
the way to millennial brightness. All art, all invention, all
literature, all commerce will be the Lord's.
These ships that you see going up and down New York harbor are to be
brought into the service of God. All those ships I saw at Liverpool,
at Southampton, at Glasgow, are to be brought into the service of
Christ. What is that passage, "Ships of Tarshish shall bring
presents"? That is what it means. Oh, what a goodly fleet when the
vessels of the sea come into the service of God! No guns frowning
through the port-holes, no pikes hung in the gangway, nothing from
cut-water to taffrail to suggest atrocity. Those ships will come from
all parts of the seas. Great flocks of ships that never met on the
high sea but in wrath, will cry, "Ship ahoy!" and drop down beside
each other in calmness, the flags of Emmanuel streaming from the
top-gallants. The old slaver, with decks scrubbed and washed and
glistened and burnished--the old slaver will wheel into line; and the
Chinese junk and the Venetian gondola, and the miners' and the
pirates' corvette, will fall into line, equipped, readorned,
beautified, only the small craft of this grand flotilla which shall
float out for the truth--a flotilla mightier than the armada of Xerxes
moving in the pomp and pride of Persian insolence; mightier than the
Carthaginian navy rushing with forty thousand oarsmen upon the Roman
galleys, the life of nations dashed out against the gunwales.
Rise, O sea! and shine, O heavens! to greet this squadron of light and
victory! On the glistening decks are the feet of them that bring good
tidings, and songs of heaven float among the rigging. Crowd on all the
canvas. Line-of-battle ship and merchantmen wheel into the way. It is
noon. Strike eight bells. From all the squadron the sailors' songs
arise. "Surely the isles shall wait for thee, and the ships of
Tarshish to bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with
them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and the Holy One of Israel."