great conception of the spiritual unity of the race. Strange indeed it is now to hear a bigoted Jew say to the Romans that "there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek." Strange indeed it is to hear a proud aristocrat take up the cause of the oppressed and say, "Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is injured and I burn not?" Strange indeed it is to hear a haughty Roman say that "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." I shall speak a little later of the power that wrought that change, but the change itself is one of the marvels of history. Once he had thought of men as Romans or otherwise; now he thinks of them as the citizens of the world. Once he had looked upon them as possible proselytes; now he looks upon them as possible saints. Once he regarded them as aristocrats or otherwise; now he regards them as the souls for whom Christ died. He has caught the great conception of the unity of mankind; he sees the solidarity, the oneness of the race, its common sin, its common sorrow, its common pain, its common hope, its common destiny-and from the moment of he gave that vision the world became his parish and himself to the service of mankind. As Frederick W. Myers puts it finely into his lips: "Only like souls I see the folk thereunder, Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings, Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, Sadly contented in a show of things: "Then with a rush the intolerable craving THE FACT It is this truth so mightily enthroned in and gripping the mind of Paul, that we emphasize to-night. Yes, there is such a thing as the solidarity of the race! Beneath all the accumulated rubbish of our modern society it has been oftentimes obscured. There is a sense in which all men belong to each other and belong to the whole world and are bound together in the same great bundle of a universal life. There are theoretical proofs more than sufficient to demonstrate that. Science, with its root idea in the universality of law, forces upon us the thought of a world that is a coherent whole. Psychology, with its analysis of the mental process, declares not only the essential unity of the individual mind, but, through imitation and the reaction of mind upon mind, the presence of a universal consciousness. Philosophy, if it starts at all, must start with the assumption of a universe, a real unity of truth, and a scheme of things in which no being or phenomenon is unrelated to the whole. And what theory has declared, practical life has demonstrated. Yielding to the impulse of their common interests, we find men and women grouping themselves into families, into cities, into nations, or into groups of nations, and the dream of the Utopian poet is "the parliament of man, the federation of the world." For the past fifteen or twenty years in Europe there has been growing up one group of nations-Germany, Austria, and Italy-known as the Triple Alliance, bound together by their common ambitions and their common need. On the other hand there has been shaping another group-Britain, France and Russia-in the Triple Entente, bound together in the defence and preservation of their common life. And not in our lifetime have we seen or shall we see such a demonstration as this war has furnished of the solidarity of the race. The first blow had not been struck twenty-four hours till it was felt in the farthest corners of the world. It was not the nations who were involved who alone were affected, it was every nation on the face of the earth. The effect was felt in every stock exchange, in the industrial markets, in the home life, in the travelling conveniences, in the personal relationships of men. Because of that blow, 500 miles away a sentry took his place beside a wayside bridge in a Scottish glen; 5,000 miles away a mother's head is bowed in grief in Vancouver; a child on the other side of the world is fatherless in Australia; a soldier joins his army in the seclusion of Thibet. Because of that blow a king of a cannibal island in the heart of the Pacific must needs declare his neutrality towards the nations he has never seen. The vibrations of that blow have thrilled into the last and farthest fibre of the world's life. Nations may be neutral, but they cannot escape. Homes may be dis tant, but they are not exempt. O yes, there is a great world life to which we all belong. There may not be a common language of the lips, but there is a common language of the soul. The yellow Mongolian, the swarthy Latin, the fair Saxon, the red-skinned Indian, merge all their colors in the common hue of the crimson tides of the heart, and manhood recognizes manhood by the swift instinct of the mind. And what theory has propounded and life has proved, revelation has confirmed. God has made of one blood all nations of the earth. We are members one of another, and none of us liveth unto himself, and no man dieth unto himself. We are inextricably bound up with one another in joy and sorrow, in life and death. You will remember how Lowell teaches that in some of the most vigorous verse he ever wrote. The noble deed of one nation uplifts the whole world, for: "When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from East to West, And the slave where'er he cowers feels the soul within him climb |