Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-07-10
AT THE CHURCHES.
who is my EeighbOr 7"-" The Modern
Samaritan" as Seen by an Eve witness.

| South yesterday DIR. Anderson, the pastor,
officiated. The following is a synopsis OF
his discourse Subject, "Who is my Neigh
bor!' Text, Luke L, 90 wherein certain
lawyer said unto Jesus, And who is my
neighbour" He began by asking who was
this lawyer? How did he read the law:
| What idea did he entertain Of the question,
"Who is my neighbor? ?" Jews only are
my nighbors. have no dealings whatever
with Gentiles, All charities, all acts of kind
! ness, extend toward my own people. Be-
| ing descendent of Abraham, the father Of
the faithful and friend of God, ! could not
consistently aid others in whose veins patri-
archial blood did not Row. Are we not to-
day, in a sense, limited in our charities After
| living eighteen centuries, in the full blaze OF
| religious and scientific truth, do we not have
/ imperfect conceptions of the duties we owe to
| God, to ourselves. and to our neighbors: Are
not our practices OF those virtues really more
! imperfect than our knowledge!
| The parable Of the Good Samaritan estab-
fishes the great principle Of universal de.
] nsndence. AS creatures we have q two-fold
| dependence-s dependence upon God and
upon our fellows. Our dependence upon God
is necessary, absolute. Upon him we depend
| for air, sunshine, food, raiment, health, lite.
"a In Him we live, move and have our being.
! He is the very source of our being the prin-
ciple Of life and motion comes from him.
! Without Him the whole universe would
trenble over the gulf of nothingness-would
drop into nonentity.
! We depend upon our fellows. ms Is 2
wise and gracious appointment. Cut of
from men, life would be intolerable-a bur
/ den. Wealth, learning, beauty-all that men
/ love, or hold as sacred, could not make them
| happy were they denied social intercourse.
! The King depends for his happiness upon his
/ subjects the merchant his customers the
minister, his congregation. We dare say that
angels depend upon others, the good they can
do them, fo- those tides Of rapture that rise
and swell and break in their own mighty
hearts
We depend upon each other for thought,
for ideas Originality is indeed rare thing.
Those few rapid and decisive moments when
| genius creates come not to every one.
Much said Goethe, is talked about orig
| inality; but what does originality mean
| We are no sooner born than the world around
US begins to act upon us. owe to
the great men, Lassing, Winkleman and
Kant, who have preceded me, much +; very
| little Is my own
We depend upon each other for sympathy.
Let the sufferer know that come one sympa-
thizes with him, and his heart will be
strengthened and his cup of sffiiction sweet
ened. Let the poor know that the rich are
deeply interested in their welfare, that they
are ready to help them in every possible way,
and honest poverty will lit up its head
Think Of a cold, unsympathixing man or
woman, like the priest and Leyise in the
parable, walking around Oh the other side"
forgetting that they themselves ARE In the
body" Can they say I'VE are not liable to
such distress Have they charter of ex-
emption from poverty, cslumny and ingrsti-
tude? viii they not, like others, outlive
their friends and their comforts? View the
changes that take place daily in social and
commercial life, and say how near you may
be to the keenest distress, or the most poig-
nAnt grief. Let your liability to every kind
Of suffering teach your sympathy.
In our city there stands an institution that
Gods eye rests upon day and night, and his
| providence is IS certainly over it as it was
| over Elijah by the brook Cherith. l refer to
the Protestant Orphan Asylum. Its presence
In our midst is benediction. 1t appeals at
once TO our sympathetic broadens and
deepens them. Those "elect ladies " who
are giving their time and money to its sup
port are not only helping the little ones"
4 for whom our Father in Heaven cares most
tenderly, but they are building in their own
souls celestial city; and when material for
! tunes shall have been swept away, there will
remain within them the sweet and blessed
consciousness that they have been eyes to
the blind, feet to the lame, and bread to the
| hungry. The true riches consist in
4 binding up wounds and pouring into them
wine and OIL
Who then is my neigkbor? God never
shrunk to the proportions Of . bigot; nor
will he allow US to take narrow views of our
selves, or Of those who are about US. A re.
/ ligion of forms and ceremonies is too apt to
be exclusive-the nurse of bigotry. But the
religion Of Jesus Christ is a religion of prin-
ciple, it is faith working by love; it is the
bond Of perfectness.
4 do not despise parties. l should not be
| Christian il 1 had not love. Thank God the
4 bitterness OF party strife is subsiding we can
4 differ and at the same time not disagree.
/ Good men of all parties are seeking the nat
ura- grounds where they can meet for the
| common benefit. Every man in distress that
needs kind word, or human sympathy, or
moral and material support, is my neighbor.
| I care not where he was born. how he was
| trained, or what his views of life or destiny
may be-he is my nsighbor, and has claim
upon me. | believe in the Christ of Pales-
! tine, and be is the Christ of the world. He
| belonged to no race, but to all races to no
age, but to all ages. All meet in Him. He
unifes mankind, and makes the whole world
| akin. Christian men are therefore debtors
to the world. They are its lights salt.
MODERN sAMARITANs.
! At the Congregational Church yesterday
| Rev. II. u. levitt, OF Redwood City, off,
| eiated in the absence of Rev. DR.. Dwinell,
the pastor. In the evening missionary con.
cert was held, and on that occasion Dir.
levitt, who has the advantage of extended
personal observation in Palestine, spoke of
| 1.-THE Modern Samaritans, as Seen by an
I Eyewitness. He said that Shechem is the
only place in the world where the sect known
| as Samarisans is to be found. Politically,
they became independent of Judea when the
I ten tribes revolted, under Jeroboan. Ec.
Realistically, they are found claiming SUBJ
stantial agreement with the jews as late as
the return from the captivity. But from
that time onward their hostility to the jews
| increased rapidly. In the fourth century, 3.
| c., they obtained permission from the Persian
King to build temple on Mt. Gerizim,
which should bs to them what the temple at
Jerusalem was to the Jews. This temple
was destroyed in the year b. c. 129. Its
ruins now constitute one of the attractions OF
a visit to the mountain. This Samaritan
race was so powerful that even in the
fourth century of the Christian era
they were regarded as the 'chief and
most dangerous adyerssries of Christianity"
| In the fifth century they began to sink rap
idly into obscurity. At the present day there
| is o mere remnant of the race extant. Less
| than l40 men, women and children comprise
all that remnant of this once strong nation,
and these few are gathered together in Shec-
hem, where they have synagogue.
Soon after our arrival in the city we were
met by Youhannah Ell Karey, an Arab mis-
sienary educated in England and laboring in
| Shechem. He took US to the Samaritan
| quarters Arriving at the house of the high
priest, we were conducted to the fiat roof,
where half dozen prominent Sanaritans
were assembled. As the sun was setting we
all descended to the little synagogue, where
| about fifty men and boys were gathered for
worship. The floor WIS covered with mats,
upon which no shoes or boots may be worn,
according to Oriental custom. The side
of the room toward Mt. Gerizim was
recess, the high priest took his position; both
he and the people kneeGng with faces toward
! the holy mountain. The service lasted half
an hour, and consisted of the chanting Of
prayers Sitting upon the fat roof outside,
looking through the grated windows of
| small dome into the room below, were mum.
Der of vailed women, who, like all oriental
women, were denied entrance into the assem-
bly of mem. This Samaritan place of wor-
ship is famous, not only as the last remaining
synagogue Of The sect to be found in the
world, but also as the depository Of the IA
NOUS copy of the books of Moses known as
the Samaritan Pentateuch. This parchment
is guarded by the high priest with jealous
care. On the day following the service, &C
companied by an interpreter, we followed the
priest into the synagogue, and saw the pre-
cious parchment. The roll is about fifteen
inches wide, and is said to be nearly
sixty feet long. 1t contains the five
books of Moses, written in the Samaritan
text. This comprises the whole of the Sa-
marian Bible, and only about sixteen copies
of this, in whole or in part, exist at the pres
emit time. The Samaritans claim that this
version ia about thirty-6ve hundred years
old, and that this copy is older than the
Christian era by twenty years. The version
is traced by critical Investigators, however,
no further back than the time of the second
temple, and this copy to the sixth or seventh
century of the Christian era But even this