The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1903-09-16

tlon, rot only IN the physical world,
but in the metaphysical. We are CIV
ing over our old hates and
prejudices, as we'll as our old
worships, to find out which
stand on historic and On moral
verify. Can we nationally defend our
dislike for the Jew? In reply to Mr..
Seward, one Of the Jewish organs
says: "That it will not be possible
to overlook the fact that no Jew can
accept the divinity of Jesus, and re-
main Jew; and no Christian can deny
this divinity. and remain Christian. "
But every Unitarian Christian does
deny that dogma; and so do the great
majority of the unchurched, who still
claim to be Christian, and fundament-
ally are such, while in orthodox COM
munioDs the number increases of those
who go farther than that with Profs.
Pearson and Paine. Christian history
shows that the early Church, at one
period Of it's career, had over one-half
of its members who denied the divinity
of Jesus.
But the question ploughs good deal
deeper. What is important to know
is not that the Jew or Christian or both
are hampered by few doctrines caught
up as they have brushed through the
ages, but whether fundamentally they
are not of the same spirit. At the
very outset we may be astounded with
the fact that we have between Us but
one Bible. At any rate, we Christians
incorporate the Jewish books with our
Christian books; and here they are al
together in our pulpits-Moses and
David with Paul and Luke. But that,
astonishing as it is, is nothing to the
fact that our Jesus was himself Jew,
and our apostles were Jews; and our
church fathers for the first hundred
years of our history were mostly Jews.
Mary was model Jewish maiden and
there is no escaping the fact that.
without Jews and Judaism, Chris
tianity could never have existed at all.
There is the matrix,-the womb. Shall
we despise or ignore our parentage?
Shall the Jew deny his children?
But we have to consider, further,
that the characteristics of the two fell
lowshlps are very much alike. The
Jew race, among all others of antiqui-
ty, alone possessed pre-eminent powers
of synthesis. They could not stop
with fetishisnl or with polytheism. 1t
was not possible for them not to classify
and generalize. Put Jew into the
pantheon of India and he would at once
arrange the three million Gods into
assimilative groups, and deduce out OF
the chaos order. He would by instinct
discover the supreme God as the only
God; and the rest he would pronounce
only godlets, and not worshipable.
God comparison was Jewish instinct.
It selected Yahweh as, on the whole,
the really divine thought. This
synthesis went farther, and summed
up all the accumulated moral senti-
ment in existence in the Ten Com
mandments. With the Talmudists and
Jesus it reduced these to the Golden
Law of Love.
Christianity accepted all Of this; and
it was this sort of jewish in which
it was Graded. It had, and it has, no
other boast. no other glory, no other
power It simply carries these con-
ceptions to farther conclusion. It
saw not only the Fatherhood of God,
but the consequent Brotherhood Of
Man. The Jew had said, "To the Jew
first and also to the Gentle. - Jesus
said, Go into all the world, and preach
the gospel to every creature. Here
was internationalisn. The Jew stopped
at nationalism-has always insisted
on staying there. He has kept race
at the front; while Christianity, as re-
formed Jewism, has insisted Oh larger
Interpretation of human brotherhood.
Not only is there one God, but he is
Father of all. The Lords Prayer is
the synthesis of Jewish worship, ad
iusted for all the world. Who saw
this? Whose programme of religion is
it, That of Jews distinctively; that Of
Jesus. the son of Mary, tie disciple
of Hillel In the process Of denation-
alizing the superb monotheism of
Judea, Christianity laid less emphasis
on extraneous rights, on many valu-
able sanitary laws. The synagogue
passed into a Kirk, and the Sabbath
became Sunday. At last The Book
with US the composit Books less
sacred, and becomes literature, Jew
and Christian begin to agree that the
Law of God was written III the heart,
and not on tables of stone. And We
are altogether learning that our hate
has been irrational, "a vast waste of
moral force The only true end Ct
Judaism is to do good; the only true
end of Christianity is to do good. The
grandest thing that Judaism ever did
was to beget Christianity. Splendid
as appear Abraham, Moses, Isaiah,
David, nothing on the horizon Of the
past appears so perfect as that greatest
of the Jews, Jesus: nothing so hu
man, and therefore nothing so full Of
the Father.