Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-10-17

Bismarck did in Germany, or as Glad
stone did in the British parliament
No Distinction Between Classes.
Do you believe God discriminates be
tween the sins Of the social classes
If you do. let me by the scene of my
text disabuse your mind of that sur
mise. Come let US Push our way
through the multitpdes crowding in
the temple and find out who compose
that group. Who are those strong, fine
looking men standing in front of
Christ? They are not insignificant
clerks. They are not laborers or farm
ers who have come into town with
dust begrimed clothes. They are not
hirelings or beggars or men and wom-
en- who from perpetual movings have
become tramps and vagabonds. Most
of that group just in front Of Christ
have keen intellectual faces. They
have in their physical movements the
actions of successful men. They have
in the glance of their eyes the search
ing power which bespeaks command.
Those men," wrote DR.. Strong, were
the scribes. They were the doctors of
the law and the interpreters Of the
Scripture" These other men are the
Pharisees. They were so particular to
keep themselves outwardly unspotted
from heather customs that they car
ried extracts from the Hebrew law
about with them in little boxes or
phylacteries. They had these boxes
strapped to their foreheads that all
men might see them. But when these
men, these leaders of Jerusalem, were
standing there condemning poor out
cast woman for her sins Christ in ST.
lence was making figures upon the
ground with his fingers in which they
might read their own condemnation.
What Jesus Christ was writing upon
the ground is not recorded; but, though
we may never know on earth those eX-
act words, | have good deal Of SYM
pathy with that evangelist who said
that Christ was writing the evil his
tory of each scribe and Pharisee while
they were speaking against the sobbfng
culprit. No sooner did the first scribe
begin to talk than Christ began to
write, as though he had set down these
words Lawyer, you are not living
with your wife. She has left you on
account Of your dissoluteness. She is
now gone back to her fathers home.
For what are you condemning this wo-
man? For your own sinY' No sooner
did the lawyer look down on the ground
and see what Jesus was writing than
he turned and departed. When the
next speaker, Pharisee, began to talk
Christ began to write again. Rich
man, you have never committed the
crime of which this woman was guilty,
but you own the house in which she
lives and carries on her vile traffic.
The rent you get from that house Is
blood money. Why are you speaking
against your tenant? You are a part
ner with her in crime" When the
Pharisee capitalist saw what Christ
| was writing and that all the people
were laughing at him he also disap-
| peared. So Christ went through the
| list Of different accusers. But whether
| Christ was writing the history of those
| accusers on the ground or no we care
not, for one fact we do know-by his
silence as we'll as later by his spoken
words Christ was teaching the sweep
ing lesson that a. rich mans sins, a
prominent lawyers or physicians OF
| Statesman's sins or a minister's sins
are just as severely condemned in the
sight Of God as the poor mans sins
The divine law discriminates not be
| tween the sins of the upper and low
er social classes, but between sin and
righteousness. The sin Of the broad
| cloth Is the same black sin which some
times nests under the rough woolens OF
the laborer and the mechanic. Sin is
sin wherever found.
No Immunity Given.
But 1 find in the next place another
| trenchant lesson. The divine law does
not accept zeal in bringing others t
justice as a ground for absolving the
prosecutor of hiss own wrongdoing. The
scribes and Pharisees cannot atone fol
their sins by denOuncing and condemn
ing others. Though a man might prove
every other man a living example Of
total depravity and devote his life t.
| NAN N@AHOouIS anu Oh
lnals, he must take his own place al
the bar and answer the indictment OF
his own iniquities Instances hav,
Deen known of a criminal under hu
man government securing for himself
immunity from punishment for his owl
crimes by betraying his leader to th,
officers of the law or even by himsa1-
executing sentence on that leader h,,
such men are despised for their per
fidy, even by the community that profits
by the treachery. A similar principl
Is applied in our courts of justice whel
a man is allowed to turn states evi
dence. 1t sometimes happens tina
there is no way of convicting a notori
GUS criminal but by the testimony o
a confederate. That confederate's evi
dence has to be purchased, and tn
price paid is a pardon for him of hi
own share in the crime 1t is heav,
price to pay, a miscarriage of justice