Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1921-05-25
ALL THE WORLD A
NEIGHBORHOOD
Sunday School Lesson for May %.
Scripture. Luke 10; 25-37; Acts q;
Al

Sunday School Lesson for May 20.
Scripture. Luke 1O;25-37; Acts 2;
44-47.
(By Rev. F. E. Dawson, Derby, VT
The Jews and Samaritans were
next door neighbors, but they fought
each other like Kilkenny cats. They
not only had no dealings with each
other, but they took particular pains
to cultivate spite all the year
through. The Jew mathematical the
Samaritan, called him an idolator,
cursed him publicly in the synagogue,
prayed that he might not have por-
ton in the resurrection, proclaimed
that his testimony was worth nothing
and might not be received, that he
who entertained Samaritan in his
house was laying up judgments for
his children, that to eat morsel of
his food was the same as eating
swine's flesh, and that it would be
better to suffer any need than to be
beholden to him for the smallest act
of charity. On the other hand the
Samaritan was not whit behind the
Jew in his .spiteful behavior. When
the Jews were in the habit of kind
ling fires on the mountain tops to
communicate to the surrounding coun-
try the exact time of the new moon,
the Samaritans would steal a march
on them and kindle the fires the night
before, to perplex and mislead. They
went still further, and fell upon and
murdered Jewish travellers going up
to Jerusalem to the feasts, and Jo-
sephus states that once they entered
the holy city secretly and polluted the
whole temple, by scattering in it che
bones of human beings. And yet it
was one of these Samaritan heretics
who has given the world the finest
example of brotherhood that has ever
been known. How he came to rise
out of that national trait, and 's,1b-
stitute the law of love for the law of
the jungle, we are not told. But the
story of his marvellous example will
live as long as the world stands. Read
it, and see.
An american Hereto
The important question is how ia,
have we advanced beyond that time
and how much better neighbors are
we than the cock pit of Palestine ir
the days of Christ? Put over against
the teachings of Christ in this parable
the language Of our great American
Emerson. In his essay on self-re.
lance he says; Do not tell me, as g
good man did today, of my obligation
to put all poor men into good situa-
tions. Are they my poor? I tell thee
thou foolish philanthropist that
grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent
I give to such men as do not belong
to me and to whom l do not belong
There is a class of persons to whom
by all spiritual affinity I am bought
and sold; for them I will go to prison
if need be; but your miscellaneous
popular charities; the education al
college of fools, the building of meet
ing houses to the vain end to which
many now stand; aims to sots, the
thousandfold Relief Societies though
confess with shame | sometimes sue
cunb and give dollar, it is wicked
dollar, which by-and-by I shall have
the manhood to Withhold"
A Heather Neighbor
Without doubt Emerson has more
followers than good neighborhooe
spirit demands. Stand the American
essayist up the side of the Palestiniar
Samaritan and what a pigny he ap.
pears. COMPARED with Christ's neigh.
z Dor he is as an ant hill to Mount
Blanc. There was an ancient heather
who had more of the spirit of neigh
borliness than that. For the heather
said; Mature bids me assist men