The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1945-03-16
School.
Lesson
Text: Acts 10: S-16, "a, IS;
IL: 24-28
BY VIM. E. GILROY. d. d.

1nlS lesson mas 4 vital ana
Immediately urgent topic, and
no better passage bearing upon
it could have been chosen from
the Scriptures, or in fact from
all literature.
The story Of Peter, and OF the
strong prejudices that had to be
overcome before he could meet
devout Gentiles upon a basis Of
common humanity and Christian
equality, applies to similar Xtua-
dohy today. It reminds us, too,
how men otherwise good and
very earnest can sin against
their brother men, and be un-
godly in their attitudes toward
those whom for some reason
they do not like, or toward
whom there are social prejudices
in their environment or time.
Peter had a dream. He went
up on the house top to pray, but
he was very hungry, and while
his friends prepared food for
him he fell asleep. He dreamed
that he saw the heavens opened
and that a great vessel, like a
sheet held up at the four cor
ners, descended to the earth,
filled with all manner of beasts
and fowls. "A voice said, "Rise,
Peter, kill and eat; but Peter,
true to the Jewish sense Of
cleanliness about food, replied:
mot 80, Lord, for I have never
eaten anything common or UNI
clean"
Then came the voice saying,
"What God hath cleansed, that
call not thou common; and
while Peter wondered what it
might all mean, there came two
servants of Cornelius, a Roman
centurion, summoning him, in
accordance with q vision that
had come to the devout soldier.
According to the standards of
all that Peter had believed and
accepted it was all very irregu-
lar; and when he went to the
home of Cornelius and found a
company Of Gentiles gathered
there he reminded them that he
was doing an unlawful thing, as
a Jew, in associating himself
with them and in coming unto
"one of another nation" But
facts were too strong for Peter.
He perceived that q higher law
of Gods grace was at work, and
as he listened to Cornelius, tell
ing Of this work Of grace that
had begun in his heart, Peter
was moved to declare, "Of a
truth I perceive that God is no
respecter Of persons; but that in
every nation he that feareth
Him, and worketh righteousness,
is accepted Of Him."
There Is the root and founda-
ton of right relations between
men Of every sort, race, and
condition. Today, rs regards the
Jews, things are reversed. An
ti-Semitism, cruel, remorseless.
and terrible, has swept over
countries in Europe. Hatred and
violence Of incredible intensity
and extent have occasioned the
torture and death Of millions
for no other reason than that
they were Jews. 1t Is stunning
in its horror, yet here in demo-
cratic and Christian America
there are groups, Of all things
naming the name of Christ, who
are stirring up the same sort of
racial prejudice, and who would
perpetrate the same sort Of de-
struction. No lover of Christ
can be q hater Of Jews, for
Christ himself was q Jew, and
he taught love toward all men.
We Christians owe . duty to our
God and our country to fight
racial prejudice with all the
power that Is in us.
The Negro, for q much longer
period than the Jew. here in
America has been the victim of
racial prejudice, with color pre-
JUDGE added. The increasing
evidence Of q truly Christian.
unprsjudiced attitude on the
part Of many in areas where the
subsection of the Negro has been
deepest, infers that II Is in the
south that we are going to see
in coming years the greatest
progress in the solution Of 1.-The
Negro problem"