Part 3 (2/2)
_What groups of which we have been a part in the past have stamped us with the group character for good or evil? How about those of which we are now a part?_
_What have we learned from the Great War about national solidarity?_
Sixth Day: The Solidarity of the Generations
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of h.e.l.l? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.-Matt. 23:29-36.
Jesus saw a moral solidarity existing, not only between contemporaries who act together, but between generations that act alike. Every generation clings to its profitable wrongs and tries to silence those who stand for higher righteousness. Posterity takes comfort in being fairer about the dead issues, but is just as hot and bad about present issues. The sons reenact the old tragedies on a new stage, and so line up with their fathers. In looking back over the history of his nation, Jesus saw a continuity of wrong which bound the generations together in a solidarity of guilt.
_Does the connection consist only in similarity of action, or is there a causal continuity of wrong in the life of a community?_
_Is there anything in our personal family history or family wealth and business which threatens to line us up with past evils?_
Seventh Day: Social Consciousness in the Lord's Prayer
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.-Matt.
6:9-13.
_Is there anything more solitary than a human soul calling to the invisible Presence? Is there anything more social in consciousness than the Lord's Prayer?_
_Where in these pet.i.tions do you feel the sense of social coherence as the unspoken presupposition of the thought?_(_1_)
_Could Jesus have thought this prayer if the unity of the race had not been both an instinctive reality and a clear social principle with him?_
Study for the Week
That man is a social being is the fundamental fact with which all social sciences have to deal. We may like or dislike people; we can not well be indifferent to them if they get close to us. As Sartor Resartus puts it: ”In vain thou deniest it; thou _art_ my brother. Thy very hatred, thy very envy, those foolish lies thou tellest of me in thy splenetic humour; what is all this but an inverted sympathy? Were I a steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of me?”
s.e.x admiration, parental love, ”the dear love of comrades,” the thrill of patriotism, the joy of play, are all forms of fellows.h.i.+p. They give us happiness because they satisfy our social instinct. To realize our unity gives relish to life. To be thrust out of fellows.h.i.+p is the great pain.
Many evil things get their attractiveness mainly through the fact that they create a bit of fellows.h.i.+p-such as it is. The slender thread of good in the saloon is comrades.h.i.+p. (See Jack London, ”John Barleycorn.”)
I
None ever felt this social unity of our race more deeply than Jesus. To him it was sacred and divine. Hence his emphasis on love and forgiveness.
<script>