look back on the long road by which humanity has travelled and
read of the things men once did in cold blood, we wonder how they could
ever have had the heart to do them. The answer is--custom. To us it
is incredible that men should once have trafficked in human flesh and
blood. And yet to our forefathers of even recent years it seemed the
most natural thing. Were there not slaves from the beginning, and
naturally there would be unto the end! The captains of the slave ships
would assemble their crews in their cabins for prayer meetings while
the holds of their ships were filled with men and women dying in these
gehennas! So far from experiencing any twinges of conscience, these
slave captains regarded themselves as benefactors of humanity. Sir
John Hawkins was not alone in priding himself on the fact that he
brought so many of the heathen of Africa into Christian lands, where
they might hear the Gospel. It is not so long ago when children of six
years worked in factories from five in the morning to nine at night.
We who play with our babes and build our brick castles in Spain while
they shout for joy--think of it! What hearts they must have had--these
fathers of ours--who took the babes by their thousands and harnessed
them to the car of their juggernaut! And yet they were not any
different from us. They were only blinded by custom.... Whoever has
wandered over the hills of his native land will remember the leap of
the heart when he has suddenly seen some fair valley open up before his
amazed eyes. He can hear the song of the river that waters it, he sees
the clouds playing on the slopes, his awestruck lips murmur with the
great artist as he looked on Glen Feshie, 'Lord God Almighty!' But no
human dwelling is there, only heaps of stones where the homesteads once
stood; only the bleating of sheep where children once shouted at play.
What became of the people? They were driven out. The will of one man
or one woman drove the population of a parish into the Cowcaddens of
Glasgow or exiled them beyond the seas. And the Church of Christ
looked on silent. And the men who made the countryside waste prided
themselves on the fact that they set the people, whom they drove forth,
on the way of fortune! How could men do deeds like these? How could
the Church be silent in the face of them? Again it was just custom.
The ears had got so accustomed to phrases such as the 'sacredness of
property,' the 'right of a man