aul's
vantage point not nearly so important or so real as we think they are.
He is sure about this central truth, that God asks no questions about
caste or colour or race or wealth or social station. All men stand
alike in his presence and in the Christian fellowship must be regarded
from his point of view.

It was utterly impossible, however, to keep this spiritual insight from
getting ultimately into a social program. It appealed to motives too
deep and powerful to make possible its segregation as a religious
sentiment. For however impractical an ideal this thought of human
equality may seem in general, and however hard it may be to grant to
others in particular, it is never hard for us to claim for ourselves.
If ever we are condescended to, does any assertion rise more quickly in
our thought than the old cry of our boyhood, "I am as good as you are"?
The lad in school in ragged clothes, who sees himself outclassed by
richer boys, feels it hotly rising in his boyish heart: "I am as good
as you are." The poor man who, with an anxiety he cannot subdue and
yet dares not disclose, is desperately trying to make both ends meet,
feels it as he sees more fortunate men in luxury: "I am as good as you
are." The negro who has tried himself out with his white brethren, who
wears, it may be, an honour key from a great university, who is a
scholar and a gentleman, and yet who is continually denied the most
common courtesies of human intercourse--he says in his heart, although
the words may not pass his lips, "I am as good as you are." Now, the
New Testament took that old cry of the human heart for equality and
turned it upside down. It became no longer for the Christian a bitter
demand for one's rights, but a glad acknowledgment of one's duty. It
did not clamour, "I am as good as you are"; it said, "You are as good
as I am." The early Christians at their best went out into the world
with that cry upon their lips. The Jewish Christians said it to the
Gentiles and the Gentiles to the Jews; the Scythians and barbarians
said it to the Greeks and the Greeks said it in return; the bond said
it to the free and the free said it to the bond. The New Testament
Church in this regard was one of the most extraordinary upheavals in
history, and to-day the best hopes of the world depend upon that spirit
which still says to all men over all the differences of race and colour
and station, "You are as good as I am."

To be sure, before