Gold Nugget 268 - A Jewel of Rarest Worth
Diversities of condition among men – the millionaire and the pauper, the autocrat and the slave. The cry for a leveling – communism, socialism, nihilism. So other differences – of station, of education, and even of natural gifts. But, after all, what are these differences in comparison with that which is common to all – the royal humanity which each one has received from God?
For take the highest, the most cultured, the best endowed, and again a poor peasant man or woman, and let some crisis of joy or of sorrow sound the depths of their common nature, and how utterly do the surface differences disappear in the presence of the deep stirrings of the common manhood or womanhood. Yes, when the great deeps are broken up, we take little account of the surface waves.. This, then, the great truth, in presence of which all bickerings amongst men might disappear. …
A man’s manhood is more than everything. But this is only true in all its truth when manhood becomes really manhood. What are we now? The wreck of a splendid ship; the ruins of a glorious temple, discrowned kings. Oh, let our manhood be re-made, let the crown of true royalty be placed on the brow, let Christ dwell in our hearts by faith, and then how little and paltry will seem either the possession or lack of the things which in their folly men call great! …
To Christianity belongs the unique glory of having recognized the worth of man as a man, whether with or without the extraneous advantages on which other systems have laid such stress. How we it cultivated in heathendom? The foreigner was a “barbarian,” forsooth; and the slave? In some cases worse than the brute beast! Judaism, too, had become exclusive – nay, worse than exclusive, proudly bigoted – in its relation to other people; and even amongst the Jews themselves there was the same contemptible pride. But it remained for Christianity to show that, however bemired and befouled, a human soul is a jewel of the rarest worth. …
Mans range of swift-winged thought, man’s wealth of tender affection, man’s intrepidity of heroic purpose; man’s discernment of the eternal law of holiness, and power of freely choosing the good which he discerns; and man’s immortality; - all these are flashes from the very life of God himself, communicated to man, and constituting man by native right God’s child.
The Pulpit Commentary, James p. 23-24, James 1:9-11, (T. F. Lockyer)
Gold Nugget 268
A Jewel of Rarest Worth
