e
Redeemer, then the unity of the race is secured.

And that oneness which makes us debtors to all men is shown to be
real by the fact that, beneath all superficial distinctions of
culture, race, age, or station, there are the primal necessities and
yearnings and possibilities that lie in every human soul. All men,
savage or cultivated, breathe the same air, see by the same light,
are fed by the same food and drink, have the same yearning hearts,
the same lofty aspirations that unfulfilled are torture; the same
experience of the same guilt, and, blessed be God! the same Saviour
and the same salvation.

Because, then, we are all members of the one family, every man is
bound to regard all that he possesses, and is, and can do, as
committed to him in stewardship to be imparted to his fellows. We are
not sponges to absorb, but we are pipes placed in the spring, that we
may give forth the precious water of life.

Cain is not a very good model, but his question is the world's
question, and it implies the expectation of a negative answer--'Am I
my brother's keeper?' Surely, the very language answers itself, and,
although Cain thinks that the only answer is 'No,' wisdom sees that
the only answer is 'Yes.' For if I am my brother's brother, then
surely I am my brother's keeper. We have a better example. There is
another Elder Brother who has come to give to His brethren all that
Himself possessed, and we but poorly follow our Master's pattern
unless we feel that the mystic tie which binds us in brotherhood to
every man makes us every man's debtor to the extent of our
possessions. That is the Christian truth that underlies the modern
Socialistic idea, and, whatever the form in which it is ultimately
brought into practice as the rule of mankind, the principle will
triumph one day; and we are bound, as Christian men, to hasten the
coming of its victory. We are debtors by reason of our common
humanity.

II. We are debtors by our possession of the universal salvation.

The principle which I have already been laying down applies all
round, to everything that we have, are, or can do. But its most
stringent obligation, and the noblest field for its operations, are
found in reference to the Christian man's possession of the Gospel
for the joy of his own heart, and to the duties that are therein
involved. Christ draws men to Himself for their own sakes, blessed be
His name! but not for their own sakes only. He draws them to Himself,