practice in
money matters, and also expand our idea of 'debts.' According to
Christ's teaching, the priest and Levite did not pay their debt to
their Samaritan neighbour, because they thought him a stranger with no
claim on them. Dives ignored his rich man's debt to Lazarus. Of those
who are to appear on the left hand of Christ's judgement-seat, each
will be condemned because he never realized his debt to Christ in the
persons of all those who had needs to which he might have ministered.
St. Paul, as an apostle, acknowledged his debt {129} to all the Gentile
world[1], and we members of a church, catholic in idea, but as yet so
far from catholic in fact--we Englishmen, members of an imperial and
spreading race, responsible for the name of Christ all over the
world--have a portentous and lamentably unfulfilled debt to the races
of Africa and India, and to the whole world.

We can all think of manifold debts--to the lonely whom we might visit,
the misunderstood whom we might sympathize with, the ignorant whom we
might teach, the weak and oppressed whom we might support and combine,
the sinful whom we might convert and establish in good living; so many
debts to family and friends; so many debts to Englishmen and fellow
Christians, to Africans and Asiatics. Is it not bewildering even to
attempt to realize our debts? And yet, let a man make a beginning, and
all will be well. Let him steadily set himself to behave towards those
whom he employs or those who employ him, towards his domestic servants
or his masters, towards railway porters and shop assistants and others
who minister to his convenience, as being men and women with the same
right to courteous treatment, and to a real opportunity to {130} make
the best of themselves, as he has himself; let him steadily refuse to
'exploit' those immediately concerned with him, or treat them as merely
means to his ends or instruments of his convenience; let him thus
realize his debts to his nearest 'neighbours,' and the whole idea of
humanity, of brotherhood, will be deepened and made real to him.
Serving the few, he will come to serve the many. His prayers will go
before his actions, and enlarge their scope. He will get a habit of
considerateness and thoughtfulness for others, as belonging to Christ,
which will express itself habitually towards all, and especially the
weak. His 'neighbour' will come to mean, as in our Lord's parable and
in St. Paul's expression in this plac