Acts 17:26 And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed… I. THERE IS PRECISELY THE SAME PLAN IN ALL THE RACES — Of bone, nerve, artery, structure, etc. The great functions and organs are the same. If the African had his heart in his liver it would be a tough argument; but what difference does it make that his hair is kinked? The surgeon, the nurse, the dietician will treat him and you exactly alike. Yet you hear men say, "Look at his flat nose. Do you suppose that he is one with the man who has a Grecian nose? "But is not the sense of smell the same in both? The variation of superficial form does not touch the question of unity of function and structure. In fact the differences between one part of the human family and another is no greater than that which exists in a single household where one child is a genius and another practical, one poetic and another prosaic. II. ALL THE RACES OF MEN ARE EDUCABLE. It is not so with the lower animals. You can carry them a very little way in education, and all the rest is trick. But the moment you strike humanity at its very lowest you find capacity of culture. If you take the greatest savages and put them in better relations and conditions they show that they belong to the universal race of man. III. ALL HAVE THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. There is no proof that this exists to any considerable degree in the animal kingdom. But sometimes, as among the Indians, you find this sense highly developed in the most uncultured. IV. ALL HAVE THE PERCEPTION OF WIT AND HUMOUR. Man is the only laughing animal in the world. V. MORAL SENSE IS COMMON TO ALL. Where men believe in killing their fathers and mothers they think it right, though their understanding is darkened, and they are misguided, just as a mariner makes his way towards a false light believing it to be true, and thus wrecks his vessel. VI. THE WHOLE WORLD IS SUSCEPTIBLE OF SYMPATHETIC UNDERSTANDING, COOPERATION, AND LIKE SOCIAL CONDITIONS. It would be impossible to herd together the different races of animals unless you pare their nails, extract their teeth, or stupefy them. But men of all nations can associate. Conclusion: 1. These thoughts are made emphatic by the undesigned tendency to unity which the growth of the world's affairs is producing. The economic and scientific developments of the age are working alike for all the nations. Great mechanical and commercial improvements are bringing the whole world together. The Turk is borrowing civilisation from the European; and the European is bringing more threads of knowledge from Chinamen and Japanese. Mountains and oceans no longer divide. We tunnel the one and throw a nerve through the other. 2. The Church proposes, as it long has done, to move out on this tide. It has made a great many mistakes, but there never has been a time when it did not set its face towards human unity, and teach that God belonged to all men alike. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; |
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