work.

II.--A RADICAL LOVE.

But what may be called the special characteristic of this Society
among missionary organizations doing work in our own land, that which
establishes its special claim upon hearts of Christian people, is the
radical spirit of love there is in it. It exemplifies in a most
practical way, the brotherhood of man. It repudiates caste. It is
absolutely color-blind. It works for the despised. It helps those who
are themselves the most helpless. This is no newly-discovered fact. I
remember the first sermon I ever heard in behalf of this work, more
than twenty years ago; it was drawn from the Parable of the Good
Samaritan. The text was, "Who is my neighbor?" The address of the
honored late President of this Association at the close of the last
Annual Meeting which he attended, was in the trend of this very same
Scripture. "This organization," he said, "is the Good Samaritan,
loving to bestow its aid upon the poorest and most despised, the most
severely wounded races of our country." The sermon, a score of years
ago, told us that our neighbor was the Negro, just then made free. So
said President Washburn, "If you can point out to this organization
any race that needs its assistance, whether colored or white, there is
the legitimate field of this Association."

It would seem that a law so emphatically taught by Jesus Christ as the
common brotherhood of man, and so familiar to the world, would long
ago have been accepted and adopted in the practice of Christian
nations, especially by a Christian Republic within its own borders.
But, instead of that, it is the hardest of all laws for us to learn
and the most difficult of all to put in operation. Our policy toward