It is not the least of the gifts which Christianity has brought to
the world, that it has introduced the new thought of the brotherhood
of mankind. The very word 'humanity' is a Christian coinage, and it
was coined to express the new thought that began to throb in men's
hearts, as soon as they accepted the message that Jesus Christ came
to give, the message of the Fatherhood of God. For it is on that
belief of God's Fatherhood that the belief of man's brotherhood
rests, and on it alone can it be secured and permanently based.

Here is a Jew writing to Latins in the Greek language. The phenomenon
itself is a sign of a new order of things, of the rising of a flood
that had surged over, and in the course of ages would sap away and
dissolve, the barriers between men. The Apostle points to two of the
widest gulfs that separated men, in the words of my text. 'Greeks and
Barbarians' divides mankind, according to race and language. 'Wise
and unwise' divides them according to culture and intellectual
capacity. Both gulfs exist still, though they have been wonderfully
filled up by the influence, direct and indirect, of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. The fiercest antagonisms of race which still subsist
are felt to belong to a decaying order, and to be sure, sooner or
later, to pass away. I suppose that the gulf made by the increased
culture of modern society between civilised and the savage peoples,
and, within the limits of our own land, the gulf made by education
between the higher and the lower layers of our community--I speak not
of higher and lower in regard to wealth or station, but in regard to
intellectual acquirement and capacity--are greater than, perhaps,
they ever were in the past. But yet over the gulf a bridge is thrown,
and the gulf itself is being filled up. High above all the
superficial distinctions which separate Jew and Gentile, Greek and