Jesus Christ had no aversions. His white purity was a great deal nearer
to the blackness of the woman that was a sinner, than was the leprous
whiteness of the whited sepulchre of the self-righteous Pharisee. He
had neither aversion, nor anger, nor indifference.

And, if I might venture to touch upon another matter, compassion and
not curiosity is an especial lesson for the day to the more thoughtful
and cultivated amongst our congregations. I have just said that the
appropriate Christian feeling in contemplating the state of the sheep
without the Shepherd is compassion, not curiosity. That reminder is
particularly needful in view of the prominence to-day of investigations
into the new science of Comparative Religion. I speak with most
unfeigned respect of it and of its teachers, and gratefully hail the
wonderful light that it is casting upon ideas underlying the strange
and often savage and obscene rites of heathenism; but it has a side of
danger in it against which I would warn you all, especially young,
reading men and women. The time has not yet come when we can afford to
let such investigations be our principal occupation in the face of
heathenism. If idolatry was dead we could afford to do that, but it
is alive--the more's the pity; and it is not only a curious instance
of the workings of man's intelligence, and a great apocalypse of
earlier stages of society, but, besides that, it is a lie that is
deceiving and damning our brethren, and we have got to kill it first
and dissect it afterwards. So I say, do not only think of heathenism
in its various forms as a subject for speculation and analysis; as
much as you like of that, only do not let it drive out the other
thing, and after you have tried to understand it, then come back to
my text, 'He was moved with compassion.' And so pity, and neither
anger, nor aversion, nor curiosity, nor indifference is what I urge
as the Christian emotion.