The proclamation of this universality of the Divine purpose is one of the chief distinctive characteristics of Christianity. Its canonical Scriptures from beginning to end contradict the Jewish heresy, that God, though He has made of one all nations, has only taken one or two under His protection, and has no care for the rest. They tell us that God cares for the sparrow that flits over the heads of the most degraded of the human race, and for the worm that crawls under their feet; and by implication they warn us that to assert that He who has provided for the wants of the reptile and the bird has made no provision for the spiritual wants of those whom He is said to have made in His image, is blasphemy more heinous than ever heathen or atheist has uttered. “The same Lord over all is rich in mercy unto all,” and “He is not far from any one” of them. He has left none “without a witness.” Though He has given some more than others, He has left no one without something. The religious instinct in some He has specially trained and illuminated, not because He regards them as favourites—for He is no respecter of persons—but because through them He would work out His beneficent plan for all. A few are indeed chosen, but that many may be called, and when one individual or one people is selected and peculiarised, it is that through them all nations may be blessed. St. Paul, quoting to the Athenians from one of their own poets, reminded them that “we are all His offspring,” and as such we are all divinely cared for. It is true that He does not deal with all after the same fashion, and His dealings will always be perplexing if we apply to them only the standard of man and the measures of time; but if we remember that “He is God, and not man,” that “His years are throughout all generations,” and that we “can see only a portion of His ways,” we may trust that by-and-by He will show that He has wasted neither His own patience nor His creatures’ strength. For though He may not be dealing with us after the same fashion, He is dealing with all toward the same blessed end, the end which He has revealed in Christ, through whom, and by whom, and in whom, all men and things are to be reconciled.