The Cross of Christ interprets man’s universal brotherhood. It needs to be interpreted. It is the last thing man learns here; that in Christ Jesus the humblest man is his equal. Ask almost any man if he wants the elevation of his brother-man; if he wants his brother-man in India, in China, in Japan, in the South, or on the Pacific Coast, made his equal, and given a chance to outstrip him, in the struggle for betterment? And he will usually answer, “Why yes, of course. Do I not pray for it and contribute for it?” But, will you sacrifice your prejudices for his sake? He needs different religious influences, different educational influences, different social influences, he needs to feel that he is no longer ostracised, and that he may aspire for himself and his children, just as you may. Will you adopt him into your religious, educational, social circles? But, you reply: “That is a society question.” It is a society question. And you belong to the Kingdom of God; to the unseen society, which, by the power of His Cross, this God-Man, who took the form of a servant, is gathering out of the nations; you have fellowship with Him, in His humiliation for humanity’s sake. And yet, you propose to decide this question according to the laws and usages of a society to which you do not belong, out of which God has called you, and against whose inhumanity to man, against whose worldly pride the Cross is a standard lifted up by God himself. You are under the most sacred of bonds to record your testimony as belonging to quite another society. In what sense, after all, are we brothers? Can society answer this question? Can anything but the Cross of Christ? The Saviour gives us a picture of what it is to be a true neighbor in the parable of the Good Samaritan. “Who,” asks He, “was neighbor to him that fell among thieves?” He that thought it was a society question, a question of caste; he who came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side? He that put money into the contribution box for him, or sent some one else to help him to the hospital? No; only the man that set him upon his own beast, carried him to an inn, and took care of him. A man cannot live a neighbor to man if he is not living a neighbor to God, as he is in Christ Jesus. Before the war, there was organized a benevolent society, whose anniversary occurs the present week—a society to preach the Gospel among the heathen. Its founders said, “We cannot take money that has been coined from slave labor. It is the price of innocent blood. It cries up to God for vengeance.”