Oh, my friends, despise no man; for Christ despises none. He is no respecter of persons: but in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. Despise no man; for by so doing you deny the Father, who has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth, and has appointed them their times, and the bounds of their habitation; if haply they may feel after him, and find him: though he be not far from any of us; for in him we live and move and have our being, and are the offspring of God. For hundreds of years those poor ignorant Samaritans had felt after him; in that foreign land to which the cruel Assyrian conqueror had banished them: but it was God who had appointed them their habitation there, and their time also; and, in due time, they found God: for he came to them, and found them, and spoke with them face to face. Better to have been one of those ignorant Samaritans, than to have been King Ahab, or King Hoshea, in all their glory, with all their proud Jewish blood. Better to have been one of those ignorant Samaritans than one of those conceited Pharisees at Jerusalem, who, while they were priding themselves on being Abraham's children, and keeping Moses' law, ended by crucifying him who made Abraham, and Moses, and his law, and them themselves. Better to be the poorest negro slave, if, in the midst of his ignorance and misery and shame, he believes in Christ, and works righteousness, than the cleverest and proudest and freest Englishman, if, in the midst of his great light, he works the works of darkness, and, while he calls himself a child of God, lives the sinful life, on which God's curse lies for ever.