The
Jews had no notion of humanity. All but themselves were common and
unclean. They might not even eat with a man who was a Gentile. All
mankind, save themselves, they thought, were accursed and doomed to
hell. They lived, as St. Paul told them, hateful to, and hated by,
all mankind. There was no humanity in them.
The Greek, again, despised all nations but his own as barbarians. He
would mix with them, eat with them, work for them; but he only looked
on the rest of mankind as stupid savages, out of whom he was to make
money, by the basest and meanest arts. There was no humanity in him.
The Romans, again, were a thoroughly inhuman people. Their calling,
they held, was to conquer all the nations of the earth, to plunder
them, to enslave them. They were the great slaveholding, man-
stealing people. Mercy was a virtue which they had utterly
forgotten. Their public shows and games were mere butcheries of
blood and torture. To see them fight to death in their theatres,
pairs after pairs, sometimes thousands in one day, was the usual and
regular amusement. And in that great city of Rome, which held
something more than a million human beings, there was not, as far as
I am aware, one single hospital, or other charitable institution of
any kind. There was, in a word, no humanity in them.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120