Sermon,

SERMON ,

Preached by the V . W . Bro . the Rav . Jons EDMUND Cox M . A ., P . G . Chap ., on Szmday , the 25 th inst ., in the church of St . Helen ' s , Bishopsgate , in aid of the Funds of the Masonic Institution for Boys , Wood-green . Am I my brother ' s keeper?—GEX . IV ., 9 . Irrespectively of the time and the occasion when

these words were first spoken—and to which there is no necessity that we more particularly now refer—they may be taken as the definition of that universal selfishness , which has prevailed amongst mankind from the very beginning of all things up to the present hour ; again and again repeated in every epoch , and in every place of the whole earth .

Amongst the societies of antiquity each race and people have been penned in within its own territory and its own limits . Its deities would neither free nor deliver them from such constraints . Every stranger was but a barbarian . The hopes of

religious , or even social unity , the associations of heart , soul , and spirit , indeed , were so far from being believed in the nations of antiquity , that in only the second century of our era the philosopher Celius , the then infamous opponent of Christianity ,

declared that " it was nothing but insanity to suppose that Greeks and Barbarians , Europe , Asia , and Libya , or any other people could ever be united in the bonds of the same feeling , " and that which Celius then enumerated , everybody agreed with .

Greeks and Romans , nay even the more enlightened Jews also themselves . None got beyond or above that selfishness which more or less bound the

world in its narrow mmdedness and ilhberality . Every one , in fact , asked , " Am I my brother's keeper ? " And Rome , enlightened as she was , the mistress of the then whole known globe could bring mankind only into unity of servitude and

bondage . And there has been since that era very little change in mankind , taking them in their natural condition , and uninfluenced by some other motive than their own natural disposition provides . Now , as then , except in rare instances here ancl there discovered the same indifference to the wants of

others ; the same insensibility to suffering and distress ; the same disinclination to be at any pains or trouble , except for the personal convenience , comfort , and aggrandisement of self , obtain . In the earlier ages of the world no one even

troubled himself about the poor , the slave or the disinherited . It remained for later times to inculcate holier principles , and to put in motion more

enlightened means for the amelioration of society . Of the condition of the poor , Plato , that bright and intelligent heathen genius , who has often been designated as the forerunner of " The Bright and Morning Star , "—who has " brought light and

immortality" from heaven to earth—having enquired in his " Republic , " whether the sick ancl dying poor man should be succored , replied " rio , " simply , " because , as he said , * it was not worth the trouble to do so / " As to the slave , not even a

philosopher ever gave him a thought . The orphan ancl the fatherless were alike left to perish , or prosper as chance might decide ; but there was neither orphanage nor hospital for their reception , no refuges for want or poverty . Man

felt and acted upon the one principle , which was given utterance to by the first murderer , and to the lamentations of the slave , the grievances of the poor , he answered by the lips of philosophers , legislators , and priests : — " Am I my brother ' s keeper ?" And thus to the end of time would the same

feeling and condition of the world have continued , absorbed in a degrading selfishness , if a better state of things had not been introduced . Amongst the first to attack this inordinate feelinsr of selfishness , and to put it in a lower place than that which

it had hitherto occupied , the Jew took the initiative . Blessed with brighter light , influenced by holier motives , and taught directly from heaven , his polity exhibited many distinct ancl agreeable variations from the common course of nature . Yet even

in that polity there was much more of bondage than of . freedom ; there was much more reference to self than to a universal benevolence ; and towards every other race than his own there was nothing but a sfcei'n unbending and

unrelentingdisposition to exercise the utmost selfishness . If a better state of feeling ; if a nobler principle ; if a growing desire for progress towards liberality sprung up , it never got beyond the land of Juda _ a , crossed the mountains , or traversed the seas to take the Gentiles into consideration or conciliation . The Jews lived for faith in themselves . Pirst the

tabernacle—then the temple at Jerusalem—was the centre of their whole world . Beyond these there was to be , and there was not the slightest advance , which could make mankind more civilised by imitation , or would better one another by

comparision . Even amongst themselves , sparing as they were of one another ' s faults , and willing to make allowance for any one of the house and kin-