Editorial December 18, 1943 Issue

"That, thy brother may live with thee"

John Randall Dunn

In Leviticus it is recorded that this inspirational message came to Moses on Mount Sinai: "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase; but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee."

Yes, we may as well face it— face it squarely and unafraid. In this world of shrinking space, and interlaced problems, of growing interdependence among men and nations, human beings must learn to live with each other. Are eyebrows raised questioningly at this simple pronouncement? Does someone say, What have mortals ever done since "Adam delved and Eve span" but live together? Yet have they really lived together? Mortals in large measure have only experienced a sense of material existence, and have not tasted that Life whose very essence is Love. In this sense they have not been living with their brother; they have existed in many hostile camps, for the most part under an armed truce.

The Master came to a people torn by dissension, religious and civil. The haughty Jewish Pharisee drew aside his pious skirts from the detested Gentile and would have no dealings with the outcast Samaritan. The proud Roman centurion would not dare to fraternize with the lowly Galilean. Paul, in one of his epistles, shows the great diversity of thought in those days when he speaks of the Greek, the Jew, the Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free; and who can picture the amazement of his hearers when he stated that these diversities were all to be done away in Christ— when the truth about God and man was understood and demonstrated?

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