Day 26 Brotherhood of Man*

“…our brother who is bruised is not merely near and dear; he is our very self, and whoso will ease and revive him is our deliverer too.”

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“The present writer (viz. Mason) recollects the moment when the conviction of the common sisterhood of women was brought home to her in a way never to be forgotten. She was driving from station to station in London, and saw a drunken woman carried on a door. She knew by the shock of pain and the tears the sight brought that the woman was not outside of her but was in some mysterious way part of her––her very self. This was a new perception to a girl, and one never again to be lost sight of. Such shocks of recognition probably come to most of us, and when they come to the Greathearts of the world we get our Elizabeth Frys, our Wilberforces, our Florence Nightingales. Deeds of pity have been done through all the Christian ages, and, indeed, wherever the human heart has had free play; but to feel pity for another and to be aware, however dimly, that that other is, part and lot, indissolubly bound up with ourselves––these are two things. We venture to believe that this is the stage which the education of mankind, as divinely conducted, has reached in our day. In other days, men did good for the love of God, or to save their own souls; they acted uprightly, because it behooved themselves to be just in all their dealings; but the motives which stir us in our relation to each other now are more intimate, tender, indefinable, soul-compelling. What the issues will be when we have learned to con understandingly this new page in the Book of Life we cannot foretell, but we may hope that the Kingdom of God is coming upon us.” 

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“One other idea that appears to be at work in the world for the elevation of mankind is that of the solidarity of the race. The American poet, Walt Whitman, expresses one side of this intuition when he tells us how he conquers with every triumphant general, bleeds with every wounded soldier, shares the spring morning and the open road and the pride of the horses with every jolly waggoner––in fact, lives in all other lives that touch him anywhere, even in imagination. This is something more than the brotherhood of man; that belongs to the present; but our sense of the oneness of humanity reaches into the remotest past, making us regard with tender reverence every relic of the antiquity of our own people or of any other; and, with a sort of jubilant hope, every prognostic of science or philanthropy which appears to us to be the promise of the centuries to come.” 
 
                                                   *
 
“… we are all the children of one Father, … Love and Justice, Intellect, Reason, Imagination, all the lofty rulers of Mansoul, are present, however dormant, in every man we meet. It is by honouring all men that we find out how worthy they are of honour.”

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                  “Thy one concern is – watchful be;                                                      Who serves his neighbour, serveth ME.”
 
 
 
Examen: Do I see my neighbour as my “very self?” Is the good of my neighbour the object of my study?  How many “Greathearts” are part of our classroom this term?  


* P.S.  Please notice Mason also includes sisterhood.
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...our brother who: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:151.
The present writer: 2:264.
One other idea: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:48.
...we are all:  Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:146 Bk.I.
Thy one concern:  Charlotte M. Mason,“Saviour of the World -Revival,” 50.

​Day 26 Brotherhood of Man meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025

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