Evil in the Mirror

There is pretty much universal agreement that Hitler was evil.  But, I wonder if Hitler saw himself that way.  Do you think that he looked at himself in the mirror every day, while shaving around the edges of that infamous mustache, and thought, “you wicked, evil man!”

I doubt it.  But we all see it now.  How could he not see it then?

What about the slave owners in our own country, or the people who hung “WHITES ONLY” signs in their businesses.  Our ancestors thought that, on no other basis than the color of their skin, people of a certain race either deserved no better than to be their “help,” or did not deserve to eat in their restaurants or sleep in their hotels.  We condemn them now, but did they know we would see them the way we do?

We stand together and call their racism evil today, but just like Hitler before them, I doubt they saw their own evil.

You know one thing that Hitler and our racist ancestors had in common?  Armed with “scientific” arguments, they denied the humanity of their victims.  Using Darwinian theories and survival-of-the-fittest arguments, the Nazis believed that their desire for a pure race of Germans justified their abominations. Like racist, Nazi Germany, our racist ancestors used similar arguments to deny the humanity, or at least full humanity, of our darker-complected brothers and sisters.  Because the black race was considered to be less fit than the white race, one generation enslaved them and another segregated them.

But surely we’re not evil like they were… are we?

May I Have Your Daughter’s Hand…?

A powerful letter from Adoniram Judson to John Hasseltine, asking for permission to marry his daughter:

“…I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world? Whether you can consent to see her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? Can you consent to all this, for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”