ON JUDGING OTHERS

Speaking of the restless pioneers who settled in the Ohio Valley, Dr. Timothy Dwight , president of Yale University said, "They cannot live in regular society. They are too idle, too talkative, too prodigal. They grumble about taxes, and are too shiftless to acquire either property or character." He was president of Yale while they were settling the Ohio Valley, so he should have spoken with some authority.

But now we see that it was a good thing America took a chance on those "wild people of Ohio," because most of the things Dr. Dwight said about them simply were not true. Dr. Stanley Jones, commenting on Dwight's statement, said, "Ohio has supplied more presidents than any other state, more than all the New England from which Timothy Dwight spoke so loftily." What if our notions about the inferiority of other races is as inaccurate as Timothy Dwight's? What if our ideas about our own superiority are as ridiculous the pretensions of the Pharisees with whom Jesus clashed? (Ride the Wild Horses, Revell, p.67)