“UNTO ME” The Religious Quality of Social Work When Jesus looked forward to the great climax of History, the Last Judgment, he saw it as a process by which the inner significance of their own actions and relations would be revealed to men. Those men on his right hand whom he welcomed to their reward had never realized the high quality of their own actions. Here was a man who had seen a work-mate in the heat of the harvest-time eating a crust, and he had shared the contents of his dinner-pail with him and gone on half-rations himself. Here was another who had seen a foot-sore and dusty stranger limping into the village at dusk, and had taken him home, helped him clean up, and turned over his bed to him while he slept on the earthen floor. That one yonder had restored the self-respect of a poor neighbor by setting him up in a new suit of clothes. This one had visited a poor debtor pining in prison and brought him food and human comfort in his hopelessness. They all thought they had done it for folks, for dusty, sweaty, tired, discouraged individuals. But Jesus says: “Oh, no, ye did it unto me. My life is so identified with my brethren that when ye fed and clothed them, ye fed and clothed me. God is living in these worn human bodies. When ye comforted them, ye comforted God.”
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