eels only
for himself, abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one
who has no tenderness for mankind that he is _inhuman_? and do we not
call him who sorrows with the sorrowful, _humane_?

"Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our
Lord, is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from
the brute. He seizes not upon some faculty of genius given but to few,
but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us all; and in
saying, 'Love one another,' 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' he elevates
the most delightful of our emotions into the most sacred of his laws.
The lawyer asks our Lord, 'who is my neighbor?' Our Lord replies by the
parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite saw the wounded
man that fell among the thieves, and passed by on the other side. That
priest might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite might have
been learned in the law; but neither to the learning of the Levite, nor
to the doctrine of the priest, does our Saviour even deign to allude. He
cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer, 'Which
now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among
the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said Jesus
unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.'

"O shallowness of human judgments! It was enough to be born a Samaritan
in order to be rejected by the priest, and despised by the Levite. Yet
now, what to us the priest and the Levite, of God's chosen race though
they were? They passed from the hearts of men when they passed the
sufferer by the wayside; while this loathed Samaritan, half thrust from
the pale of the Hebrew, becomes of our family, of our kindred; a brother
amongst the brotherhood of Love, so long as Mercy and Affliction shall
meet in the common thoroughfare of Life!

"'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ!' Think
not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving--to that relief
of distress which is commonly called charity--to the obvious duty of
devoting, from our superfluities, something that we scarcely miss, to
the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the poorest amongst ye,
if the worst burdens are those of the body--if the kind word and the
tender thought have not often lightened your hearts more than bread
bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown.
Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of us