Eager Heart. It is scarcely what the writer to the Hebrews
intended when he said, "Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful
to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels
unawares." Of those who wander about the world there are many ordinary
men who would be ready to do a morning's work for their board, but
there are also gods in disguise. There are mysterious spirits who
cannot reveal the necessities of their fate; souls whom if we could
recognise in their celestial guise we should worship, falling down at
their feet with the humility of the cry, "I am not worthy that thou
shouldest come under my roof."

There is another important objection to the complexion of the elder
brother's hospitality. Perhaps the tramp would of his own accord have
volunteered to work with them next morning. If so, the tramp was
deprived of his chance of giving in return. What would have been his
gift has been made his price. He should not have been asked to pay.
No one asks a brother to pay for food and shelter. And are we not all
brothers? True hospitality is a sign of the brotherhood of man, and
the open threshold symbolises the open heart. Inhospitality is the
sign that man will not recognise the stranger as his brother.

There are two sorts of hospitality, that which gives all it has and
that which gives what you want--the former growing out of the latter.
The one is prodigal and overflowing generosity, almost embarrassing in
its lavishness, the other the simple and ordinary kindness that will
always give what it has when there is need; the one the hospitality
of Mary who poured out the precious ointment, the other the simple
hospitality and homely kindness of Martha; the one is the glory of
sacrifice and is of one day in a year or of one day in a life, the
other is a sacred due and is of every day. The latter should at least
be universal hospitality. It ought to be possible for man to wander
where he will over this little world of ours and never fail to find
free food and shelter and love. I know no greater shame in national
development than the commercialisation of the meal and the night's
lodging. It has been our great disinheritance.

But, of course, it would be folly to demand hospitality or to attempt
to enforce it. It is like the drunken cobbler who said to his wife,
"You don't love me, curse you, but by God you shall if I have to kill
you first." Even if a paternal government made a law that hospitality
wa