"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 among 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 fulfill 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 among 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 all--yea, of the pauper as of the king; and sympathy is Christ's wealth. Sympathy is brotherhood. The rich are told to have charity for the poor, and the poor are enjoined to respect their superiors. Good: I say not to the contrary. But I say also to the poor, '_In your turn have charity for the rich_;' and I say to the rich, '_In your turn respect the poor_.' "'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.' Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy brother his larger portion of worldly goods. Believe that he hath his sorrows and crosses like thyself, and perhaps, as more delicately nurtured, he feels them more; nay, hath he not temptations so great that our Lord hath exclaimed, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven?' And what are temptations but trials? what are trials but perils and sorrows? Think not that you can not bestow your charity on the rich man, even while you take your sustenance from his hands. A heathen writer, often cited by the earliest preachers of the gospel, hath truly said, 'Where-ever there is room for a man, there is place for a benefit.'