brothers, have you not been trusting to the Priest and the Levite, rather than to the Good Samaritan? The world has passed you by, but Jesus will not. He will bind up your broken heart, and show you that there is room in God's world for all who will do their duty. But there is another lesson for us to learn. If Jesus does so much for us, we ought to help each other. "Go thou and do likewise." The common, popular idea of religion, is utter selfishness. We are taught that the great end and aim of religion is to get our soul saved, as cheaply as possible sometimes. Now this teaching is utterly wrong. It leads us to think only of ourselves, it makes us go to Church from a wrong motive--that we may get good. True religion teaches us to be good Samaritans, to do all to the glory of God, to love Him with all our heart and strength, and our neighbour as ourself. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." The great lesson of the parable is this, that every man is our neighbour when he needs help, and we can give it. The Jews, as we know, had no dealings with the Samaritans, and our Lord's story showed how that middle wall of partition should be broken down. The Good Samaritan did not stay to question the fallen traveller about his religious views, or his political principles--he saw him in trouble, and he helped him. May we all go and do likewise. We Christians are all too ready to build up a wall of separation between ourselves and our brethren. One of these walls is that of religious difference. We disagree about some point of doctrine or ritual, and allow the disagreement to embitter our feelings, and to shut out our sympathy. Politics form another wall of separation. We differ from a neighbour in our political views, and we refuse to recognise any good in him because he does not think as we do. There are some among the rich who look down with contempt upon the poor, as though poverty were the unpardonable sin. And there are endless prejudices of rank and class which shutout man from man. Against all these things the parable of the Good Samaritan is a protest and a warning. It is the way of the world to leave a fallen man to his fate, but it is not Christ's way. It is the way of the world to speak very hardly of those who are in want and misery, for as nothing succeeds like success, nothing fails like failure. But again, that is not Christ's way. He never breaks the bruised reed, or quenches the smoking flax. My brothers, let us learn to look on all men as our neighbours, let us stretch out a helping hand to those who have fallen among thieves, let us pour the wine and oil of sympathy, and kind words where we can, let us be gentle in our judgment of another's fault, since "blessed are the merciful." SERMON XLIX. WALKING WITH GOD. (Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.) GALATIANS v. 16.