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 was obligatory and that whoever asked a night’s lodging must be given it, then at one blow the whole idea of hospitality would be annihilated.  Hospitality must be something freely given, flowing genially outward from the heart.  When in the Merchant of Venice the Duke says, “Then must the Jew be merciful!” and Shylock asks with true Jewish commercialism, “On what compulsion must I, tell me that?” then Portia gives the eternal answer—­

  The quality of mercy is not strained,
  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
  Upon the place beneath:  it is twice blessed;
  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Need it be said mercy and hospitality are in many respects one and the same, and that when Portia says, “We do pray for mercy and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy,” it is like saying, “We pray for hospitality in heaven and that prayer teaches us to render hospitality here,” like “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”  We shall never be homeless, either here or hereafter, if we love one another.