One of the beautiful things about hospitality is that though we do not pay the giver of it directly, we do really pay him in the long run.  A is hospitable to B, B to C, C to D, and so on, and at last Z is hospitable to A. It is largely a matter of “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”  It is significant that the Russian’s parting word equivalent to our “God be with you” is “Forgive!”

III

When St. Peter said to the beggar, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee,” it is not to be thought that he hadn’t a few coppers to spare.  He meant, “Silver and gold are not my gifts; I have something other and more precious.”  Thus the apostle indicated the deeper significance of charity.

There is hospitality of the mind as well as of the hand, though both spring from the heart.  Hospitality of the hand is having a home with open doors, but that of the mind is having open the temple of the soul.

I once called upon a hermit and we talked of the significance of hospitality.  At last he said to me:  “You praise hospitality well, my brother, but there is another and a greater hospitality than you have yet mentioned.  It is the will to take the wanderer not only into the house to feed but into the heart to comfort and love, the ability to listen when others are singing, to see when others are showing, to understand when others are suffering.  It is what the writer to the Corinthians meant by charity.

“Thus—­’Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,’ is like saying, ’Though I have all possible eloquence and yet do not understand mankind, do not take him to my heart, I am as sounding brass; unless my eloquence is music played upon the common chord I am but a tinkling cymbal.’

“’And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing,’ is like saying, ’Though I see into the future but misunderstand its significance; though I understand all mysteries, but not the mystery of the human heart; though I am able to remove obstacles by faith, I am simply like Napoleon, finishing up at St. Helena, I am nothing.’

“’And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing,’ is like saying, ’Organised philanthropy is not charity, neither is the will to be a martyr, unless these things spring from the will to feel how our brothers suffer.’

“’Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

“‘Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth,’ for the truth refutes all uncharitable judgment, the truth shows us all as brothers, shows us all needing the love which one man can give to another.