in their getting, and spending, and keeping money.  In that region lies the main sphere of usefulness for many of us; and if we have not been ‘faithful in that which is least,’ our unfaithfulness there makes it all but impossible that we should be faithful in that which is greatest.  The honest and rigid contemplation of our own faults in the administration of our worldly goods, might well invest with a terrible meaning the Lord’s tremendous question, ’If ye have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who shall give you that which is your own?’

The hospitality which is here enjoined is another shape which Christian love naturally took in the early days.  When believers were a body of aliens, dispersed through the world, and when, as they went from one place to another, they could find homes only amongst their own brethren, the special circumstances of the time necessarily attached special importance to this duty; and as a matter of fact, we find it recognised in all the Epistles of the New Testament as one of the most imperative of Christian duties.  ’It was the unity and strength which this intercourse gave that formed one of the great forces which supported Christianity.’  But whilst hospitality was a special duty for the early Christians, it still remains a duty for us, and its habitual exercise would go far to break down the frowning walls which diversities of social position and of culture have reared between Christians.

II.  The love that meets hostility with blessing.

There are perhaps few words in Scripture which have been more fruitful of the highest graces than this commandment.  What a train of martyrs, from primitive times to the Chinese Christians in recent years, have remembered these words, and left their legacy of blessing as they laid their heads on the block or stood circled by fire at the stake!  For us, in our quieter generation, actual persecution is rare, but hostility of ill-will more or less may well dog our steps, and the great principle here commended to us is that we are to meet enmity with its opposite, and to conquer by love.  The diamond is cut with sharp knives, and each stroke brings out flashing beauty.  There are kinds of wood which are fragrant when they burn; and there are kinds which show their veining under the plane.  It is a poor thing if a Christian character only gives back like a mirror the expression of the face that looks at it.  To meet hate with hate, and scorn with scorn, is not the way to turn hate into love and scorn into sympathy.  Indifferent equilibrium in the presence of active antagonism is not possible for us.  As long as we are sensitive we shall wince from a blow, or a sarcasm, or a sneer.  We must bless in order to keep ourselves from cursing.  The lesson is very hard, and the only way of obeying it fully is to keep near Christ and drink in His spirit who prayed ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

III.  Love that flows in wide sympathy.