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man whom we can help. Those are not our neighbors, who live near us, but those to whom we are brought near by sympathy. In this way the man who is a thousand miles off is perhaps more my neighbor than he who lives next door to me. I make men my neighbors when I take an interest in them. The soldiers in the Crimea were neighbors to Florence Nightingale. The insane people in Missouri or Rome were the neighbors of Dorothea Dix. The slaves in Georgia were neighbors to Dr. Channing. The men of Kansas were neighbors to Charles Sumner. Sir John Franklin and his crew were neighbors to Dr. Kane. When the Poles and the Greeks were struggling for their freedom, we felt that they were our neighbors and sent them aid. When the people of Ireland were perishing of famine, we sent the frigate "Jamestown" filled with corn, flour, and other provision for their help. Though we had never seen any of these people, they became our neighbors as soon as they needed our assistance.

Thus it really depends on the helper whether neighborhoods shall exist. Not the man who is to be helped but the man who comes to help him makes the neighborhood. It is the Samaritan who was found to be the neighbor-not the Jew. He who shows mercy to us becomes our neighbor. He who feels for me, though a thousand miles off, is more my neighbor than the man I meet every day who does not care for me.

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Christianity, which enlarges the great neighborhood of mankind. far Cathay became neighbors to Europe as soon as Christian missionaries went among them and brought back tidings of their needs. Thus neighborhoods expand indefinitely like circles in the water, which cross each other in all directions without interfering with or obliterating each other. We are attracted toward those whom we think ourselves able to assist, and they become neighbors by sympathy. There are also those who are spiritually our neighbors; those whose minds and hearts need that help which we are able to render. He is a good Samaritan in the highest sense who can pour oil and wine into the wounds of the soul; who, by a word spoken in season, of warning, counsel, consolation, encouragement, can give a new direction to our life, awaken within us the sense of responsibility, show us how to trust in God, and quicken us with a new hope. But how few are neighbors to each other in this way. Too seldom do we know what is passing in the minds of others, and too often we distrust our own power of helping them.

Some men who would like to be of use in the world, fail in their endeavor because they finish nothing. Their good actions are like buildings begun on a grand scale, but where the funds have given out before they were completed. Such a building as this, begun, but remaining unfinished,

is apt to be called a man's "Folly."

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Some men

do enough to satisfy their consciences and then stop, leaving their good works unfinished. They have had the trouble of attempting to do good, and none of the satisfaction of accomplishment. So their action stands as their half-built folly. How many of these unfinished good works we do! We work a little while for different objects, take our class in the Sunday school, or engage in a hospital or some charity, and then stop and say, "Now I have done my part; let some one else do the rest.” But Christianity counts nothing done while anything remains to be done. The Samaritan might have bound up the wounds and then said, "I have done my duty; let some one else take him to the inn." But his object was not to do his duty, but to save the man. That is the difference between conscience and charity.

How often, when we are asked to subscribe to this or that good object, we reply, "This is an excellent object. I heartily approve of it, but the fact is, I have had a great many calls lately, and have been giving a great deal. Go to some one else." We forget that if we have been giving much we have also been receiving much.

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The old Latin proverb says, Qui suadet, sua det,· "If you ask others, give yourself." A man who obeys that maxim, and who begins by giving his own share, can then ask others with an easy mind, and is very likely to succeed in his applications.

What we see, therefore, in this example is the superiority of love to all other motives. It is better than conscience, because it never tires till the good is done; it is better than sympathy, for it remembers the absent as well as those present; it is better than the desire to save one's soul, which makes sacrifices and performs acts of self-denial; for it is a self-forgetful giver.

And, besides all this, it is universal. It makes no account of a man's race, or creed, or position in the community; no account of his folly, ignorance, or sin. It does not ask whether he was to blame or not for what he suffers, but only, Does he suffer, and can I help him?

XXIII.

BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END.

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