neighbour as thyself.' That was old; that St. Paul declares, that St. John declares, that our Lord declares, is implied in all the commandments. But you will remember what question the lawyer-who fully admitted this doctrine, who even quoted the words out of the book of Deuteronomy which affirmed it-asked of our Lord, Who,' he said, 'is my neighbour?' That was the difficulty. All possibility of self-justification lay hidden in men's hearts till this question was answered. The story in which our Lord replied to it, is perhaps the passage in the whole Bible with which we are most familiar, and partly perhaps from its very familiarity we often miss the point of it, and do not understand the depth of the principle which it embodies. A poor Jew had been plundered by thieves, on the dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho. A priest, one of his own countrymen, the one who was appointed to represent the nation and its members before God, and to bless them in God's name, did not recognise him as a neighbour; he left him lying where he was. Another of his countrymen, a Levite, the one who should have known the law best of all, whose business it was to expound the law, did not recognise the wounded man as a neighbour, but passed by on the other side. A Samaritan, who was not his countryman, who did not worship in the same temple with him, who was regarded as cut off by the law from fellowship with him, whom he regarded, and who had been taught to regard him, as an enemy, did treat him as a neighbour, did behave to him as one of his own kith and kin, of his own flesh and blood. He poured oil and wine into his wounds, he sat him upon his own beast, he took care of him. Why? Because he looked upon him as

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97 a man, because he confessed his fellow-man to be his neighbour. The lawyer acknowledged that the Samaritan heretic had, by some means or other, found the interpretation of the Jewish law, which he had been unable to find. And he was bidden to go and do likewise.

How was he to go and do likewise? How was he to get the power to go and do likewise? St. John is about to tell us. You see he has introduced us to a new word. He speaks of a man hating his brother. 'He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness until now.' We have been hearing of neighbours. Men knew that they ought not to hate their neighbours; that is, men who dwelt near them, who belonged to their own tribe or nation; however often they might do it in spite of their knowledge. The code could not bid them do more than this. We may say it boldly, No mere code can. A code should not attempt to bind men as men together; it must fail if it makes the experiment. But there must be a bond between man and man; there must be a power to make that bond effectual, or the law concerning neighbours will be most imperfectly heeded. As we have seen in the case of the Priest and the Levite, the servants of the law may utterly forget the law. As we have seen in the case of the Samaritan, the man without the law may fulfil its commands to the letter, and far beyond the letter. Why? The revelation of Christ explains the secret. When He came forth, when His light shone upon men, then it was seen that there is a common Brother of Men; of men, I say, not of Israelites merely. Jesus Christ, born of the seed of David, circumcised according to the law, enters into the wants of men, the sorrows of men, the death of men. He is the Universal Brother.

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'Therefore,' says John, 'this thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth.' As if he had said, 'Now we are come into a new

and higher state; the state not only of neighbourhood but ' of brotherhood. When we claim to belong to Christ, we ' claim this new name. But by claiming it, do we escape 'out of the region of commandments? Are we no more ' under an obligation? Nay, verily, we come under a new commandment, under a wider and deeper obligation. Before, it was a sin to hate neighbours; now, it is a sin to 'hate men; because this brotherhood of men with men is 'made known. It is a sin; a sin which punishes itself. 'For to hate a brother is to walk in darkness. It is 'to hide ourselves from Him who is our great common 'brother. It is to live as if the Lord had not appeared. 'It is to say, I will shut myself in my own dark, evil self; ' though the great blessing and redemption of the world ' is that I am under the Lord of human beings, that I am

permitted to take up my state and glory as a man.' Therefore St. John scouts all the pretences of men to illumination, on whatever ground they may be founded, which do not involve the practical acknowledgment of this brotherhood, and the conformity of their actions to it. A man may say he is in the light as much as he pleases; but to be in the light implies, that he is able to see his brethren and not to stumble against them.

You see, then, how it is that the New Testament confirms and establishes the Old; and yet that it takes us into a region so much larger, and higher, and purer than the Old. You see how it is that the commandment which was heard from the beginning retains all its force and grandeur; nay,

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how it is that it acquires a greater force and grandeur, just because there is a new commandment, grounded on that revelation of Christ the Head and Brother of all men. And you see why it is that St. John at once tells us of the greatest sin which it is possible for us, under the New Testament, to commit, and of the greatest blessing which it is possible for us to inherit. For us to hate our brother— to hate any man-is nothing less than to deny the man, the Son of Man; the common light of men. For us to love our brother is nothing less than to walk in the light of Christ's presence, nothing less than to be free from al occasion and danger of stumbling. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.' He adheres to the language which he has adopted throughout the Epistle. The highest blessing is to walk in the light, and to have fellowship with it; the most terrible curse is to be out of the light, to love darkness rather than light. There is no condemnation, as he says in his Gospel, so great as this; this is the condemnation. To be like Christ, that is blessedness; to be in a state of mind that is contrary to His, that is misery.

There are various thoughts which crowd upon me as I advance to this great point of Christian ethics. I must dismiss most of them, lest they should confuse us, and lest I should anticipate what will explain itself more fully hereafter. But this I cannot suppress. I who lecture to you on politics, I who have been lecturing lately on the French Revolution, have often to touch upon this subject of Fraternity or Brotherhood. I hope we none of us merely touch upon it; I hope we wish in our hearts to understand it that we may practise it. I hope we are convinced that

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a college which has not this basis does not deserve the name. We ought never to hear how this thought was awakened in the minds of the poor people of France in 1789; how it clung to them through all the strange, terrible times which followed; how, even when they were trampling all nations down, they still talked of making them brethren; how the belief that Fraternity was possible, started to life again in 1848; how the outward tokens of it were marked on every building, public and private ;-we should never read of these facts which belong to our own times, which have fallen under our own eyes, without being persuaded that a special duty is laid upon us to find out what they mean, and how that of which they speak may become a reality for us. I believe that this Epistle of St. John, this book of Christian ethics, tells us what we want to know; tells us how the idea of brotherhood may become a fact; how a phantom which has been often pursued till it led to deeds of darkness, may be changed into a Person who is the Light of the world, and who can enable us to walk in His light, by enabling us to love our brothers as He loves them.