No words, perhaps, ever spoken on earth, have had more effect than
those of this parable. They are words of power and of spirit; living
words, which have gone forth into the hearts and lives of men, and
borne fruit in them of a hundred different kinds. Truly their sound
is gone out into all lands, and their words to the ends of the world,
for a proof that Christ, who spake them, said truly, when he said,
'The flesh profiteth nothing; it is the spirit which maketh alive.
The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.'

What was the power and the spirit of this parable? What gave it its
strength in the hearts of men? This--that it told them that they
were to help their fellow-men, simply because they were their fellow-
men. Not because they were of the same race, the same religion, the
same sect or party; but simply because they were men. In a word, it
commanded men to be humane; to exercise humanity; which signifies,
kindness to human beings, simply because they are human beings. One
can understand our Lord preaching that: it was part and parcel of
his doctrine. He called himself the Son of Man. He showed what he
meant by calling himself so, by the widest and most tender humanity.

But his was quite a new doctrine, and a new practice likewise. The
Jews had no notion of humanity. All but themselves were common and
unclean. They might not even eat with a man who was a Gentile. All
mankind, save themselves, they thought, were accursed and doomed to
hell. They lived, as St. Paul told them, hateful to, and hated by,
all mankind. There was no humanity in them.

The Greek, again, despised all nations but his own as barbarians. He
would mix with them, eat with them, work for them; but he only looked