He who feels only for himself abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness for mankind that he is inhuman; and do we not call him who sorrows with the sorrowful humane?
"Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our Lord is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from the brute.

He seizes, not upon some faculty of genii given but to few, but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us all; and in saying, 'Love one another,' 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' he elevates the most delightful of our emotions into the most sacred of His laws.
The lawyer asks our Lord, 'Who is my neighbour ?' Our Lord replies by the parable of the good Samaritan.

The priest and the Levite saw the wounded man that fell among the thieves and passed by on the other side.

That priest might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite might have been learned in the law; but neither to the learning of the Levite nor to the doctrine of the priest does our Saviour even deign to allude.

He cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer, 'Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
And he said, He that showed mercy unto him.