^ G. C. Peck, Vision and Task, 259.
ST. LUKE X. 37 199
perhaps, by the consciousness of wrong, or lifted up perhaps to catch, as it were, the faint murmurs of some more beautiful world in some more beautiful time ; or perhaps in the hour in which, conscious of the transitoriness of this life and the hateful persistence of material things, we have asked whether it is possible for us to take hold of some abiding vitality which will remain with us among the perishing things of this world.
The answer of Christ was in the form of a question, the best form in most cases where the motive of the inquirer lacks genuine- ness and reality. " What is written in the law ? how readest thou ? " Here was a lawyer, who read the law, studied the law, expounded the law, and he was sent to the law for an answer to his query. " How readest thou ? " There seems to have been no hesitation in his reply. With wonderful coolness he gives the condensed summary and essence of the moral law, *' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself."
(2) The man's question was far too urgent and important to be dealt with merely by describing what would be intellectually in harmony with the question at issue, and therefore Jesus Christ immediately made an appeal to the man's conscience. He said : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God " ; then said Jesus Christ : "That is right; this do, go on doing this, and thou shalt live." That is the appeal to the conscience.
^ When we were leaving Liverpool, after my father's death, I went with my mother, as she wished to bid "Good-bye" to Dr. McNeile. As we were leaving, my mother mentioned " that I was to be ordained before long. " Oh ! " he said, " 1 wish I had known that." Then, coming near to me, he laid his hand upon my shoulder, and he said, " At first you will think that you can do everything, then you will be tempted to think that you can do nothing ; but don't let yourself be cast down : you will learn that you can do what God has for you to do." ^
2. Christ has touched the man's conscience ; He has pricked the side of his moral sense, and you will see the indication of that in a moment. What is the refuge — the almost continuous refuge — of those whose consciences are just slightly disturbed ? The
^ Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Some Pages of My Life, 117.
200 THE GOOD SAMARITAN
refuge usually is a resort to a dialectical argument, and therefore the man immediately begins to enter into an argument. He wishes now to raise a side-issue, and he asks : " Who is my neighbour ? "
(1) Here is a question which might be debated for days, for years, and yet not be fully answered, for it was exactly one of those questions which were so dear to those who in the Jewish world were anxious to make out that the privileges of Israel still existed. It is written : " Thou shalt love thy neighbour " ; but " if all the Gentiles should fall into the sea you are not bound to draw them forth, for these are not thy neighbours" — that was the idea of the Jew. Therefore the question of what was the line of demarcation, the line of locality, or blood, or personality, or geographical or racial claim that constituted the difference between the man who was a neighbour and the man who was not a neighbour — those were the little dialectical questions which delighted the Jewish mind ; and so the man, feeling that Christ has winged a shaft right into his conscience, begins immediately to turn the flank of the argument, as it were, and to enter upon a dialectical discussion. It is the refuge of the stricken conscience which wishes to evade that which is brought straight before the moral sense. This is the next step. When Jesus Christ perceives that He has stricken this man's conscience, and that he does not realize that the real difficulty of his life is that he has had magni- ficent theories which as yet have not been fully translated into action, then, knowing that the man's conscience is awake, He begins to strike for the man's heart.
(2) In answer to his second question, " Who is my neighbour ?" Christ told him the parable of the good Samaritan. Now consider the deep principle of human conduct — we might almost call it the philosophy of life — which the parable contains. We discover the clue to it when we notice that the parable does not answer the lawyer's question. The question was : " Who is my neighbour ? " The parable tells what it is to be neighbourly. It seems to be a case of logical non sequitur. In fact, it is a case of the truth which is deeper than logic. Our Lord could not teach the truth by answering the question. For the question itself was wrong; it revealed a wrong temperament of mind. It was facing not truth but fundamental error ; to follow it would therefore have