ather.

"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Should any one ask, "Who
does it?" I answer, That is not the question. To deny that we can love
our neighbour in this sense is to deny that we can love ourselves. Yet
I know what fate, especially for young men, may lurk in this cold,
faithless question. And I want it to be understood, that my single aim
in this address--the reason why I have wrestled at this length for the
meaning of the passage before us--is to show, that _whether we choose
to do it or not, it can be done_. I affirm that this text is a simple
statement of the principle of the only rational, helpful life man can
live. And to prevail upon you to admit this, would be to accomplish
much. To accept it as the truth, that you can love your neighbour as
yourself, is to win intellectual confidence in the service which your
day demands of you. It is to take the sting of death out of the old
evil question: "Who does it?" Once recognize that Christ asks for
nothing impossible, when He gave a new and ever-abiding authority to
this ancient precept, and the question will not be, Who does it?
Rather will it be, Who can afford not to do it? For not to do it is
selfishness, and selfishness is self-defeat. He who exists only for
himself, exists only to injure himself. It is the fashion now to get
rid of a judgment to come by telling us that we are our own judgment
here. The latter part of the statement is not the whole truth, but
there is truth in it. The strain brings out the strength there is, but
shirk it and we have weakness. Do as we like rather than do as we
ought, and the price must be paid in loss of manhood. Everything we
gain for selfishness we must steal from ourselves.

"Ah me," said Goethe once, "that the yonder is never here." Go deep
enough into every wrong and sin and you find at its root this
selfishness. So many of us degrade life into a heartless scramble. We
fight each other because each man, dissatisfied himself, is convinced
that his neighbour is getting more than his share. It may be doubted
whether there has ever been a day in the Western world when more people
were dominated by the conviction that gain is godliness. So many about
us have virtually ceased to put their trust in anything about which
they cannot lace their fingers. With them, dreamers about anything
else are cranks, and martyrs for anything else are nuisances. And this
reacts upon such apology as they have fo