ighteousness, Christ says, is love,
love to God and love to man.

But to them of old time it was said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour."
Where, then, is the difference between the old commandment and the new?
It lies in the new definition of "neighbour." The old law which said,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour," said also, "and hate thine enemy";
which meant that some are and some are not our neighbours, and that
toward those who are not love has no obligations. But Christ broke down
for ever the middle wall of partition, and declared the old distinction
null and void. In His parable of the Good Samaritan He taught that every
man is our neighbour who has need of us, and to whom it is possible for
us to prove ourselves a friend. As we have opportunity we are to do good
unto all men. The same lesson with, if possible, still greater emphasis,
Christ taught in the Upper Room: "A new commandment I give unto you,
that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love
one another." A love that goes all the way with human need, that gives
not itself by measure, that is not chilled by indifference, nor thwarted
by ingratitude, that fights against evil until it overcomes it--such was
the love He gave, and such is the love He asks. And in that command all
other commands are comprehended. Christ might have made His own the
daring word of St. Augustine, "Love, and do what you like."

When first men heard this law of the heavenly righteousness how wondrous
simple it must have seemed in contrast with the elaborate scribe-made
law which their Rabbis laid upon them. Pharisaism had reduced religion
to a branch of mechanics, a vast network of rules which closed in the
life of man on every side, a burden grievous and heavy to be borne,
which crushed the soul under its weary load. This was the yoke of which
Peter said that neither they nor their fathers were able to bear it. Was
it any marvel that from such a system men should turn to Him who cried,
"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for My yoke is easy, and My
burden is light"? But if Christ's law of love is simpler it is also far
more exacting than the old law which it superseded. It has meshes far
finer than any that Pharisaic ingenuity could weave. Rabbinical law can
secure the tithing of mint and anise and cumin, the washing of cups and
pots, and many such like things; it can regulate the life of ritual and
outward observance; and after that it has no more that it can