s obligatory and that whoever asked a night's lodging must be
given it, then at one blow the whole idea of hospitality would be
annihilated. Hospitality must be something freely given, flowing
genially outward from the heart. When in the _Merchant of Venice_ the
Duke says, "Then must the Jew be merciful!" and Shylock asks with true
Jewish commercialism, "On what compulsion must I, tell me that?" then
Portia gives the eternal answer--

The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Need it be said mercy and hospitality are in many respects one and the
same, and that when Portia says, "We do pray for mercy and that same
prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy," it is like
saying, "We pray for hospitality in heaven and that prayer teaches us
to render hospitality here," like "Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive them that trespass against us." We shall never be homeless,
either here or hereafter, if we love one another.

The shelter and food given one for the love of God are "sanctified
creatures." Sleeping in a home for the love of God is more refreshing
than sleeping at an inn for a price. One has been blessed and one has
also blessed in return; for again, hospitality, like mercy, blesses
both those who give and those who take. Throughout a night one has
helped to constitute a home, and the angels of the home have guarded
one. One has lain not merely in a house but in a Christian home, not
only in a home but in the temple of the heart.

It is sweet in a far-away land to be treated like a son or a brother,
to be taken for granted, to be embraced by strange men and blessed by
strange women. Sweet also is it for the far-away man to recognise
a new son or a new brother in the wanderer whom he has received. I
remember one night at the remote village of Seraphimo in Archangel
Government, how a peasant put both hands on my shoulders and, looking
into my eyes, exclaimed, "How like he is to us!"

II

Tramping across the Crimean moors I lost my way in the mist near the
monastery of St. George, and was conducted by a peasant to the Greek
village of Kalon, well known to old campaigners--it is between
Sebastopol and Balaklava. The village remains the same to-day as it
was in the days of the Crimean War, and the same families as lived
there then, or their descendants, live th