Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

'Who is my neighbour?' do I ask?
The answer is in every task
Of love, that on the common way
Of life lies round us day by day.

Whatever fellow-man can plead
The brotherhood of grief or need,
The Christian's heart admits the call,
He is the neighbour of us all.

He need not prove the tie of race,
Of creed, of parish, or of place,
He is a man, he is in grief,
And we can give, and owe relief.

Let Priest or Levite pass him by
With solemn but averted eye.
No rule or order could approve
Him who would slight one deed of love.

Religion pure and undefiled
Seeks widow'd heart, and orphan child,
Least spotted by the world where e'er,
Eor Jesus' sake, it dries a tear.

Tho' poor in gold and silver, still
If rich in love and kindly will
We do our best, the tend'rest way,
Then we do all that mortals may.

To change our course, give up our ease,
Our pleasure lose that we may please;
That we may soothe another's woe
To make our 'poverty o'erflow; —

Not when we feel, in fervent mood,
'The luxury of doing good;'
But when, excitement's impulse gone,
We still for conscience' sake go on; —

This is the neighbour-love of Heav'n,
The love which God to man hath giv'n;
The love which man to man must give,
If he with God in Heav'n would live.

God's neighbour was the creature He
Found in the most extremity;
Man's heart must feel God's wondrous plan,
If man would neighbour be to man.