When St. Peter said to the beggar, "Silver and gold have I none, but
such as I have give I thee," it is not to be thought that he hadn't a
few coppers to spare. He meant, "Silver and gold are not my gifts; I
have something other and more precious." Thus the apostle indicated
the deeper significance of charity.

There is hospitality of the mind as well as of the hand, though both
spring from the heart. Hospitality of the hand is having a home with
open doors, but that of the mind is having open the temple of the
soul.

I once called upon a hermit and we talked of the significance of
hospitality. At last he said to me: "You praise hospitality well, my
brother, but there is another and a greater hospitality than you have
yet mentioned. It is the will to take the wanderer not only into the
house to feed but into the heart to comfort and love, the ability to
listen when others are singing, to see when others are showing, to
understand when others are suffering. It is what the writer to the
Corinthians meant by charity.

"Thus--'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have
not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,'
is like saying, 'Though I have all possible eloquence and yet do not
understand mankind, do not take him to my heart, I am as sounding
brass; unless my eloquence is music played upon the common chord I am
but a tinkling cymbal.'

"'And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all
mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing,' is