Editorial June 4, 1927 Issue

Hospitality

Ella W. Hoag

Most men believe that hospitality is something desirable to receive, and there are probably but few who do not wish to express it. In its best human aspect it implies such gracefulness and graciousness, such thoughtfulness and cordiality, that it almost invariably receives from everyone great commendation. Even its ordinary definition of "kind and generous reception and entertainment of strangers and guests" immediately strikes a responsive chord in every friendly, loving heart.

There are multitudes, however, who have felt themselves so circumstanced that any practice of what they have denominated "hospitality" has seemed an impossibility. Because they have looked at hospitality as principally dependent upon matter, they have imagined that lack of material possessions could limit their expression of it. When hospitality is considered from a merely material standpoint its intrinsic beauty is obscured, and men are then liable to deprive themselves of that association with it which is really heavenbestowed.

In Peter's first epistle general, after counseling those to whom he was writing to have "fervent charity" among themselves, he went on to say: "Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Here Peter presented that true sense of hospitality which is so universally needed, and which, when exercised, inevitably helps to cement harmonious and right relationships among men, while it pours the softening oil of gentleness and love on all that would tend to offend and separate.

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