"Truly-if a person does not have money but knows how to encourage and inspire the poor, the miserable, by speaking about mercifulness-would he not do just as much as someone who throws some money to poverty or preaches charitable donations out of the rich man’s pocket! So we shall now consider: mercifulness, a work of love even if it can give nothing and is able to do nothing. We shall endeavor according to the capacities granted to us to make as clear as possible, as inviting as possible, to bring as close as possible to the poor person what comfort he has in being able to be merciful. If that man well known for eighteen hundred years, the merciful Samaritan, had not come riding but walking along the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, where he saw the unfortunate man lying, if he had been carrying with him nothing with which he could bind up his wounds, if he had then lifted up the unfortunate man on his shoulders, and carried him to the nearest inn, where the innkeeper refused to receive either him or the unfortunate one because the Samaritan did not have a penny, could only beg and beseech this hard-hearted man to be merciful since a man’s life was involved-would he not therefore. …. but, no the story is not yet finished-if now the Samaritan, far from losing patience over this, had gone away carrying the unfortunate man, had sought a softer resting place for the wounded one, had sat by his side, had done everything to stanch the flow of blood-but the unfortunate one died in his hands-would he not have been equally as merciful, just as merciful as that merciful Samaritan, or is there some objection to calling this the story about the merciful Samaritan?"
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Original Language: English
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Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love, 1847, Hong 1995 p. 316-317
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mercy
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Mercy
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