Sympathy. The remaining pillars are the four central pillars in the temple of prosperity.
They give it greater strength and stability, and add both to its beauty
and utility. They contribute greatly to its attractiveness, for they belong to the
highest moral sphere, and therefore to great beauty and nobility of character. They
indeed make a man great, and place him among the comparatively few, whose
minds are rare and that shine apart in sparkling purity and bright intelligence. Sympathy
should not be confounded with that maudlin and superficial sentiment, which, like a
pretty flower without root, presently perishes and leaves behind neither seed nor fruit.
To fall into hysterics about some suffering abroad is not sympathy. Neither are bursts
of violent indignation against the cruelties and injustices of others, any indication of a
sympathetic mind. If if one is cruel at home, if he badgers his
wife, or beats his children, or abuses his servants, or stabs his
neighbors with shafts of bitter sarcasm, what hypocrisy is his profession of love for
the suffering people. Who are outside the immediate range of his influence. What
shallow sentiment informs his bursts of indignation against the injustice and hard heartedness in the
world around him? Says Emerson, of such, go love, thy infant
love, thy wood chopper, be good natured and modest, have that grace,
and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness. For
black folk a thousand miles off, thy love afar is spite at home.
The test of a man is in his immediate acts, not in ultra sentiments.
And if those acts are consistently informed with selfishness and bitterness, if those
at home hear his steps with dread and feel a joyful relief on his departure,
how empty are his expressions of sympathy for the suffering or downtrodden. How
futile his membership of a philanthropic society. Though the well of sympathy may feed
the spring of tears, that spring more often draws its supply from the dark
pool of selfishness, For when selfishness is thwarted, it spends itself in tears.
Sympathy is a deep, silent, inexpressible tenderness which is shown in a
consistently self forgetful, gentle character. Sympathetic people are not gushing and spasmodic,
but are permanently self restrained, firm, quiet, unassuming, and gracious.
Their undisturbed demure where the suffering of others is concerned, is frequently mistaken for
indifference by shallow minds, but the sympathetic and discerning eye recognizes in their quiet
strength and their swiftness to aid while others are weeping and wringing their hands the
deepest, soundest sympathy. Lack of sympathy is shown in cynicism, ill natured
sarcasm, bitter ridicule, taunting in mockery, and anger in condemnation, as
well as in that morbid in faulse sentiment, which is a theoretical and assumes
sympathy, having no basis in practice. Lack of sympathy arises in egotism.
Sympathy arises in love. Egotism is involved in ignorance. Love is allied to
knowledge. It is common with men to imagine themselves as separate from their fellows,
with separate aims and interests, and to regard themselves as right and others
wrong in their respective ways. Sympathy lifts a man above this separate and self
centered life and enables him to live in the hearts of his fellows and to
think and feel with them. He puts himself in their place and becomes,
for the time being as they are, as witmen. The hospital hero expresses
it, I do not ask the wounded person. It is a kind of
impertinence to question a suffering creature. Suffering calls for aid and tenderness, not
for curiosity, And the sympathetic man or woman feels the suffering and ministers to
its alleviation. Nor can sympathy boast, And wherever self praise enters in,
sympathy passes out. If one speaks of his many deeds of kindness and complains
of the ill treatment he has received in return, he has not done kindly
deeds, but has yet to reach that self forgetful modesty, which is the
sweetness of sympathy. Sympathy, in its real and profound sense, is oneness
with others in their strivings and sufferings, so that the man of sympathy he
is a composite being. He is, as it were, a number of
men, and he views a thing from a number of different sides, and
not from one side only, and that his own particular side. He sees
with other men's eyes, hears with their ears, thinks with their minds,
and feels with their hearts. He is thus able to understand men who are
vastly different from himself. The meaning of their lives is revealed to him,
and he is united to them in the spirit of good will, said Balzac.
The poor fascinate me. Their hunger is my hunger. I am with
them in their homes their privations, I suffer, I feel the beggar's rags
upon my back. I for the time become the poor and despised man.
It reminds us of the saying of one greater than Balzac, that a deed
done for a suffering little one was done for him. And so it is.
Sympathy leads us to the hearts of all men, so that we become
spiritually united to them. And when they suffer, we feel the pain.
When they are glad, we rejoice with them. When they are despised and
persecuted, We spiritually descend with them into the depths and take into our hearts
their humiliation and distress. And he who has this binding, uniting spirit of
sympathy can never be cynical and condemnatory, can never pass thoughtless and cruel judgments
upon his fellows, because in his tenderness of heart he is ever with them
in their pain. But to have reached this ripened sympathy, it must be
that one has loved much, suffered much, and sounded the dark depths of
sorrow. It springs from acquaintance with the profoundest experiences, so that a man
has had conceit thoughtlessness and selfishness burnt out of his heart. No man can
have true sympathy who has not been, in some measure at least a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But the sorrow and grief must have passed,
must have ripened into a fixed kindness and habitual calm. To have suffered
so much in a certain direction that suffering is finished and only its particular wisdom
remains enables one wherever that suffering presents itself, to understand and deal with it
by pure sympathy. And when one has been perfected by suffering in many directions,
he becomes a center of rest and healing for the sorrowing and broken hearted
who are afflicted with the afflictions which he has experienced and conquered. As a
mother feels the anguish of her suffering child, so the man of sympathy feels
the anguish of suffering men. Such is the highest and holiest sympathy. But
a sympathy much less perfect, is a great power for good in human life,
and a measure of it everywhere and every day is needed. While rejoicing
in the fact that in every walk of life there are truly sympathetic people,
one also perceives that harshness, resentment, and cruelty that are all too common.
These hard qualities bring their own sufferings, and there are those who fail
in their business or particular work entirely because of the harshness of their disposition.
A man who is fiery and resentful, or who is hard, cold and
calculating, with the springs of sympathy dried up within him, even though he
be otherwise an able man, will in the end scarcely avoid disaster in his
affairs. His heated folly in the one case, or cold cruelty in the
other, will gradually isolate him from his fellows and from those who are immediately
related to him. In his particular avocation, so that the elements of prosperity
will be eliminated from his life, leaving him with a lonely failure and perhaps
a hopeless despair. Even in ordinary business transactions, sympathy is an important factor,
for people will always be attracted to those who are of a kindly and
genial nature, preferring to deal with them rather than with those who are hard
and forbidding. In all spheres where direct personal contact plays an important part,
the sympathetic man with average ability will always take precedence of the man of greater
ability, but who is unsympathetic. If a man be a minister of clergymen,
a cruel laugh or an unkind sentence from him will seriously injure his reputation
and influence, but particularly his influence, for even they who admire his good
qualities will, through his unkindness, unconsciously have a lower regard for him in
their personal lisaths. If a business man professes religion, people will expect to
see the good influence of that religion on his business transactions. To profess to
be a worshiper of the gentle Jesus on Sunday and all the rest of the
week, be a hard grasping worshiper of Mammon, will injure his trade and
detract considerably from his prosperity. Sympathy is a universal spiritual language which all,
even the animals, instinctively understand and appreciate, For all beings and creatures are
subject to suffering, and this sameness of painful experience leads to that unity of
feeling which we call sympathy. Selfishness impels men to protect themselves at the expense
of others, but sympathy impels them to protect others by the sacrifice of self.
And in this sacrifice of self there is no real and ultimate loss.
For while the pleasure of selfishness are small and few, the blessings of sympathy
are great and manifold. It can be asked, how can a business man
whose object is to develop his own trade practice self sacrifice? Every man can
practice self sacrifice just where he is, and in the measure that he is
capable of understanding it. If one contends that he cannot practice a virtue,
for were his circumstances different, he would still have the same excuse. Diligence
in business is not incompatible with self sacrifice for devotion to duty, even though
that duty betrayed, is not selfishness, but may be an unselfish devotion.
I knew a businessman who, when a competitor who had tried to cut him
out of business, cut himself out and failed, set that same competitor up
in business again. Truly a beautiful act of self sacrifice, and the man
that did it is today one of the most successful and prosperous of business men.
The most prosperous commercial traveler I have ever known was overflowing with exuberant kindness
and geniality. He was as innocent of all tricks of trade as a newborn
infant, but his great heart and manly uprightness won for him fast friends.
Wherever he went, men were glad to see him come into their office or
shop or mill, and not alone for the good, embracing influence he brought
with him, but also because his business was sound and trustworthy. This man
was successful through sheer sympathy, but sympathy so pure and free from policy that
he himself would probably have denied that his success could be attributed to it.
Sympathy can never hinder success. It is selfishness that blights and destroys. As
good will increases, man's prosperity will increase. All interests are mutual and stand
or fall together. And as sympathy expands the heart, it extends the circle
of influence, making blessings, both spiritual and material, to more greatly abound.
Fourfold are the qualities which make up the great virtue of sympathy, namely
one kindness, two generosity, three gentleness, four insight. Kindness, when
fully developed, is not a passing impulse, but a permanent quality. An
intermittent and unreliable impulse is not kindness, though it often goes under that name.
There is no kindness in praise if it be followed by abuse. The
love which seems to prompt the spontaneous kiss will be of little account if it
be associated with a spontaneous spite. The gift, which seems so gracious will
lose its value, should the giver after wish its value in return. To
have one's feelings aroused, to do a kind action toward another by some external
stimulus, pleasing to oneself, and shortly afterwards to be swayed to the other
extreme towards the same person by an external event unpleasing to oneself should be regarded
as weakness of character. It is also a selfish condition to be thinking of
oneself only. A true kindness is unchangeable and needs no external stimulus to force
it into action. It is a well from which thirsty souls can always drink,
and it never runs dry. Kindness, when it is a strong virtue,
is bestowed not only on those who please us, but also upon those
whose actions go contrary to our wish and will, and is a constant and
never varying glow of genial warmth. There are some actions of which men repent,
such are all unkind actions. There are other actions of which men do
not repent, and such are all kind actions. The day comes when men
are sorry for the cruel things they said and did, but the day of
gladness is always with them for the kindly things they have said and done.
Unkindness mars a man's character, It mars his face as time goes on,
and it marks that perfection of success which he would otherwise reach. Kindness beautifies
the character, It beautifies the face with the growth of years, and it
enables a man to reach that perfection of success to which his intellectual abilities entitle
him. A man's prosperity is mellowed and enriched by the kindness of his disposition.
Generosity goes with a larger hearted kindness. If kindness be the gentle sister,
generosity is the strong brother. A free, open handed, and magnanimous
character is always attractive and influential. Stinginess and meanness always repel. They are
dark, cramped, narrow and cold. Kindness and generosity always attract. They
are sunny, genial, open and warm. That which repels makes for isolation
and failure. That which attracts makes for union and success. Giving is as
important a duty as getting, and he who gets all he can and refuses
to give will at last be unable to get. For it is as much
a spiritual law that we cannot get unless we give, as that we cannot
give unless we get. Giving has always been taught as a great and important
duty by all religious teachers. This is because giving is one of the highways
of personal growth and progress. It is a means by which we attain to
greater and greater unselfishness, and by which we prevent the falling back in to
selfishness. It implies that we recognize our spiritual and social kinship with our fellow
men, and are willing to part with a position of that which we have
earned or possess. For a man who the more he gets, hungers for
more still and refuses to loosen his grasp upon his accumulating store, like a
wild beast with its prey, is retrogressing. He is shutting himself out from
all the higher joy giving qualities and from free in life giving communion with unselfish,
happy human hearts. Dickinson Scrooge in a Christmas Carol, represents the condition
of such a man with graphic vividness and dramatic force. Our public men in
England today, probably also in America, are nearly all I think I might
say all, for I have not yet met an exception great givers. These
men lord mayors, may magistrates, town and city councilors, and all men
fulfilling responsible public offices. Being men who have been singularly successful in the management
of their own private affairs, are considered the best men for the management of
public affairs, and numerous noble institutions throughout the land are perpetual witnesses to the
munificence of their gifts. Nor have I been able to find any substantial truth.
And accusation so often hurled against such men by the envious and unsuccessful,
that their riches are made unjustly. Without being perfect men. They are an
honorable class of manly, vigorous, generous, and successful men who have acquired
riches and honor by sheer, industry, ability, and uprightness. Let a
man beware of greed, of meanness, of envy, of jealousy, of
suspicion. For these things, if harbored, will rob him of all that
is best in life, even all that is best in material things, as
well as all that is best in character and happiness. Let him be liberal
of heart and generous of hand, magnanimous and trusting, not only giving cheerfully
and often of his substance, but allowing his friends and fellow men freedom of
thought and action. Let him be thus, and honor, plenty and prosperity
will come knocking at the door for admittance as his friends and guests. Gentleness
is akin to divinity. Perhaps no quality is so far removed from all that
is coarse, brutal, and selfish as gentleness, so that when one is
becoming gentle, he is becoming divine. It can only be acquired after much
experience and through great self discipline. It only becomes established in a man's heart
when he has controlled and brought into subjection his animal voice, a distinct,
firm but quiet annunciation, and freedom from excitement, vehemence, or resentment in
particularly aggravating circumstances. If there is one quality which, above all others,
should distinguish the religious man, it is the quality of gentleness, for it
is the hall mark of spiritual culture. The rudely aggressive man is an affront
to cultivated minds and unselfish hearts. Our word gentleman has not altogether departed from
its original meaning. It is still applied to one who is modest and self
restrained, who is considerate for the feelings and welfare of others. A gentleman
whose good behavior is prompted by thoughtfulness and kindliness, is always loved, whatever
may be his origin. Quarrelsome people make a display in their bickering and recriminations
of their ignorance and lack of culture. The man who has perfected himself in
gentleness never quarrels. He never returns the hard word. He leaves it alone,
or meets it with a gentle word, which is far more powerful than
wrath. Gentleness is wedded to wisdom, and the wise man has overcome all
anger in himself, and so understands how to overcome it in others. The
gentleman is saved from most of the disturbances and turmoils with which uncontrolled men afflict
themselves. While they are wearing themselves out with wasteful and needless strain, he
is quiet and composed, and such quietness and composure are strong to win in
the battle of life. Insight is the gift of sympathy. The sympathetic mind
is the profoundly perceiving mind. We understand by experience and not by argument.
Before we can know a thing or being, our life must touch it or
his life. Argument analyzes the outer skin, but sympathy reaches to the heart.
The cynic sees the hat and coat and thinks he sees the man.
The sympathetic seer sees the man and is not concerned with the hat and coat.
In all kinds of hatred, there is a separation by which each misjudges
the other. In all kinds of love, there is a mystic union by
which each knows the other. Sympathy, being the purest form of this the
greatest poet, because he has the largest heart. No other figure in all
literature has shown such a profound knowledge of the human heart and of nature,
both animate and inanimate. The personal Shakespeare is not to be found in his
works. He is merged by sympathy into his characters, the wise man in
the Philosopher, the madman in the Fool, the drunkard in the Harlot.
These he, for the time, into their particular experiences, knew them better
than they knew themselves. Shakespeare has no partiality, no prejudice. His sympathy
embraces all, from the lowest to the highest. Prejudice is the great barrier
to sympathy and knowledge. It is impossible to understand those against whom one harbors
a prejudice. We only see men and things as they are. When we
divest our minds of partial judgments, we become seers as we become sympathizers.
Sympathy has knowledge for her companion. Inseparable are the feeling heart and the seeing
eye. The man of pity is the man of prophecy, he whose heart
beats in tune with all hearts. To him the contents of all hearts are
revealed, nor are past in future any longer insoluble mysteries. To the man
of sympathy, his moral insight apprehends the perfect round of human life. Sympathetic
insight lifts a man into the consciousness of freedom, gladness, and power.
His spirit inhales joy as his lungs inhale air. There are no longer any
fears of his fellow men, of competition, hard times, enemies and the
like. These groveling illusions have disappeared, and there has opened up before his
awakened vision a realm of greatness and grandeur.