Speaker 1: 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.