It has been said that, while the word "sympathy" does not occur in the
Bible, the idea is there; it is in bud in the Old Testament, but it is
in full blossom in the New Testament. Christ was always sympathetic. He
felt for the disturbed host at the wedding; His heart went out to
Zaccheus; He wept with Mary and Martha; He listened to the plea of the
blind and the lepers; He was deeply stirred as He saw the funeral
procession of him who was the only son of his mother, a widow.
An eloquent preacher was talking to his people of this glorious flower
of the Christian life. "Beholding the lily," he said, "sympathy breathes
a prayer that no untimely frost may blight the blossom; beholding the
sparrow, sympathy fills a box with seeds for the birds whose fall 'the
Heavenly Father knoweth'; beholding some youth going forth to make his
fortune, sympathy prays that favorable winds may fill these sails and
waft the boy to fame and fortune. Do the happy youth and maiden stand
before the marriage altar, the Christian breathes a prayer that love's
flowers may never fall, and that 'those who are now young may grow old
together.'"
One of the pleasing stories told of Richard Harding Davis, the writer
and war correspondent, was of an incident when real sympathy transformed
him.
In May, 1898, when the Massachusetts troops were about to go from
Florida to Cuba, Mr. Davis entered the encampment as the men were
saddened by the first death in the company. At once his cheerful face
took on a subdued look. The next day proved to be "a broiling dry hot
day which set the blood sizzling inside of one," but Davis tramped for
two hours in the search of flowers. Then he learned that eight miles
away he might secure some. Though no one was abroad who did not have to
be, Mr. Davis started on a sixteen-mile horseback trip. Securing the
flowers, he brought them back and made a cross of laths on which he tied
them. Then came the search for colors to make the flag. Again he tramped
a weary distance, but at last he found red, white and blue ribbon. That
night he laid his tribute on the casket.
An American author who lived several generations before Davis was noted
for his sympathetic attitude to the suffering. Richard Henry Dana was
compelled when a young man to take a voyage around Cape Horn on a
sailing ship. That classic of the sea, "Two Years Before the Mast," was
one of the results of that experience. Another result was that when the
author became a lawyer in Boston, his knowledge of ships made him a
favorite advocate in nautical cases. His knowledge of the sufferings of
the men before the mast, who were so often abused, was responsible for
his taking their part in many an unprofitable case. He had learned by
bitter experience what the sailors under a brutal captain had to suffer,
and any mistreated seaman had in him a firm friend and a fearless
pleader.
The truest sympathy comes from those who, like Dana, know what suffering
means. An author in Scotland, who lived in Dana's generation, never
heard of the American friend of seamen, but he had the same spirit, born
of his own suffering. He was not accustomed to complain, and was always
reticent in speaking of himself. Once, however, for the sake of a
friend, he allowed himself to tell of his own life:
"With all your sorrows I sympathize from my heart," he wrote. "I have
learned to do so through my own sufferings. The same feeling which made
you put your hand into your pocket to search among the crumbs for the
wanting coin for the beggar, leads me to search in my heart for some
consolation for you. The last two years have been fraught to me with
such sorrowful experiences that I would gladly exchange my condition for
a peaceful grave. A bankrupt in health, hope and fortune, my
constitution shattered frightfully, and the almost certain prospect of
being a cripple for life before me, I can offer you as fervent and
unselfish a sympathy as ever one heart offered another. I have lain
awake, alone, and in darkness, suffering severe agony for hours, often
thinking that the slightest aggravation must make my condition
unbearable and finding my only consolation in murmuring to myself the
words patience, courage and submission."
That, surely, is a part of what Robert Louis Stevenson meant when, as
one element in his statement of the ideal for the perfect life, he named
"to be kind." True kindness is impossible without sympathy.
So long as there is so much real sympathy in the world there can be no
place for the maunderings of a pessimist. Every sight of a man, a woman
or a child whose life is beautified by the outgoing of sympathy is an
effective message of courage, of cheer, of hope.