OTHER PEOPLE.
"We need--each and all--to be needed,
To feel we have something to give
Towards soothing the moan of earth's hunger;
And we know that then only we live
When we feed one another, as we have been fed
From the hand that gives body and spirit their bread."
--LUCY LARCOM.
There are other people. We are not the only ones. Some of the others
live close to us, and some farther away. We stand in certain relations
to these other people. They have claims upon us. We owe them duties,
services, love. We cannot cut ourselves off from them, from any of
them, saying that they are nothing to us. We cannot rid ourselves of
obligations to them and say we owe them nothing. So inexorable is this
relation to others that in all the broad earth there is not an
individual who has no right to come to us with his needs, claiming at
our hand the ministry of love. The other people are our brothers, and
there is not one of them that we have a right to despise, or neglect,
or hurt, or thrust away from our door.
We ought to train ourselves to think of the other people. We may not
leave them out of any of the plans that we make. We must think of
their interests and good when we are thinking of our own. They have
rights as well as ourselves, and we must think of these when asserting
our own. No man may set his fence a hair's breadth over the line on
his neighbor's ground. No man may gather even a head of his neighbor's
wheat, or a cluster of grapes from his neighbor's vine. No man may
enter his neighbor's door unbidden. No man may do anything that will
harm his neighbor. Other people have inalienable rights which we may
not invade.
We owe other people more than their rights; we owe them love. To some
of them it is not hard to pay this debt. They are lovable and winsome.
They are thoroughly respectable. They are congenial spirits, giving us
in return quite as much as we can give them. It is natural to love
these and be very kindly and gentle to them. But we have no liberty of
selection in this broad duty of loving other people. We may not choose
whom we shall love if we claim to be Christians. The Master's teaching
is inexorable: "If ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? for
even sinners love those that love them. And if ye do good to them that
do good to you, what thank have ye? for even sinners do the same. And
if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? even
sinners lend to sinners, to receive again as much. But love your
enemies, and do them good, and lend, never despairing; and your reward
shall be great, and ye shall be sons of the Most High; for he is kind
toward the unthankful and evil."
The good Samaritan is our Lord's answer to the question, "Who is my
neighbor?" and the good Samaritan's neighbor was a bitter enemy, who,
in other circumstances, would have spurned him from his presence.
Other people may not be beautiful in their character, nor congenial in
their habits, manners, modes of life, or disposition; they may even be
unkind to us, unjust, unreasonable, in strict justice altogether
undeserving of our favor; yet if we persist in being called Christians
ourselves we owe them the love that thinketh no evil, that seeketh not
its own, that beareth all things, endureth all things, and never
faileth.
No doubt it is hard to love the other people who hate us. It is not so
hard just to let them alone, to pass them by without harming them, or
even to pray for them in a way; but to love them--that is a sore test.
We are apt to ask:--
"Dear Lord, will it not do,
If we return not wrong for wrong,
And neither love nor hate?
But love--O Lord, our souls are far from strong,
And love is such a tender, home-nursed dove--
How can we, Lord, our enemies bless and love?
"Fasting--Oh, one could fast--
And praying--one could most pathetic pray;
But love our enemies! Dear Lord,
Is there not unto thee some easier way--
Some way through churchly service, song, or psalm,
Or ritual grand, to reach thy heaven's calm?"
But there comes no answer of Christly indulgence to such questions.
Other people, though they be our enemies, are not thus taken out of the
circle of those to whom we owe love. Our part is always pictured for
us in the example of the good Samaritan.
That is, we owe other people service. Service goes with loving. We
cannot love truly and not serve. Love without serving is but an empty
sentiment, a poor mockery. God so loved the world that he gave. Love
always gives. If it will not give it is not love. It is measured
always by what it will give. The needs of other people are therefore
divine commands to us, which we dare not disregard or disobey. To
refuse to bless a brother who stands before us in any kind of want is
as great a sin as to break one of the positive commandments of the
Decalogue. Indeed, in a sense, it is the breaking of the whole second
table of the commandments--the sense of which is, "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself."
We like to think there is no sin in mere not doing. But Jesus, in his
wonderful picture of the Last Judgment, makes men's condemnation turn
on not doing the things they ought to have done. They have simply not
fed the hungry, not clothed the naked, not visited the sick, not
blessed the prisoner. To make these sins of neglect appear still more
grievous, our Lord makes a personal matter of each case, puts himself
in the place of the sufferer who needs it and is not cared for, and
tells us that all neglects to give needed kindness to any are shown to
him. This divine word gives a tremendous interest to other people, who
are brought providentially into the sphere of our life, so that their
wants of whatever kind may make appeal to our sympathy and kindness.
To neglect them is to neglect Christ. He sends them to us. They
represent him. To turn them away is to turn him away.
This matter of serving has multitudinous forms. Sometimes it is
poverty that stands at our gate, and money help is wanted. A thousand
times more frequently, however, it is not money, but something else
more precious, that we must give. It may be loving sympathy. Sorrow
is before us. Another's heart is breaking. Money would be of no use;
it would be only bitter mockery to offer it. But we can hold to the
neighbor's lips a cup of the wine of love, filled out of our own heart,
which will give new strength to the sufferer. Or it is the anguish of
a life struggle, a human Gethsemane, beside which we are called to
watch. We can give no actual aid--the soul must fight its battles
alone; but we can be as the angel that ministered in our Lord's
Gethsemane, imparting strength, and helping the weary struggler to win
the victory.
The world is very full of sorrow and trial, and we cannot live among
our fellow-men and be true without sharing their loads. If we are
happy we must hold the lamp of our happiness so that its beams will
fall upon the shadowed heart. If we have no burden it is our duty to
put our shoulders under the load of others. Selfishness must die or
else our own heart's life must be frozen within us. We soon learn that
we cannot live for ourselves and be Christians; that the blessings that
are given to us are really for other people, and that we are only God's
ministers, to carry them in Christ's name to those for whom they are
intended.
We begin to felicitate ourselves upon some special prosperity, and the
next moment some human need knocks at our door, and we must share our
good things with a suffering brother. We may build up our fine
theories of taking care of ourselves, of living for the future, of
laying up in the summer of prosperity for the winter of adversity, of
providing for old age or for our children; but ofttimes all these
frugal and economic plans have to yield to the exigencies of human
need. The love that seeketh not its own plays havoc with life's hard
logic, and with the plans of mere self-interest. We cannot say that
anything is our own when our brother is suffering for what we can give.
"Herein is love: to strip the shoulders bare.
If need be, that a frailer one may wear
A mantle to protect it from the storm;
To bear the frost-king's breath so one be warm;
To crush the tears it would be sweet to shed,
And smile so others may have joy instead.
"Herein is love: to daily sacrifice
The hope that to the bosom closest lies;
To mutely bear reproach and suffer wrong,
Nor lift the voice to show where both belong;
Nay, now, nor tell it e'en to God above--
Herein is love indeed, herein is love."
Not a day passes in the commonest experiences of life, in which other
people do not stand before us with their needs, appealing to us for
some service which we may render to them. It may be only ordinary
courtesy, the gentle kindness of the home circle, the patient treatment
of neighbors or customers in business relations, the thoughtful showing
of interest in old people or in children. On all sides the lives of
others touch ours, and we cannot do just as we please, thinking only of
ourselves, and our own comfort and good, unless we choose to be false
to all the instincts of humanity, and all the requirements of the law
of Christian love. We must think continually of other people.
We may not seek our own pleasure in any way without asking whether it
will harm or mar the comfort of some other one. For example, we must
think of other people's convenience in the exercise of our own liberty
and in the indulgence of our own tastes and desires. It may be
pleasant for us to lie late in bed in the morning, and we may be
inclined to regard the habit as only a little amiable self-indulgence.
But there is a more serious side to the practice. It breaks the
harmonious flow of the household life. It causes confusion in the
family plans for the day. It makes extra work for faithful
housekeepers or servants. It sorely tries the patience of love.
The other day an important committee of fifteen was kept waiting for
ten minutes for one tardy member, whose presence was necessary before
anything could be done. At last he came sauntering in without even an
apology for having caused fourteen busy men a loss of time that to them
was very valuable, besides having put a sore strain on their patience
and good nature. We have no right to forget or disregard the
convenience of others. A conscientious application of the Golden Rule
would cure us of all such carelessness.
These are but illustrations of the way other people impinge upon our
life. They are so close to us that we cannot move without touching
them. We cannot speak but that our words affect others. We cannot act
in the simplest things without first thinking whether what we are about
to do will help or hurt others. We are but one of a great family, and
we dare not live for ourselves. We must never forget that there are
other people.