Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1882-09-24

between life and death. A public
speaker thinks the earth q defective
piece of work, not the product Of great
GOODNESS, because disease is contagious,
ready to pass from one to the many;
but while he speaks the world owes
much to its contagion ofjoy and suffer-
ing. Thee free man feels the lot of the
slave and helps seek universal liberty;
the rich statesmen of England caught
the misery of the toiling women in the
mines, and henceforth never rested I'M
til they had placed upon the statute
books some new law full of mercy. 1t
is a wonderful provision in the constitu-
tuition of man that his calamity is taken
up and made the calamity of the race.
Soon all the high priests in all the forms
of thought are touched by feeling of
the surrounding infirmities, and before
the courts of earth. they pour out
their interceding prayers. The ora pro
nOHS of the church comes from the sum
pathos Of man.
This sympathy, from being the soul
of civilization in a large sense, passes
into the subdivisions of life and reap
pears everywhere as an impulse OF
good. 1t is an element in paternal love.
The helplessness, the ignorance, the
simplicity OF infancy and childhood
touch the older heart and deepen its
love. Age is drawn by this magical at
traction down to the level of the cradle,
and from pity to the little one submits
to new laws, a new language, anu 10
countless dignities. Nothing has in
jured more deeply some OF the older
forms of religion than their want OF
tenderness toward the infants and little
children. Some theologies have taught
that infants were fit subjects of divine
wrath, and many denominations have
felt that it was perilous to have child
die Observation-Disclosures that had
not yet measured the depth Of the
thought that the human race has God
who must surpass ali mortals in power
to suffer along with all little ones.
Their pain would be that of their Gre
ator-that strange contagion would de-
stroy the paradise of a just God. III
English statesmen could pity women
who toiled in the mines, God can weep
for children.
What has compelled the modern
mind to inquire in what sense God was
present in the events of the Old TeSta-
ment is the fact that little children were
then gathered up not in arms OF blessing
like those of Christ, but in arms OF
pitiless passion, to be borne perhaps to
the flames which consumed the adult
lransgressor. When Achan stole GER
tain garments and wedge of gold,
Joshua sent messengers, and they ran
unto the offenders tent and found the
garments and the wedge Of gold. "And
oil al
Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver,
and the garment, and the wedge OF
gold, and his sons and daughters, and
all that he had, and they brought him
into the valley of Achor. And Joshua
said, Why hast thou troubled us? The
Lord shall trouble thee this day. All
Israel stoned them with stones, and
burned them with fire after they had
stoned them with stones" The mod
ern Christian, schooled in the feeling
that he has not II high priest who cam
not be touched, wonders anew to-day
what part the living Jehovah took in
that storm of rocks and raging fire
which destroyed the innocent sons and
daughters of Achan, the son of Ierah.
The question is new and grave, and
some new answer must be wrought out
for the worlds future use.
Whittier in these days is not this SYM
pathy hastenings? 1t is not to he law
less. It is the discoverer, and herald,
and eulogist, Utmost inspiration Of the
right. A fellow-feeling with sinners Is
the attribute of friend, for all GRIM
inals harm mankind, to acquit crim-
inal is to hate humanity at large. Love
cannot pity a criminal, and also society.
Sympathy is q sweet music of equity,
of the tender rights of all, and therefore
1t turns away from the assassin, and
holds the wounded sufferer for long
weeks in its arms. 1t is thinking
faculty. 1t is so fully awake that oil
night long 1t will measure cruel deed
as a Judge sums up evidence. 1t thinks
over the presidents right Of life and
right to happiness, and to the long en-
ioyment Of q hard-earned fame and sue
cess; looks upon his family and sees
their natural rights; it counts the grOans
of the sufferer, and marks his wasted
body, and quickly, from all climes which
refinement has touched, comes the
beautiful language of compassion.
The Christian Church, which set out
from the high priest of this sam pathOs,
for human infirmities, and must be said
to have followed leader whose charac-
ter it was unable TO detect or appreciate.
Only great age-great in its intellec-
tual power-can comprehend such a
parsonage as Jesus Christ. The church
has dragged onward in feeble strength,
complaining and quarreling, and fight.
ing as It crept along, chiefly because 1t
knew nothing of that wide form OF
friendship which makes many opinions
as one and many thinkers Of different
thoughts to be as one mind. Although
this generation is peculiarly disturbed
by q few scientific debates, and by q
severe rationatism, yet over all Its d.
verse theologies there is passing this
divine air of sympathy. 1t Is the first
age that has felt this pathos Of life, and
has dared make declaration Of uni
versal pity and love. The little school
Of moral philosophers which meets in
Concord each year Is only a leaf from
large forest. A Quaker, who sat there
recently in q peace as sweet as that
upon the face of an Emerson or Har-
ris, wrote back that the village itself
seemed free from worldly strife, and
u SpOI "utlt bC
abiding peace on earth and goodwill to
| men.
This sympathy Of men while living
is made powerful by the coming pain
and sorrow of death. That will be COM
mon to ALL And as the burial.place5
under the shadows of cathedrals walked
up that strain Of eloquence just quoted,
! so does the common fate of mantle
grave-affect all persons before they
come to its brink; and makes them the
more willing to find the harmonies
rather than the discords of thought and
belief. The falling leaf and the quiet
graveyard thus appear and join with all
the politics, and theOlogies, and refine
ments and charities to declare to Us the
greatness of Him who came into the
world to be touched by all the interests
| of mankind. Sects may differ as TO
some parts of the office Of Christ, but
all Christians, without a single excep--
ton, must see that the Lord lived and
died TO cause a wave Of sympathy 10
roll over the world and be the daily
| sunlight of the mind and soul. 1t was