The examiner., 1886-03-13

and definite enough to prevent anything
 like mutual national or social or even in
 divldual understanding of each other. But
 nntil we do come to this sympathetical un.
 derstanding of one another, the ability te
 stput yourself in his place." there can be
 no solution of the social problems of the
 world that still confront us and hinder the
 realization of our human ideals
 Then, not only is there this difference,
 but there are differences of birth. We
 have not overcome them completely although we call ourselves democratic Ipeople. We say that it is perfectly natur- l al that they should exist in England, where there are the nobles and the commons, tue lords and the peasants; but here, in this country, these distinctions still remain l quite as real as in the Old World. They are in the way of being broken down, for
 the reason of them is gone. But the snr-
 vival of the old feeling still remains, and
 creates broad gulf of distinction, with all the bitterness that usually accompanies It. As in the case of religious distinctions, people keep up this barrier, created by the thought that they are born little better than somebody else, by nursing it like a tender iufant that would be liable to die if they let it alone, emphasizing it, talking about it, doing all that we can to call att tention to it, lest it should be forgotten. | This distinction is carried so far that, among people like OUTS, it becomes ludic- rous to those who are lockers on from out side; but it is very real to the people them selves.
 Then there are the differences that wealth creates between the rich and poor; l and these differences are very real, and create such dividing lines between people | that it is almost impossible for those who are on the opposite sides to cross and clasp hands with each other. There would be an end to most of the labor difficulties of | the time, if the capitalist could put him self in the place of the laborer and the laborer in the place of the capitalist, if they only could understand each other, if they, could only concede to each other equal rights. We hear of manufacturers inveighing very bitterly against combina- tions on the part of laborers; but it is not | thought wicked if these manufacturers ] combine with other manufacturers But injustice is not on the side of the manufac- turers or capitalists alone. If there is con- tempt on the one side, there is hatred on the other. The laborer inveighs against the rich only because he is rich; and, at the same time, he himself is putting forth every effort to get into the same condition as the one whom he affects to despise and hate The evils, the injustices, so far as people are capable of inf1icting injustices, are equally divided. They are as real on one side as on the other.
 Then there are distinctions that spring out of the differences of education, of in heritance, the results of past training, of the experience through which we have gone It will be good day for the world when each man and each woman can sym pathetically study the attitude of their neighbors, their friends, their enemies even, and try to look through their eyes, and think with their brains, and feel with their nerves, and thus to understand them; so that, if you are hated even, if some one is attempting to pursue you with injustice, you can appreciate why, see what are the underlying causes and motives When that time comes, we shall be able to treat one another with little more justice than is possible to-day, and shall be able to dis arm 2! these foes by the humane methods of I have dictated Their root is ignorance. They prevent our being able to sympathizef with other people, to feel with them, to understand their attitude. We are not able to understand that sorrow, suffering, pain, mean as much to them as to us.
 This race predudice still remalns We maintain it carelessly, thoughtlessly. We teach our children to continue 1t by the careless speech of the 4ireside and the
 
 son is only Dutchman, only Jew, only an Irishmau, only so and so, recognizing still this barrier which sympathy does not leap Just in so far as we do this, we are barbarians still. This is the touchstone of all barbarism. Go back to the ancient world, and see it's roots, when these antag- oeisms were so deep that it was impossible for people intellectually or sympath eti- cally to cross them. Every nation re- | <lo1 <l,n <Nf@
 To the Jew, the temple at Jerusalem oc- cupied the precise position that the State House does to the Bostonian; it was the centre of the universe. To the Chinaman, China is the centre of the. world, the fiowery kingdom; and all the rest of the world is barbarian, To the Athenian, Athens was the only part of the world that demanded any thought on the part of the citizens The rest of the world were bar- bGr0i, whence we get our word. Plato, himself, grand and noble as he was in his human development, taught that, while it was the duty of the Athenian to love Athens, it was just as much his duty to hate all else. There was no sense of brotherhood, no general love of all man.. kind, no dream of humanity meaning anything in any real sense of that word. We are not able, then, on account of these barrlers, to sympathize with the pains, the | | people. x 1 We must also learn to feel that the hap piness of others is as important as our own. Had this feeling existed long ago, do you think it would have been possible for slav- cry to have continued year2 It was only the lack of this feeling that made the su- perior race look down with such contempt on the inferior, to treat the men belonging to it as property, taking away all their ! rights and abusing them, until every nerve quivered with pain; while those that in- hicted it had no feeling themselves of pain and no sense of having done any injustice or wrong. It is very hard for us-and this is the very root of selfishness-to ap-
 preciate that a thrill of pleasure in some other persons nerve is just as important to | the welfare of this universe as IS the thrill of our own. But it only needs an intelligent, sympathetic imagination to realize this. And, when this intelligent, sympathetic imagination is well developed, injustice will cease from the face of the earth. We grasp all we can for ourselves of money, fame, position, and happiness, conscious all the while that taking it away from some one else, going off, like dog with 8 bone, into corner, and enjoying it just much, without any sympathy with the dis appointment, the sorrow, of the one from whom it has been taken. This is essen ] tially brutal, barbaric, and not human. | Wa aro to tha nvtaut Tn which fhis still ro.