River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-04-10
WHAT SYMPATHY is.
The Grandest Emotion and Yet the One
Least Understood.

The Grandest Emotion and Yet the One
Least Understood.
Sympathy is one of the divine gifts TO
the human soul; one of the gifts that
grows richer by the dispensing. Per-
haps of all the emotions that move the
soul, sympathy is the one least under
stood. We seem to think, many of us,
that sympathy is a matter of tears and
signs, of frantic hand-clasps and super
lative expression. We term the woman
who is moved to tears by tale of woe,
by the history of an incident beyond the
reach of remedy, woman of sympathy.
This condition is a state Of nervous dis
ease that should be treated by phi si-
CT ian who administers medicine with
knowledge of psychology. sympathy is
not water-eure. II is a strong, active,
forceful element in soul power. 1t is
not confined to shadows; il works ben
elicently in the sunlight 1t meets
the face rejecting a great inward Joy,
and gives to it added brightness be-
cause of a soul set aflame by the light of
another. 1t stretches out guiding
hand to a soul cropping in thousand
perpiexi lies, trying to find its way. to
get its earrings, in the maze that in
wolves it. 1t helps the sorrowing, not
by adding tears, but by finding new in
terests. Is there a condition in life
where this divine gift can not work
miracles? How often its magic reveals
to those who have before been strangers
the inner light that is the ego, the world
will never know. We gladly give our
selves to the people in tatters, and
spend honrs of thought in devising bath
ing facilities for the great unwaShed,
while we do not think to extend the
hand of fellowship to the woman
whose surroundings denote pos
sessions of material things. As though
the soul were clothed and fed with vel
vets, and fruits served out of season!
The pity of it, What is fellowship with
our kind? 1t is seeing beneath the sur
face, il is finding the ego behind the
mask which the world calls face. We
know we live two lives-one the world
sees, and the other life revealed only
to love, which is the essense of sympa-
thy; and to those who see behind the
mask we give the right of sympathy,
the RICH ito laugh with us, the right TO
weep with us, the right to point to us a
pathway where we see no outlook. Sym
pathy is not one-sided-an emotion that
moves but one. 1t is thought only
until moved to action. The river
grows richer who gives in love, and
the gift is not aims. Aims are the
coins of duty, sympathy is the coin
of love. 1t circulates in all classes; it
does not shut out the possessors of
wealth, for it sees, it feels, that there
are things" that can not be deposited
in safe deposit vaults. Every friend
who finds US, every friend we find,
makes this world a new heaven. Is not
this wealth. this joy, worth striving
after? For does not a friends sympathy
make our weakness strength? Does not
sympathy double our joys, and send a
CLEAN from Heaven into our deepest
sorrow? That which we receive is ours
TO give. Life grows deeper, fuller, not
as we shut the world out, but as we open
our hearts to receive the best in it. give
the best in ourselves. Christian Union.