The Washington herald., 1915-07-09
Sek-righteousness.
D. JOHN d. BARRY.

| Oeu.ll&0Ie0uSneSS.
| s ~ JOHN D. BARRY.
1T HERE is a man of my acquaintance who. dur
| ing long career. has occupied position OF
great public trust. He has been a prosecutor OF
evildoers. Mercilessly he has exposed them.
Whenever he could. he would drive them to the
penitentiary. And while he has been doing this
work he has been learning things about life He
has been developing. He has now reached the
place where he is able to take wholly new view
| of his duty and of his relation to society.
! AS Lincoln Stefens says. he has caught up
| with himself. He has found that he, too, is an
| evildoers. And much Of the evil he believes has
| resulted from his exposing and furnishing those
| other evildoers. He longs to make reparation.
For in his work of the past he has detected self
righteousness and the lack of sympathy that self
righteousness always engenders.
| In the lack of sympathy he knows there is
lack of understanding.
He realizes that to understand is not only to
forgive but to sympathize, to feel with Others to
put oneself in the others place.
When. with real understanding, put our
selves in the place of another, no matter how
dreadful that place may be, we are not slow to
forgive, eager. We judge others then as
we almost invariably judge ourselves.
1t is only great effort of the imagination
that we can escape from ourselves and take the
point OF another who does things or thinks or
says things we are opposed to.
And yet all have to do is to realize that
in induging self-justifcaton. others are doing
exactly do.
Few of us seem capable of doing what the
man have referred to is doing getting away
from ourselves and viewing our actions impcrson-
ally.
But what he has done we must all do if we
to know the meaning of life and to live by it.
There many avenues leading to this
everyday truth that we show considerable adroit
ness in losing the way. Our persistence suggests
that don't really care
For example, the doctors and the scientists are
continually warning about heredity and the in
fuences of environment and the relation between
physical and mental health
We know that there people who inherit a
tendency to drink. And yet, members of So
ciety, we place temptations in their way. Most OF
us may be immune for the simple that we
have not inherited this particular weakness
Yet when see the drunkard we help to
make, shrink away or turn aside our faces.
and we shake heads.
We seldom think of helping.
Nearly always we judge.
Perhaps the proverb ought to be changed Per-
raps it should be: ITO understand is to forgive
every one but ourselves"
In the slums of the great cities vice is RAM
pant. When go Summing we see it expressed
through women that call fallen women and
through that have reached the same depths
greater depths.
We used to blame the women and men far
more than do
About these people we are learning
Just now there are Others very different in ap-
pearance and just as blind to TRUTH in some ways
just depraved.
They live in magnificent houses, they wear
beautiful clothes and they go about in automo-
bes
1t is they who have captured large part OF
the bounty of the earth.
They keeping for themselves far more
than they can use, their children can use or
their childrens children.
Their greed is making millions of their fe-
low-creatures suffer.
But they pay heed. They don't under
stand
Some of us angry about them. But our
anger is unjustifabe.
For if we were in their place. if we led lives
like theirs, sheltered from The truth we should
be just like them.
If we feel patience and pity for the wretches of
the slums, let feel pity and patience for those
others.
They losing the opportunities of life exactly
as those others are.
They are not to blame. They haven't walked up
yet. They don't understand