Article November 16, 1907 Issue

THE SYMPATHY THAT HELPS

G. L. MC NEIL.

Christian Scientists are sometimes accused of being unfeeling because when their attention is called to some instance of seeming suffering or discord, they refuse to admit its reality by sympathizing with it. We do not deny that to the sense of the one who manifests the error the suffering is real, and we may well remember our Leader's counsel respecting the "Christian encouragement of an invalid" (Science and Health, p. 367), but the best kind of sympathy is that which removes all cause for the extension of sympathy. This kind of sympathy does not agree with the error which is manifested. It most decidedly disagrees with it and denies that it has any right to its seeming ability to destroy harmony.

We are taught to love one another, and in order that we may obey this commandment it is necessary that we should know what it is to love. It will be agreed that to love another in the true sense of loving, is to have such an attitude and to take such a course of action toward the one loved as will bring him the greatest amount of happiness, joy peace, and blessedness. This cannot be accomplished by sympathizing with or pitying the error which manifests itself through him, but by denying the validity of its claim to presence and power, and in realizing that the real man —the image and likeness of God, good—does not need any sympathy. Our friends and loved ones will realize in good time that in refraining from sympathizing with error, we have been most loving and kind.

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