Article August 29, 1914 Issue

Insufficiency of Human Sympathy

MARY I. MESECHRE

The prophet Jeremiah sounded a note of general human experience when he uttered his plaintive appeal, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me." In intimate detail the prophet's heart is fully bared to the passers-by, on the chance that some one, carelessly or with intent, may administer of the anodyne of human sympathy. The fact that mortals have long echoed in varying degree this ancient lament, furnishes positive proof of the self-centered thought and limited outlook of humankind. "My sorrow" would fill the sum of the universe, while "nothing to you" serves to excuse me from other than self-interest.

Why clamor so incessantly for that which we fail to give, or, grown wiser and kinder through trials, offer vainly to the heedless? It has been said that "misery loves company," and has not experience shown that the expression of human sympathy is seldom little more than a rehearsal of the woe and sorrow, the sickness and suffering, of the would-be sympathizer? The thought of human sympathy has become so welded with the sense of human suffering, physical or mental, that the world has all but ignored the fact that sympathy really means a fellow-feeling with others, whether in joy or grief. And how seldom do we find ourselves or others obeying any but the minor portion of Paul's injunction to "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep"!

Limited by this erroneous concept of sympathy, we even occasionally find those who have so yielded to its mesmeric spell as to believe that sympathy is synonymous with gloom, and that any present manifestation of cheerfulness, or intimation of future joy, betokens heartlessness. It would seem that such a concept has never progressed beyond the incomplete description of Isaiah which prophesies of the coming Messiah as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Surely Jesus' own words afford more convincing testimony than can the opinions of any other, and thus, despite the commonly entertained notion of his gravity and solemnity of life and demeanor, we find him explaining his instructions to his disciples in order, as he says, "that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." Is it conceivable that anything disheartening marked the occasion of this bequest of joy and its accompanying legacy of peace?

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Individuals and Organization