Article November 19, 1932 Issue

True Compassion

EMMA M. HETTLER

TRUE compassion and pure affection are qualities so closely related that one cannot be expressed without the other. Affection that is honest, hopeful, faithful, understanding, and meek is also compassionate. On page 115 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy places these two qualities under the marginal heading "Transitional qualities." These qualities are naturally acquired in the progress Spiritward.

Patience is a vital element of compassion—patience which in the face of repeated appearance of evil persistently holds to God's perfect creation, perfect idea, until evil's nothingness is seen. In the acquisition of this patience, pride of opinion, self-righteousness, self-will, and human judging fall away.

When Jesus forgave Peter for denying and forsaking him he exemplified the purest type of compassion. It was Peter whom the Master bade to walk to him on the water. Peter was one of the three disciples commanded to watch with Jesus in Gethsemane prior to his betrayal. He had vowed his fidelity and loyalty to the Master in unmistakable sincerity, declaring that not death itself could make him forsake or deny Jesus. He had hoped and even believed he had attained that sacred loyalty to the Master, but the test that followed proved that spiritual strength was wanting; and his words, "I do not know the man," spoken on the eve of the crucifixion, must have added to the Master's burden.

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God's Minutemen
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