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?

That the Master was never deficient in true sympathy is shown by the details of his life as recorded in the four gospels, and as well by the testimony of the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, who offers strong consolation to the suffering in the statement that "we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Herein is revealed at once the secret of and the necessity for the insufficiency of human sympathy. Our Master himself echoed the plea for human sympathy when he emerged from his agonizing experience in Gethsemane and found his disciples asleep. In the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy comments on this incident as follows: "During his night of gloom and glory in the garden, Jesus realized the utter error of a belief in any possible material intelligence.... His students slept. He said unto them: 'Could ye not watch with me one hour?' ... There was no response to that human yearning, and so Jesus turned forever away from earth to heaven, from sense to Soul" (p. 47).

Human sympathy is insufficient, because it touches but one point of experience. It never loses sight of the personal equation, because, being based on a belief in material intelligence, its only avenue of expression is through the knowledge of its own suffering. The very depth of its loving sincerity, which prompts the desire to clasp one's arms about a sorrowing friend and lift that one bodily from the limiting environs of grief, evidences as well the unwisdom and fallibility of the affection. The sympathy which matches the experience of our friend with similar points in our own history of misery, merely burdens more hopelessly the suffering heart, which instead "needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness" (Science and Health, p. 365). Far more help do we give by silent vigil with that one whose garden path now traces ours, knowing that in God's own time and way will come that viewless ministry of angels, "the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality" (Science and Health, p. 581), which sealed the Master's conquest and bore changeless testimony to the sufficiency of God to supply all our need "according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

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Individuals and Organization

August 29, 1914

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