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The Spirit of Sympathy and Love

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 26, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 43.

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The Spirit of Sympathy and Love

By Betts

A PRESENT-DAY requirement is a more general spirit of sympathy and love; a spirit that can more quickly discern the virtues of others than their vices. We do not mean that the vices which others possess should be excused and condoned, but that we should not make them a standard whereby to pass judgment upon humanity as a whole, or upon any individual in particular. If we encourage the cultivation of the virtues, then the vices, if not fostered, will gradually die away. It is impossible to get a white pigment by adding two blacks together. The result of such a process would be continued blackness. In the same degree, virtues will not result from the persistent dangling of a man's vices before his eyes. The better way to cure a man of vicious habits is to place virtue alongside of them. The contrast, which even the most depraved can not fail to see, will have a salutary effect. It is only as one sees the beauty of virtue that he is enabled to realize the hideous deformity and loathsomeness of vice. What censure often fails to effect, the spirit of sympathy will accomplish with incredible swiftness and ease.—Betts.