SYMPATHY by Harper's Bazaar

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 19, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 46.

SYMPATHY

By Harper's Bazaar

"That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace."

SYMPATHY.

WHAT is the peculiar quality which some persons possess that makes us turn to them when we are in trouble, while we as naturally shrink from others whose friendship for us may be quite as sincere?

Some one has said that "there are persons who are as much out of place in a house where there is illness or death as would be a parrot perched on a coffin."

Perhaps these may be the people who, never having suffered themselves, do not know how to sympathize with those who suffer. Their one idea in the presence of grief is to make the mourner forget her sorrow—a thing which is manifestly impossible. They talk lightly, even merrily, of indifferent matters, and avoid all reference to the trouble which presses like a weight upon the sufferer's heart. Such frivolous and incongruous chat jars upon the sensitive ear. It depresses rather than soothes. To sympathize intelligently one must be tactful. But even beyond having tact, one should possess that tender-heartedness that feels another's wo. When we are in trouble the friend we want is the one to whom we can talk our trouble out. There is comfort in speaking of it. It ceases then to be a hidden pain which we must bear alone. We can not forget it, and to try to hide it under light conversation is agony. The true sympathizer may gently and judiciously lead the talk into other channels and awaken our interest in topics which are not wholly incongruous to our present state of mind; but she does not feign forgetfulness of our grief.

There is much said to the effect that words of condolence do not lighten sorrow. They may not lighten it, but they make it the easier to bear. And words are not all, for he whose pity and desire to comfort are genuine, will convey in a hand-clasp, a look, a tone of the voice, more genuine sympathy than can be expressed in the most eloquent language.

The mental and spiritual attitude insensibly convey much to the sufferer that words must leave unexpressed. Yet this silent sympathy does its work of soothing and healing none the less effectively because it falls so gently and unobtrusively on the wounded heart.—Harper's Bazaar.