£04 C43o Co p.£ (fentral Ctordx papers- No. 44. Central Church , Chicago Issued Weekly. November 21, 1897.. Chicago Newell Dwight Hillis , Pastor , NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. MAY 1 0 1937 Judge not that ye be not judged. — Matt. viliNIVERSlTY OF ILLINOIS If a man be overtaken in a fault restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. — Gal. vi. 1 . Having journeyed away from the ox cart and the wooden plow, society is now leaving behind the old ideas of a gentleman. The age that believed in witchcraft and astrology also believed that the well- bred man was one who lived in idleness, upon other people's labor. Plato’s Beau Brummel was one who did not work and lived in refined luxury and elegant ease. Alcibiades’ social pbsition was in no wise injured by his reputation as a thief and a knave. Yet had this perfumed youth entered the shop or stood in the stall of the market-place for a few hours each day his handicraft would have cost him all social standing. But having toiled long to develop a new art and industry, a new literature and govern- ment, our age has also fashioned a new idea of the gentleman. Through its law of heredity science has lent a thousand new meanings to the phrase, “ a well-bred man.” All now perceive that when many physical gifts and moral graces have been handed Copyright, 1897. Fleming- H. Revell Company. 2 SYMPATHIES WITH forward by descent, at last a youth stands forth pos- sessed of the fundamental qualities of a gentleman — that fineness of nerve structure that renders the body capable of delicate physical sensations, with that fineness of mental structure that renders the heart capable of delicate sympathies. For never again can the hero be a rude, coarse giant. Hercules, whose elephantine strength tore a way through forests and thickets, and whose thick skin was all unharmed by thorns and briers, has been suc- ceeded by King Arthur, whose fine skin feels the falling of a rose leaf, “ yet subdued his feelings in the glow of battle, and bore himself like iron.’' It is no longer enough that a hero should have the courage of Richard the Lion-Hearted, nor the en- durance of the Iron Duke, who stood “ four square to every wind that blew,” nor even the secluded in- nocence of that good Prince who ever “ wore the white flower of a blameless life.” To the iron will, the strong arm and the pure mind the modern hero must add the kind, sympathetic heart. Going toward gianthood he must also go toward gentleness. The ideal man has so refined his strength that he cannot behold a broken reed, a wounded bird, a bleeding vine, a running deer or a barefoot boy without planning some deed of mercy and recovery. For at last society has Christianized its ideal of a gentleman. To the sword of the warrior, to the book of the scholar and the tool of the inventor, the ideal youth will add the great heart of the hero. For what sweetness is to a lark, what perfume is to a rose, what wisdom is to the intellect, that sympathy is to the heart. That man is vulgar whose soul is calloused, whose mind is blunted, whose conscience is seared, so that, being without 'ear or horror of OTHER MEN’S FAULTS AND FAILINGS. 3 evil, he is also without pleasure or pity touching things good. The ideal man is one who by birth and long discipline has come to have a heart that is a magazine of kindnesses and sympathies. That manhood should find its crown and corona- tion in sympathy and sweet considerateness ought not to seem a strange thing. History tells us that always, as men have gone toward greatness, they have gone toward sympathy and forbearance with others’ faults and frailties. Lord Byron measured the imagination of Dante by its accompanying pas- sion of kindness. Those friends who feel deepest with our woes are also those who think the closest, pierce the farthest and hold the securest. For God hath made sympathy to be the parent of all wisdom and art, of eloquence and influence. The village paint-grinder remains such for want of sympathy with nature. But Millet’s fame begins with his great, deep thirst for beauty. Goethe, standing before the immortal pictures in the Vatican, was not so intoxi- cated with color as Millet, standing in the wheat field, was filled with joy beholding the peasant boys binding the golden sheaves or following the great wagon laden with ripe grain and going, creaking, toward the barn. For such a one as Millet, nature unveiled loveliness in the flower-girl and street-beg- gar, while for every dull, coarse observer Nature veils her loveliness and makes even Helen’s brow to be as dull as ashes, as dark as Egypt. In the realm of knowledge, not less than beauty, sympathy also is the great teacher. Faraday’s discoveries.in the realm of liquids, gases and electricity ask for pages. Questioned as to the secret of his astonishing career the scientist answered: “I followed my loves and they led me unto fame and fortune.’’ It seems this SYMPATHIES WITH poor, untaught child of a blacksmith was appren- ticed to a bookbinder, who bade him work upon a cyclopedia. Glancing at each passing page the boy came to an article on electricity and went home that night to plan out a simple apparatus of his own. Then, soon, passing through the streets on an errand, the boy saw a placard announcing a lecture upon electricity and begged a gentleman who was passing in to let him enter also. The man was Sir Humph- rey Davy, who afterward said of that meeting: “ My greatest discovery was the discovery of Michael Faraday.” As a telephone wire in one house makes it possible for another home to send its message for- ward, so there was a cord of sympathy in Faraday running forth to every clod and seed, to every par- ticle of coal and iron, and soon all nature without was flooding his mind with treasures within. At 54 the apprentice was president of the Royal Institute. It was that principle of sympathy also with the poor and weak that lent greatness to reformers and heroes, statesmen and orators. Harvard college sent forth two sons of supreme gifts — Edward Ever- ett and Wendell Phillips. The first was a scholar, in literature and history widely read, in person ele- gant, in manners most accomplished, in voice clear and sweet. But there was no sympathy in Everett's heart, and so his brilliant sentences flowed forth only as polished icicles, and he stood before men as before castles locked and barred and refusing entrance. Wendell Phillips also was a patrician, yet sympathy for the weak and lowly clothed him with influence. Forsaking all ambition, all comfort, all dreams of ease and luxury, of greatness and glory, he went forth to serve Christ's poor and, at last, when sym- pathy had led him into his life-work, sympathy OTHER MEN’S FAULTS AND FAILINGS. 5 crowned him king. In literature also the influence of sympathy has been most powerful. A century ago all English works were filled with scoffs and sneers at peasants and the uneducated poor. Fielding and Sterne admitted only lords and ladies as heroes of a book, for peasants were counted as less than the dirt beneath the great man’s feet. Then sympathy came in and gave Harriet Beecher Stowe a commission to plead for the slave, lent Dickens power to plead for those orphan boys in Fagin’s den and Dotheboys dungeon. It is said that if a piano is struck in one room, while another instru- ment stands untouched in the hall, he who lays his ear to the untouched strings will find the wires, as if moved upon by the hand of a shadowy spirit, sound the same sweet notes. But God hath shared this gift of sympathy with his earthly children, so that one heart can repeat the joys or sorrows that echo from another heart. And now, through sympathy, all the greatest writers have consecrated their genius to softening the lot of the poor and lowly. Happy is that man who does for the discouraged what April rain and sunshine do for the flower roots. Those hearts that glowed with sympathy for men move through society as stars move through the sky above bewildered mariners. Because sympathy is the measure of manhood and tests civilization, it seems easy to understand why Christ capitalized the duty of burden-bearing and the law of kindness and sympathy. At the outset of his career the Divine Teacher asked the giant to bear the burdens of children, the hero to guard the timid, the cultured to lead all rude persons toward refine- ment, the happy to dispel the gloom of the miser- able. And if during past centuries society has gone 6 SYMPATHIES WITH rapidly forward it has been because the Christian prince has thrown wide his castle gates to shelter peasants from their pursuers; because brave knights have gone forth to lift their shields over the op- pressed; because Sir Launfal has dismounted to lend his horse to the fallen pilgrim, and henceforth trudged home on foot. But if to-day law and gov- ernment have made the home safe and the granary secure, we must not suppose there remain no burdens to be borne. Happiness is indeed waxing and pov- erty and ignorance are growing less and less, yet full many a social burden remains to be lifted. Here are those who at the outset were handicapped by some hereditary taint of body or disease of mind, and so have toiled against heavy odds, and oft been stretched upon a rack like those whose cords were tightened by some cruel inquisitor. These know that a bad birth is a great burden. And here is the man who in his youthful days was offered a great opportunity, but who pushed aside his books and despised the college, to find in middle life that he had been like that foolish passenger who allowed his pearls to slip through his fingers into the deep sea and whose burden is that oft he wakens at midnight to cry: “ But for my folly I should have been pub- licist or merchant or teacher, instead of an obscure drudge!” Many peasant boys there are cabined by poverty and confined by circumstances, yet conscious of great power, who oft hurl themselves against the bars of their cage. But the youth finds one door after another closed against his advancing feet, un- til at last he grows dull-eyed and depressed, and, losing his spirit, sinks back crushed and broken, knowing that henceforth study will never hew his OTHER MEN’S FAULTS AND FAILINGS. 7 rough block into a statue, that his raw silk will never go toward fine tapestry. And here is the man who by honor and thrift achieved his competence and career and bought all with an unsullied name and came back from his hard-earned holiday to find that all had been lost through the deceit of a trusted friend or the bribery of a public enemy. And here is Browning’s friend whose burden was the torment of a great sweet hope. For, loving, he received no return, and, at last, broken-hearted, he bent over the fair face now forever silent, of whom the poet said: “He loved, but it was not her time to love. He must now hope she will some time waken, remember and understand.” Here is the merchant or states- man, the orator or leader, who yesterday moved for- ward, keeping step with the foremost, upon whom disaster or ill-health laid its hand, and who is now like a brave soldier doomed to lie upon his cot and listen to the roar of battle in the distance. And some there are whose burden is monotony, who seem, like these slaves, compelled to carry stones up the hill and then back into the valley, whose life is dull of infinite commonplaces, whose career is toned to low tints of drab, their days insipid, their tasks without spice, who are stimulated by no danger, and provoked by no martyrdoms, who count their silence and obscurity to be a great burden. And the burden of others is that love was given and with- drawn again, to whom came the sweet babe of the dear friend, and now that the gift is gone, they cannot understand what is meant when the friend whispers: “ Should an artist send to your home for a twelvemonth the Dresden Madonna to ask it again after a year, would not its memory be a glorious possession forever?” And, not understanding, these 8 SYMPATHIES WITH move forward carrying a great secret pain. Oh, heavy are life's burdens! Oft the load seems more than man can bear. Even to self-reliant natures there come hours of defeat and bitter sorrow, when one touch from a warm hand and one look from eyes full of sympathy are gifts beyond the weight of gold. What balm hath sympathy! What a medicine is mercy! Christ’s tears can dissolve man’s woes. The faults and frailties of men ask for sympathy and considerateness. Unfortunately the characters of even the noblest and best men are often marred by weaknesses and foibles. History tells us of many warriors and leaders who have survived the shock of battle and recovered from overwhelming adversities, only to go down at last before the resistless might of accumulated faults and errors. It is given to small vices to drain away the riches of character faster than virtue can accumulate. Where one Ben- edict Arnold is ruined by a single breach of dramatic fidelity, scores of noble youths are destroyed by tri- fling deflections from honor; little infringements of the laws of truthfulness; minute treacheries and small sins against integrity. Nevertheless a ship can be sunk by tiny worms boring through timbers, as surely as by a cannon ball crashing through the prow. One flaw ruins the gem. A single stain de- stroys the beauty of the marble. The time was when vices were freely forgiven to men of genius. Only let the man achieve fame as a dramatist or poet or statesman and society would make haste to weave a veil to hide his faults, a cloak to conceal his sins. For the sake of his splendid intellect what excesses are forgiven to Shelley or Coleridge! Indeed, in- tellectual brilliancy casts such a glamour upon the page that opium-eating, so disgusting in the Chinese, OTHER MEN’S FAULTS AND FAILINGS. 9 becomes almost attractive in De Quincy, while the drinking-songs of Robert Burns are so entrancing that men are half-glad of the vices that encouraged the poet to write these songs. But it is not the wine cup that lends a charm to the song to “ Mary in Heaven ” or “ The Daisy.” Rather was it the poet’s pathos, his flaming, flashing wit, and the stormy splendor of his rosy youth and his tumultuous gen- ius. Nor were the hidings of Shelley’s power in his vices. Self-control, poise and a sane spirit would have expelled the vices from his life indeed and per- haps the hysteria and fever from his finest poems. In one of his letters Robert Burns says that almost the only noble-minded men he “ had ever met were among the class called blackguards.” For a long time society has been under the influence of Burns’ theory. Now, fortunately, there is a reaction and men perceive that the vices that are easily par- donable in small men are utterly inexcusable in the children of greatness. Our youth has suffered an immeasurable injury from the belief that the vices of Coleridge and De Quincy and Burns have given us a charming chapter in literature. Charles Dudley Warner was tempted to become a sot, when he re- flected that versatility and a high order of talent are invariably ascribed to men of modest ability, once they are habitually drunk. Men have formed the habit of describing habitual drunkards as ideal fath- ers and ideal citizens — high-minded men, who would be conscientious friends unceasing if they were not so conscientiously and unceasingly drunk. The es- sayist was deeply pained when he reflected what an excess of genius there would be to-day if the habit of intoxication should suddenly cease — a fear that was mitigated by the fact that the reputation 10 SYMPATHIES WITH for greatness generally ends where sobriety begins. The time has come when men understand that he who receives strength and greatness is not released from the law of high-living, but rather obligated thereto. Men are still hero-worshipers. There is an increasing reverence for public men who repre- sent greatness and power. Yet let it be whispered that falsity runs through the man's life and in a mo- ment his greatness is dwarfed, his authority impaired and, instead of being a king, he stands forth in the form of a cringing slave! And once the evil deed is discovered, how swiftly it is proclaimed upon the house-tops, while all the unchained instruments for propagating truth are now degraded to proclaim the man’s frailty and fault! And yet perhaps none hath suffered so keenly as the man himself. Perchance in an unsuspected moment he was ambushed by temptation, as that English traveler in the jungle of India, when the tiger sprang forth from the thicket. In a single weak and unguarded moment he may have fallen, just as the Scottish castle was captured by the soldiers creeping up the rocks at midnight when they knew the garrison had been exhausted by double duty. Upon the prairies of the great West boys set steel traps for the grouse. Caught between the iron bars the beautiful little bird lies helpless and with bleeding wings beats its life out against the frozen ground. What sympathy we have for wounded birds! What tenderness for soldiers fired upon by guerrillas hidden behind tree or rock! And do not temptations leap forth upon men with all the cruelty of wolves and panthers? Do not fiery temptations sometimes sweep our men as billows of flames sweep over the prairies? Once more, for all earthly chil- dren, sounds forth Christ’s word: “If a man be over- OTHER MEN’S FAULTS AND FAILINGS. II taken in a fault, restore him — lest thou thyself be tempted.” Sadly must it be confessed that our age is harsh in its judgments, cruel in its criticism and brutal in its blaming. It may be doubted whether any nation has suffered so grievously from the cynical and supercilious spirit. To what degree this critical tem- per has developed in America is indicated by the fall, not of man, but of a single word. The time was when the word “ criticise ” meant to praise. Then, when the master entered the gallery to sit in judg- ment upon a picture or statue, to criticise the work meant to select whatever was praiseworthy in color and hue or lustrous in face and form. Then faults were condemned only after the fashion of Angelo, who first encouraged his pupil by pointing out the excellences in his work and afterward sketching an ideal face, leaving that perfect work to correct the youth’s imperfect lines. But, puffed up with pride, the Saxon people came to practice the art of with- holding all praise. The Puritan father tempted to praise the table or parlor, restrained his lips, and even though the parent’s heart was bursting with pride over the child’s success, whips and cords would not extract a single word of praise for the boy or girl perishing for a word of approval. Slowly our race set itself about the task of exterminating praise and the development of skill in searching out whatever merits blame. Soon that beautiful word, to “ criti- cise,” came to mean “to blame.” “ Criticise” is a fallen word, and seems like a star that once blazed in the sky, but whose brightness is now quenched in the slough. Once started, the critical spirit increased rapidly through the principle of reaction. In old England, as in the Germany of to-day, our fathers 12 SYMPATHIES WITH knew that any untrue criticism would be punished with imprisonment. But with the libertythat followed the Revolution men passed swiftly to the luxury of besmirching every official and lampooning every public citizen. So rapidly did this critical spirit increase that in 1793 the journal that opposed Washington called “Franklin a fool by age and Washington a fool by na- ture.” This harshness of speech reached its culmi- nation in the late election, when an editor in Louisi- ana spoke of the opposing candidate as “ a thief, a knave, a cheat, a sponge and parasite, a murderer in thought and not in fact only by reason of his personal cowardice.” When analyzed the ground of the criticism was found to be this: The Demo- cratic editor and the Republican candidate dif- fered with respect to the tariff, one holding to 40 percent and the other to 46 percent as the proper proportion. Also of necessity in the repub- lic where each citizen must pass on men and meas- ures, men come together to ask what is financial truth, what is economic truth, what are social and political truths. And going up into the judgment seats they analyze parties, platforms and policies. Then slowly the press developed personal interviews. Soon all privacy of life was threatened, and the pub- lic gossips entered the parlor, the study, the hall and chamber, until the whole nation suffered degrada- tion and the level of our civilization has been low- ered. If the skies should suddenly cease to send down dew and soft showers and begin to rain nitric acid and oil of vitriol, we should have that which is analogous to the critical spirit in he republic — that scalds, burns and consumes the finer feelings which and sentiments. OTHER MEN’S FAULTS AND FAILINGS. 1 3 Since daily it is necessary to sit in judgment upon men and measures, let us also confess the need of leniency and considerateness in judgment. Children of good fortune there are, born with no vicious taint and blessed with good health and plenty, who seem like placid lakes where every wind of evil is term pered by protecting forests. But others there are whose voyage is through a crowded harbor, where are ships of war and peace, where swirling currents meet and hidden rocks do lie across the path. From birth many are doomed to fight with a hereditary foe. The father was full of pride and selfishness* and the mother had an iron will, and, dying, each left the personal trait within the child, where the two opposing forces create perpetual storm. In the North Alaskan channel arctic tides come down from the north and the tropic currents go up from the south and, meeting between the granite walls, the currents swirl and boil and toss the boats about like shells, and happy the mariner then who escapes with his life. Not otherwise is it when northern races, cold, hard and self-willed, meet the rich, warm floods of the tropic races. And when these tenden- cies are combined in one and the same child, what sympathy should society feel for this one, whose life career will perchance soon be wrecked and the craft go to the bottom? Two hundred years ago there was a miser whose avarice was his joy, who ate crusts that he might sell wheat for gold, wore rags for gold, lived in a hovel for gold’s sake; for gain lifted his reason against men, as an ax is lifted against the tree, and could not die easy until his poor, starved wife slipped a coin between the stiffening fingers, when the miser passed peacefully away. And then the covetous taint passed forward and reappeared 14 SYMPATHIES WITH in this modern youth who, in a weak hour, intending to correct the wrong, defrauds his employer. And afterward he would have washed the stain away with though tears of blood, men had no sympathy and cast him out for his fault. Nor will any bear his burden. And other men there are in whom the forces of generosity, good-fellowship, laughter and humor meet and move forward, rising like mountain fresh- ets and sweep all before them. The faults of such men are but the shadows that their virtues cast; their frailties, overripe goodness. For as the juiciest peach is attacked by the wasp, so the finest natures are often most sorely tempted. But men have no skill in sympathy and do not practice the art of putting themselves in the brother’s place, and unfortunately the tendency is for man to lift up his own strongest faculty and gift and use it for measuring his brother who is without this special grace. Here is a man who is so evenly balanced in nerve and muscle and stomach that health and humor and vivacity bubble in his eyes, overflow on his lips, and good-nature is the very necessity of his being. He moves forward like a meadow brook, placid and prattling upon its smooth and easy way. And then this good-natured man sits in judgment upon some dyspeptic Carlyle, whose every nerve is a perpetual irritation, in whom one minute of silence and good-nature represents more virtue and self-control than a year of laughter in his big, fat brother, whose every nerve is cushioned in soft oil and cuticle. Those who climb the Mat- terhorn dig steps in the ice and slowly work their way from one ledge to another, clinging by their finger-tips. And there are men whose upward growth represents perpetual conflict, who always must OTHER MEN’S FAULTS AND FAILINGS. 1 5 dread the abyss, in whom twenty evil ancestors con- spire to pull them down. How are some men handi- capped! Against what odds do they toil upward! How cruel are the judgments men pass upon them! How do men hurl epithets of scorn, as of old men hurled spears and poisoned arrows. Savages prac- ticed the art of torturing captives, but the cruel in- stinct should now be expelled from man. In this era of class hatred and social strife the need of the hour is for sympathy, forbearance and sweet considerateness. For even in the worst man there is some spark of good, and as for years men tramped through the fields and forests, not dream- ing of the coal and iron treasures beneath, so do we go forward, little suspecting the wealth of goodness hidden under men’s failings. For a full century Shakespeare slept in the libraries of England and was utterly unrecognized. One day a German scholar discovered the dramatist and suddenly Eng- land awakened to the consciousness of her literary treasure. But men are blinded by prejudice, and injured by scorn and contempt and know not that even in each Fagin or Jean Valjean there are hours when some noble impulse stirs even as on decaying logs some flower springs. Cynicism is a frost that slays all blossoms of the heart, while sympathy is the genial air of spring that leads summer out of winter. We have read of a mother who had a word for all erring ones, whose son exclaimed, “ Mother would speak a good word for the devil,” to which she answered, “ My son, I would you and I were as diligent in our duties as the devil is in his.” For even Satan has one good habit — regularity. Happy the community blessed with a few genial, sunny, sympathetic souls. For kindness can work l6 SYMPATHIES WITH OTHER MEN’S FAULTS. strange transformations. For it is given to iove to melt selfishness as the sun melts icicles from the boughs of spring. It is given to sympathy to soften the hard heart as rain softens the clods of the field. It is given to kindness to lead the prodigal back from his husks to the father’s house. Therefore put away all arrowy sentences and all poisoned speech,, cast out all harshness and severity of judgment. For these erring, failing, faulty men are the children of God, who marks their heart throbs, notes every tear,, aches after each prodigal who hath fallen in the way. How tender his sympathy who said: “The bruised reed I will not break, the smoking flax I will not quench!” And if men are to be God’s children, they, too, must bear the burdens of the weak, carry the sorrows of the poor, love the unlovely, forgive the hateful, for so shall “ we fulfill the law of Christ.” UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS — URBANA N301 12086085104A SPECIAL NOTE: These papers are published weekly — “ “™ “ ———————— and may be obtained from Fleming H. Revell Company, 63 Washington Street* Chicago, at the following rates: Single copies, - $ *03 By mail, - $ *05 12 copies, - *35 44 - *50 100 “ - 2.50 “ - 3.00 Numbers previous to No . 41 cannot be supplied .