It may be loving sympathy. Sorrow
is before us. Another's heart is breaking. Money would be of no use;
it would be only bitter mockery to offer it. But we can hold to the
neighbor's lips a cup of the wine of love, filled out of our own heart,
which will give new strength to the sufferer. Or it is the anguish of
a life struggle, a human Gethsemane, beside which we are called to
watch. We can give no actual aid--the soul must fight its battles
alone; but we can be as the angel that ministered in our Lord's
Gethsemane, imparting strength, and helping the weary struggler to win
the victory.
The world is very full of sorrow and trial, and we cannot live among
our fellow-men and be true without sharing their loads. If we are
happy we must hold the lamp of our happiness so that its beams will
fall upon the shadowed heart. If we have no burden it is our duty to
put our shoulders under the load of others. Selfishness must die or
else our own heart's life must be frozen within us. We soon learn that
we cannot live for ourselves and be Christians; that the blessings that
are given to us are really for other people, and that we are only God's
ministers, to carry them in Christ's name to those for whom they are
intended.
We begin to felicitate ourselves upon some special prosperity, and the
next moment some human need knocks at our door, and we must share our
good things with a suffering brother.
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