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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
we are brought in contact. We find it in men and women whose hearts
are not in unison with Christ, and it is a sad sight indeed when His
professed followers lack this great essential of Christianity. They do
not copy the Pattern, and it is impossible for them to reflect the image
of Jesus in their lives and deportment.
When human sympathy is blended with love and benevolence,
and sanctified by the Spirit of Jesus, it is an element which can be
productive of great good. Those who cultivate benevolence are not
only doing a good work for others, and blessing those who receive the
good action, but they are benefiting themselves by opening their hearts
to the benign influence of true benevolence. Every ray of light shed
upon others will be reflected upon our own hearts. Every kind and
sympathizing word spoken to the sorrowful, every act to relieve the
oppressed, and every gift to supply the necessities of our fellow beings,
given or done with an eye to God’s glory, will result in blessings to
the giver. Those who are thus working are obeying a law of heaven
and will receive the approval of God. The pleasure of doing good to
others imparts a glow to the feelings which flashes through the nerves,
quickens the circulation of the blood, and induces mental and physical
health.
Jesus knew the influence of benevolence upon the heart and life
of the benefactor, and He sought to impress upon the minds of His
disciples the benefits to be derived from the exercise of this virtue.
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He says: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” He illustrates
the spirit of cheerful benevolence, which should be exercised toward
friends, neighbors, and strangers, by the parable of the man who
journeyed from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, “which
stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving
him half dead.” Notwithstanding the exalted profession of piety made
by the priest and the Levite, their hearts were not stirred with pitying
tenderness for the sufferer. A Samaritan who made no such lofty
pretensions to righteousness passed that way, and when he saw the
stranger’s need he did not regard him with mere idle curiosity, but he
saw a human being in distress, and his compassion was excited. He
immediately “went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil
and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn,
and took care of him.” And on the morrow he left him in charge of the
host, with the assurance that he would pay all charges on his return.