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Chapter 41—In Contact With Others
Every association of life calls for the exercise of self-control,
forbearance, and sympathy. We differ so widely in disposition,
habits, education, that our ways of looking at things vary. We judge
differently. Our understanding of truth, our ideas in regard to the
conduct of life, are not in all respects the same. There are no two
whose experience is alike in every particular. The trials of one are
not the trials of another. The duties that one finds light are to another
most difficult and perplexing.
So frail, so ignorant, so liable to misconception is human nature,
that each should be careful in the estimate he places upon another.
We little know the bearing of our acts upon the experience of others.
What we do or say may seem to us of little moment, when, could
our eyes be opened, we should see that upon it depended the most
important results for good or for evil.
Consideration for Burden Bearers
Many have borne so few burdens, their hearts have known so
little real anguish, they have felt so little perplexity and distress in
behalf of others, that they cannot understand the work of the true
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burden bearer. No more capable are they of appreciating his burdens
than is the child of understanding the care and toil of his burdened
father. The child may wonder at his father’s fears and perplexities.
These appear needless to him. But when years of experience shall
have been added to his life, when he himself comes to bear its
burdens, he will look back upon his father’s life and understand that
which was once so incomprehensible. Bitter experience has given
him knowledge.
The work of many a burden bearer is not understood, his labors
are not appreciated, until death lays him low. When others take up
the burdens he has laid down, and meet the difficulties he encoun-
tered, they can understand how his faith and courage were tested.
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