Understanding Others
223
the spirit in which Christ worked, in the compassionate tenderness that
He manifested. When we shall, by living faith, claim the promises
of God, when we shall live by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God, we place ourselves on the side of Christ, and we have
His Spirit and His grace to work with our efforts to bring souls to a
knowledge of the divine will.—
Manuscript 35, 1886
Compassion for the Guilty—How little do we enter into sympa-
thy with Christ on that which should be the strongest bond of union
[262]
between us and Him—compassion for depraved, guilty, suffering souls,
dead in trespasses and sins! The inhumanity of man toward man is our
greatest sin. Many think that they are representing the justice of God
while they wholly fail of representing His tenderness and His great
love. Often the ones whom they meet with sternness and severity are
under the stress of temptation. Satan is wrestling with these souls, and
harsh, unsympathetic words discourage them and cause them to fall a
prey to the tempter’s power.
It is a delicate matter to deal with minds. Only He who reads the
heart knows how to bring men to repentance. Only His wisdom can
give us success in reaching the lost. You may stand up stiffly, feeling,
“I am holier than thou,” and it matters not how correct your reasoning
or how true your words; they will never touch hearts. The love of
Christ, manifested in word and act, will win its way to the soul, when
the reiteration of precept or argument would accomplish nothing.
We need more of Christlike sympathy, not merely sympathy for
those who appear to us to be faultless, but sympathy for poor, suf-
fering, struggling souls, who are often overtaken in fault, sinning
and repenting, tempted and discouraged. We are to go to our fellow
men, touched, like our merciful High Priest, with the feeling of their
infirmities.—
The Ministry of Healing, 163, 164
.
Result of Coldness and Neglect—But there has been among us
as a people a lack of deep, earnest, soul-touching sympathy and love
for the tempted and the erring. Many have manifested great coldness
and sinful neglect, represented by Christ as passing by on the other
side, keeping as far as possible from those who most need help. The
newly converted soul often has fierce conflicts with established habits
[263]
or with some special form of temptation, and, being overcome by
some master passion or tendency, he is guilty of indiscretion or actual
wrong. It is then that energy, tact, and wisdom are required of his