A Word Called Compassion…

There is a word in our language that is called compassion _ a sense of sympathy, a sense of fellowship in feeling, a sense of others’ suffering _ and it puts us in mind of some lines from Longfellow: “The little I have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger,” he said. “When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and think of the struggles and temptations…the brief…joy, the hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, I would…leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came.” ¹

Oh, how little we are able to judge, and how much of a mixture are all men: strength intermixed with weakness, courage with fear, good with bad; all of us with problems, sorrows; hopes, disappointments; all of us misjudged, misunderstood at times, all of us misjudging and misunderstanding others _ sometimes generous; sometimes selfish; sometimes doing, sometimes shrinking from duty; sometimes at peace, sometimes quarreling with conscience; sometimes patient, sometimes giving way to temper; sometimes discontented, and sometimes feeling blessed and grateful, and all of us trying to do more than we do.

And in thoughtful moments there comes to mind that we are fellow passengers on the same planet. And so at this thoughtful moment, the plea for patience, for understanding, for compassion _ to trample no one, to injure no one, to deceive no one; to live so that others are safe in our hands; to life other men’s lives in their sickness, in their sorrow, in their loss and loneliness _ to lift those who are discouraged and disillusioned with life.

“The little I have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered,…I would…leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came.”