The Freedom of Life

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ly from a very severe accident. The young woman started up to be of what service she could, and when she returned to the table, had lost her appetite entirely, because

tion for some days to come,-and special care all this afternoon and night, and it will be your duty to look out for him. Your 'sympathy' is already pulling you down and takin

hly established in the habit of healthy sympathy. The tendency to unwholesome sympathy was part of her natural inheritance, along with many other evil tendencies which frequently have to be overcome before a person with a very sensitive nervous system can find his own true strength. But as she watched the useless suffering which resulted in all cases in which peo

olesome sympathy not only gives us power to serve, but clears our understanding; and, because of our growing

an people generally suppose, is the unwholesome lack of sympathy, or hardening process, whic

ther with the intense fright at the idea of being in a hospital, which is so common to many of his class, added to the effects of his disease itsel

worth while to

ed,-she did not know the difference between one human soul and another. She only knew that this was a case of typhoid fever, that a case of pneumonia, and another a case of delirium tremens. They were all one to her, so far

mpathizer is even greater than in the case of those who do not put on a sympathetic veneer. It seems as if there must be great tension in the more delicate parts of the nervous system in people who have hardened themselves, with or without the veneer,-akin to what there would be in the muscles if a man went about his work with both fists tightly clenched all day, and slept with them clenched all night. If that tension of hard indi

g in their efforts to get free, the force of selfishness is increa

ion for the sneaking keenness of the plan, and hearty sympathy in the regret for his failure. The first thief immediately pronounces the second thief "a good fell

iew, and can understand their lives clearly, as they appear to themselves; but this we can never do if we are immersed in the fog,-either of their personal s

dress does not fit is a grief. But if I keep quiet, and let her see that I understand her disappointment, and at the same time hold my own standard, she will be led much more easily and more truly to see for herself the smallness of her attitude. First, perhaps, she will be proud that she has lea

g real to grieve about There is something for the child to grieve about, something very real to her; but we can only sym

is very broad, and you can distinguish the details that it encompasses; but, from

s of other men will also be very clear, and he will take all sorts and conditions of men into the region within the horizon of his mind. Not only that, but he will recognize the fact When the standard of another man is higher than his own, and will be ready t

pecially felt among conventional people, when something happens which disturbs their external habits and standards of life. Sympathy is at once thrown out on the side of conv

keeping our sympathies fixed on the health of a friend's soul, we may lead him out of selfishness which otherwise might gradually destroy him. In both cases our loving care should be truly felt,-and felt as real understanding of the pain or grief suffered in the steps by the way, with an intelligent sense of their true relation to the best interests of the sufferer himself Such wholesome sympathy is alert in all its perceptions to appreciate different points of view, and takes care to speak only in language which is intelligible, and therefore useful. It is full of loving patience,

must be steadily true to them. Such sympathy is freedom itself,-it is warm and glowing,-while the sympathy wh