Their joys and their
sorrows must be common. Thus heart must answer to heart, and face. "The
cruelty of that man," says J.A. James, "wants a name, and I know of none
sufficiently emphatic, who denies his sympathy to a suffering woman, whose
only sin is a broken constitution, and whose calamity is the result of her
marriage." Without such mutual sympathy, the members of the family would be
cold and repulsive, and society would be deprived of its most lovely
attributes; its members would lose the connecting link which brings them
together, and its entire fabric would fall to pieces and degenerate into
barbaric individualism.
"Had earth no sympathy, no tears would flow,
In heart-felt sorrow, for another's woe;
The joyous spirit then would weary roam,
A stranger to the dear delights of home."
We shall now consider briefly the religious elements of home-sympathy.
These involve harmony of the spiritual affections, and a transfer to all
the members, of the religious experience and enjoyment of each. As natural
sympathy arises out of and is measured by natural affection, so spiritual
sympathy is the product of faith and love. Hence the latter is purer, more
refined and efficient than the former. If the members of the family are the
children of God, they will live together in the unity of the Spirit as well
as of natural affection. The sympathy of the pious portion will be
interposed in behalf of the salvation of the impenitent members.
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