RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 38, 13 February 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

KEEPING THE HEART TEXDES. "Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep."— liomans xii. 15. (By Rev. L. A. Banks, D.D.) The Christian is to be no hermit, no reclu-se who draws his 1 cart into his shell and goes self-absorbed along the -ray of life, thinking only of his own affairs. His heart i= to be open to the cries of joy as well as sorrow. He is ■to have a tender heart, easily reached wirh the gladness or the sorrow of his neighbour. ■Rejoice." says Paul, •"with -hem that do rejoice ; weep with them that weep." The way tiii~ c-oinmand is put robs it -ci all possible selfishness. We are to rejoice with other people in their joy. A great many selfish people envy the joy of others, and would, if they could, rob them of it and leave them bare, f-arrying all the joy away for themselves. But the Christian idea is to rejoice with the one who i= glad and thus reinforce and increase his gladness. And we all know how much there is in that. Every man who has had a sudden gladness come upon him has had the desire to tell it to some one else. The joy of any gTea* vision, such as a splendid waterfall or a glimpse of a great snow niountain or some scene of wild beauty in The forest, is c. small thing if one has th-e experience alone compared to what it is if you have a congenial soul with which to share it. Such sharing, insiead of dividing and subtracting from your own delight, multiplies it many times. And the same law holds good in all other joy. We have a desire to inipart it. a desire to talk about it with. others, and we often have the opportunity of greatly increasing the joy of another by listening and putting ourselves into sympathetic touch with the gladness whk-h has come to his soul. You know some lonely man or woman who has few joys and few friends, and when a letter or some little experience that seems trifling to you with your many friends and your numerous sources of happiness comes to that man or that woman it is a real opportunity given of God to you to listen with kindling eye and appreciative face and word while they talk to you of their joy. Siu-h a privilege to them is a little foretaste of heaven, where all selfishness will be banished and every one will be seeking to give joy to others. There is no more regrettable mistake any Christian to make than to perTtiix. himself to become so self-absorbed, no matter how great his work may be, •that he shall become a kill-joy to weak and ordinary people who look to him for appreciation in the gladness "which comes to their lives. Jesus Christ was never so self-absorbed in his sublime mission for the world's salvation that He could not enter with sympathetic heart and tender appreciation into the joys as ivell as the sorrows of others. He cast no dark shadow at the wedding feast, bur added to its gladness. Surely we have no right to be above our Lord and hold it beneath our dignity to bestow our smiles on the wholesome gladness that has come to any soul. Bnt we must not only keep our hearts lender in appreciation of the joys of others, but in sympathetic relation to their sorrows as well. We should be so sensitive in onr relation to our fellow men that it will be impossible for us to see a sad look on any face and our own heart not feel something of the flow of it. How sensitive Jesus was to the petition of the blind, to the lonely wail of the leper, to the silent shame of the disgraced woman, to the anxious appeal of the father whose child was sick, to the quiet, tears of the poor widow following her only son to the grave! In these and countless other cases Christ's heart mourned as Thcigh He Himself were blind, or leprous, or anxious, or a mourner behind the bier. He entered with perfect sympathy and fellowship into the sorrows of the people with whom He lired. His Jieart was so tender that every breath of human sadness swept His soul as though it had been a harp. So we must keep onr hearts tender. Do you ask mc how we can do this? The answer is very simple: By putting iciurselves constantly in helpful relations to others. Do the kind deed on every opportunity, and you may be very sure that the kind feeling will soon come to be natural to you. The difficulty is that we often curb our kind feelings and Testrain them. We shut back the sympathetic word that is on our lips until our tongues become dumb to that kind of speech. Give your heart c chance to show its kindness. Give your lips the opportunity to speak the sympathetic word.. Give your hands and feet free will to go on their missions of kindness and cheer and you will soon see that your heart is growing tender and mellow, so that none rejoice and you are not glad and none are sorrowful and you are. not stricken.