take hold in earnest it can be secured. Rev. N. S. Hogeland has been engaged to preach for three months.

Woburn, Mass. The "Friday Night Club" of the Unitarian society holds its meetings in the church parlors, weekly, alternately for study and for musical or other entertainment. The study evenings of the winter are devoted to Holmes, Lowell, Alcott, Art, "A Journey among the Planets," etc. Among the entertainment evenings are planned two socials, two dramatic representations, an annual supper, etc.

How shall we fill our churches? This is the way one of our exchanges answers the question:

"Let there be a tenth of the effort to get people to church that there is to get voters to the polls, and our churches will be full. Let church people treat strangers as cordially as store-keepers treat them, and our churches will be full. Let there be a tithe of the enterprise manifested by men who manage churches, that is manifested by men who manage newspapers, and our churches will be full. Let us realize the importance of religious culture, as we realize the importance of health or business, and be as truly in earnest here as in the sick room, or in the shop and office, and our churches will be full."

The new grounds at Swarthmore College (near Philadelphia), where athletic sports are carried on, are called "Whittierfield," we suppose in honor of the poet.

The University of Pennsylvania forbids its students to use tobacco.

Maine sends forth to the world each year 14,000,000 cans of corn, and not a barrel of whiskey.

The American Hebrew tells us that the closing of the Russian universities against

Gladstone has in his library three desks. At one he transacts public business, at another he conducts his private correspondence, and at the third he communes with his "old friend Homer."

Protestent denominations seventy-nine perIn China there are among the different sons who devote themselves chiefly to medical work. Twenty-seven are women. There Association the first number of a medical has been issued by their Medical Missionary papers from native aud foreign physicians of journal, whose columns contain valuable high standing. The articles by the Chinese doctors themselves Christians in the Chinese language, will have a wide influence among their countrymen in removing the prejudice against foreign physicians.

It is ours to bend forward not a little away from the unpleasantness of the past, away from the hardships of the present, and rest the head upon the better morrow. Or better, it is the privilege of immortal, toiling man to stand upon the earth, amid its dust and heat, and lean against heaven. W. M. Bicknell.

A minister of another denomination writes us regarding the New Version of the Bible:

"Some of our people favor it, while others believe with the Dean of Chichester, England, who says: 'With us the New Version is deservedly regarded with universal disfavor, and by the best informed is already recognized as the greatest literary blunder of the age.' The introduction of the idea of a personal devil into the revised version, at the conclusion of the Lord's Prayer, should warn us to receive that version with more than ordinary caution. (See Matthew VI., 14.) Such a rendering of the passage is not simply, as the Bishop says, ‘a literary blunder,' but an insult to all liberal Christians. If you convince men that the Bible teaches the existence of a real personal devil, many will be led to reject the whole book as a literary salmagundi." "Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds;

Reason and religion, like two broad seas Yearn for each other with outstretched arms

Across the narrow isthmus of the creeds."

A new year of the Unitarian begins with the present number. Renewals of subscription should be made without de

lay. Subscription price from this time on, One Dollar a year.

VOL. III.

MY RICHES.

"For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."-1 Cor. III:21-23.

My gold is infinite. The bounds

Of time and space its coffers form; Its jingling from all shores resounds,

In every calm, through every storm.

"All things are yours," the Lord hath said,— Things past, things present, things to come. Those who are living, those called dead,

Paul, John, Apollos,-all, not some.

All things are mine. No brook that flows
And babbles by, seeking the sea,

No bird that flies, no wind that blows,
But pays its tribute unto me.

I hold a share in every star,

In every flower, and every tree; My secret wealth is on a par

With His who owns both land and sea. There's not a deed that's ever done

For love's sweet sake, but is mine too; There's no kind word beneath the sun, No olden thought nor new, if true,

No heart-throb in sincere reply,

Or swift response to great world-pulse; No sympathy with truth, but I

Do claim a stake in that sea's dulce,

A partnership in those green sods.

"All things are yours, and Christ's are you,"The good word says, "and Christ is God's;" The word's so good it must be true.

And it is true, as far, as fast,

As we will let it range and grow To conquer all, own all, at last,

Bought with the grace we all may know.The grace of love, whose boundless wealth Is known by all, full-known by none, Is nestled in all life and health Beneath the sky, beyond the sun. Let me not glory in 'my own:' What's mine, my brother's also is. Let each one glory in the throne

Of Him whose love is all men's bliss.

Let each one glory in the good,

The honor, which his neighbor gets.

No. 2.

All joy shall be my 'angel's-food,'
All happy hearts my precious pets.'

These are my riches. None can steal
Them from me, nor can aught destroy
The treasures which I thus can feel
And know are mine-a shoreless joy.
My wealth is infinite. No lines

Of space or time its borders form.
The world to me its worth consigns,
In every calm, through every storm.
S. W. SAMPLE.

66

SYMPATHY.

A SERMON BY C. C. EVERETT, D. D.

'Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep."-Romans XII, 15.

These words describe that which is the least or the most that one human soul can do for another. Sympathy is the least that one can give; it is the greatest that one can receive.

"I know," I seem to hear some wise utilitarian say, "I know that sympathy is a most important thing, because it prompts to kind and useful actions. Sympathy has value, as the root of a tree has worth, on account of the fruit bears fruit in kind and helpful actions, that it bears. Sympathy, except as it is worthless." This is the utilitarian view of sympathy. It has much truth. If one can help another and does not, his sympathy has little real life and power. It seems almost like mockery. "If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them: Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things that are needful for the body, what doth it profit ?" It must be confessed also that there is much sympathy of this nature, sympathy that so far as it goes is not pretended but real. There are some people that have good

feeling in the heart, but it seems as if the wires were down, or, in some way or other, the connection were broken between the heart and the hand, between the heart and the purse. The nerves of sensation are active, but the motor nerves, the nerves that respond to sensation by action, seem powerless. I met the other day an account of a rich lady at a public meeting for some benevolent purpose. As the speaker described the needs of those they had gathered to help, whether they were poor heathen in some far off land, or some poorer heathen at home, the tears rolled down her face. Her heart seemed melting and overflowing at her eyes, and when at last the contribution box went round, with her jeweled fingers, she selected carefully from her well-filled porte-monnaie a tencent bit, and gave it as the concrete expression of her sympathy. This is an example of what is very common in the world, as well as in the church. The sympathy is real as far as it goes, but there are other elements, that are stronger than the sympathy. The heart has life inside of it, but it is cased in a hard armor of selfishness.

Many things in our civilization may co-operate to produce this result. One is the habit of mind that may be engendered by too much reading of fiction. A work of fiction in which distress and sorrow are described must act upon the mind that is interested in it, in one of two ways. It must either bring one into closer and more active sympathy with those about him; or it must separate him further from them. One may read a story of Charles Dickens, and then go into the world and find himself gifted with a new power of insight, by which he can see the real life that is throbbing in the humblest heart, may feel the differences of caste and station vanish, may catch the thrill of the common life of humanity and be more ready than ever before to do his part for the good of all and of each; or one may read such a story and go forth also with new insight, but an insight that penetrates the secret heart of the world, only to be thrilled with a selfish interest in watching it. The lives about him with their

joys and their sorrows and their necessities, the events that succeed one another bringing happiness or misery, may seem only like the characters and the incidents of a story. The world may be to him only a more extended novel, always continued, never concluded. The reason of this is, that by familiarity with fictitious sufferings, the heart has got used to feeling without moving the hand to action. In the interest of the fiction the heart is, as it were, separated from the general machinery of the nature, and thereby becomes used to acting alone.

This is not true of fiction only. Even our churches may work in the same direction. In the church the better feelings of the heart are stirred, but there is, as a general thing, no immediate call for active duty. The services of the church may make one feel good, without inspiring him to do good. They may make him have a vague sense of the evil of sin in general, without repenting of his own special sins. They may lead him off into vague dreamings, of the beauty of humanity, of the ties that bind souls together, the loftiest and the humblest, without inspiring any practical application of these feelings. But it is always dangerous to let the heart revel in dreams of goodness when the life catches nothing of them. God meant the heart and the hand to be bound together. He meant the body to be not a thing apart from the soul, but the mere medium and manifestation of it; and to stir up the heart simply for the satisfaction of the momentary emotion is to play with the best and the noblest that God has given us.

In our elaborate and artificial civilization, there may be, then, often sympathy that reaches no fruition, like the fig-tree whereon was found nothing but leaves. There may be often, too, the show of sympathy without even this reality. Smiles are plenty. Good words are cheap. The surface of society is often bright and smiling, while the heart is hard.

And we may thus so far agree with the utilitarian view of sympathy, as to say that the sympathy which can help and will not help is of small account. It is hard for the suffering, for

the lonely seeking the succor that they need, to be repulsed even by a stranger. It is the hardest of all to be repulsed by those whose kindly words had made them hope for kindly acts. The sympa. thy that is niggardly in real service is not merely worthless; it rouses our scorn or our indignation. But this, remember, is not because the service is worth more than the sympathy. It is not that even the tried and oppressed heart regards the service as of more worth than the sympathy. It is because the failure shows the sympathy itself to have been false and superficial. It is because sympathy is so divine, it moves so like one of God's angels on the earth, that when it fails, when it shows itself to be only the gloss upon a heartless selfishness, the soul knows not what else or what longer it may trust. If God's angels thus deceive, to whom can it turn? If the hearts that seemed so kindly, that quickened its faith in humanity, if these fail, if these prove to be mere common stones, what else is there for the tossed and troubled heart to rest upon?

Thus even the facts that show us how worthless mere sympathy is, how worse than worthless an unhelpful sympathy is, make us feel that true sympathy is worth more than all things. When the service that might be done is lacking, the pang that the disappointed heart feels, is not after all because the service is lacking, but because the heart is lacking. Thus we come back to our first statement, and repeat, that sympathy is the least and the most that one human soul can give another. It is the least that one can give, it is the greatest that one can receive.

How little it is to give! It is, in appearance, only a little tenderness in the voice, that the spirit that needs it recognizes, though it could hardly tell how it recognized it. It is simply that the soul shows herself for a moment at her window and the wayfarer looks, and by a sudden recognition sees her there, and knows that it is her care for him that brought her there. It is only a something, we hardly know what, in the grasp of the hand, an electric thrill that shows that it is no mere formality, but

that it is a touch of life; that the hand is warm from the heart. This is all it is to give. But what is it to receive? It is often nothing less than a new life. Here is a poor suffering soul that feels itself cut off from the common and glad circle of humanity. The common joys and the common life seem not for it. It seems to itself like one shivering apart, while the merry group of happier ones rejoice in the warm sunlight, and in the play of free and kindly intercourse. But when this solitary soul meets the touch or the look of sympathy its isolation is over. It is by this drawn into the common circle of humanity. The common brotherhood reaches it also.

Perhaps this lonely soul had felt itself forgotten even by God. Perhaps it saw no sign that he still remembered it. But by this greeting of hearty interest, by this touch of feeling, of compassion, of fellowship, it is as if God himself spoke to it. It is as if he had sent one of his angels to speak to it good cheer; for if one of his children cares for it and loves it, it feels that the Father himself cannot have forgotten it.

I think that none of us feels enough the influence which our actions have in quickening or in destroying the faith that others have in man and in God. When we do, when any one does, a cold or selfish act, it is laid not merely to the account of him who does it, but to the account of human nature. The heart we chill says, "Yes! the world is cold.” The heart we wound says, "The world is rough and rude," but the heart that we bless cries, that the world is bright and that man is true and good after all. So, too, the heart that we shadow, unless its faith is very strong, feels somehow as if the light of God were shut off from it; or the heart that we bless, feels as if God himself had smiled on it again.

This is the blessing that a true and hearty sympathy brings with it. It does not merely say, "This one heart beats for you." It does not merely give the lonely soul a single heart of fellowship. It brings it into fresh relations with its kind. It seems to open to it the heart of humanity and the heart of God. If we could hear the voices of thankfulness

that all human hearts are uttering today, I believe that more would be the expression of gratitude for a kindly sympathy, for mere words and looks, than for beneficial acts. I believe that more thank God in their hearts to day, because others have shown care for them and feeling for them, than because others have helped them. Mere help, mere charity, I think, is not very provocative of gratitude. You throw a dog a bone and he takes it up and goes off with a growl. People often receive favors in this way. They take them as their due, especially if they think you give or do grudgingly. Such a gift may even cause a hostile feeling. It may make the receiver feel the difference between his own lot and that of him who thus helps him. It may lead him to question why he is not in a position to help the other instead of receiving his help.

People often complain of ingratitude. Those who have the charge of children may say, "I have toiled for them night and day, I have spent my life for them and yet they seem hardly to be grateful for it all." But while you gave it all else, did the child feel that it had your love? Was there the manifest presence of the heart in all that you did? One may say, "I did for such an one, so much, and little thanks I got for it." But the question is, how did you do it? I know that there is real ingratitude on the earth. I know that one heart often fails to find the way to another heart; but yet it is a great thing to remember that what we do for another does not excite his gratitude so much as the way in which we do it, the love or the sympa thy which we give with it: and that though we may bestow all our goods, yet another who has only his sympathy to give, and gives that, may reap the gratitude we failed of. One heart may not find its way to another heart, but if it does not, nothing can. He who gives his goods gives what the other might have had as well as he; but he who gives his heart gives himself.

From what has been said it will appear that sympathy is the great equalizer. It tends to put men on a level in regard to the ability of serving others. If interest,

sympathy, the heart itself, is the greatest gift one can bestow, then whoever has a heart can give this. It needs not eloquent lips to speak words of cheer and fellowship. It needs not the full storehouse to give the grasp of greeting or God-speed. Sympathy also tends to make equal the lot and circumstances of different lives. The heart has the key to the world's mysteries. The inequality that exists in human fortune, the wealth of one and the poverty of another, the strength of one and the sickness of another, the success of one and the failure of another, these excite questionings that we cannot fully answer. But as was just said, sympathy lessens, and according to its strength does away with these differences. If each one really rejoiced with those that did rejoice and wept with them that wept, if each one felt his brother's joys and sorrows as his own, where would be the difference between one life and another? Each would partake the sorrows and each would partake the joys of all. This is merely an ideal picture; yet just so far as this sympathy exists does it equalize the fortunes of the world and put the sorrowful and the glad upon one level.

We thus approach a part of the injunction of the text that is often lost sight of. We say, "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep," and we almost forget the first precept ere the words have passed our lips. We think merely of sympathy with the sorrowing, and forget that sympathy with the rejoicing is urged with the same authority. A complete sympathy would equalize the joys as well as the sorrows of life; and yet our sympathy is apt to make us sad rather than joyful. Perhaps one reason why we slip over the first part of the command so carelessly is that we think that anybody can do that. To be glad with the glad seems so easy a thing, we half wonder to find it set down among the commandments.

The paradox of the whole matter is that it is easier to be sorrowful with the sorry than it is to be glad with the glad, easier to sympathize with sorrow that is not ours than with joy that is not ours.