Hush! the sevenfold Heavens to the voice of the Spirit
Echo, ‘He that o’ercometh, shall all things inherit.’”
GAVIN.
How sadly and how strangely we misjudge our brother! We walk daily by his side, and receive the cold exterior as a type of the inner life, forgetting that hardness, sternness, and repelling reserve, may be only the crust of the crater, hiding the lava beneath. How comes it that, when, in our own case, we are all so well aware that,
“Not ev’n the tenderest heart, and next, our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh;”
yet, we will not believe in the secret sufferings of others? Instead of seeking to win the unstrung instrument back to harmony, by the tender touch of loving sympathy, we mete out precisely the measure meted to us; oppose coldness to coldness, hardness to hardness, reserve to reserve, and thus a wall is built up between us, and all hope of influence is gone. We need more trust in, and more charity for, each other. Woe to the sick soul, suffering and sorrowful, its sickness only shown by the petulant word, the rude retort, the outward expression of inward wretchedness,—woe to such a soul, I say, were it left only to man’s tender mercies. Most mercifully it is not. Infinite Love breathes balm upon it. Infinite Compassion soothes it. When shall we even begin to imitate the one, or strive to attain to the other?
These thoughts were called up by a keen sense of the injustice of my own judgment, in a special case, only discovered this very day.