then the law of sympathy is the standard of faithfulness to the loved ones of home, and its violation is an abuse of the affections and faith of the heart. We shall now consider the natural and spiritual sympathy of home.
What are the natural elements of home-sympathy? The original meaning of sympathy is "harmony of the affections." As such it is an instinctive element of human nature. "Sympathy," says Adams in his Elements of Christian Science, "is a natural harmony by which, upon matters especially that concern the affections, one human being shall, under certain conditions, feel, feel in despite of all concealment of language, the real state of the other." It is, in a word, that law of our nature which makes the feeling of one become affected in the same way as are the feelings of another, so that, in obedience to this law, "we rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep." In order to this the motive need not be the same in those in whom the feeling is the same; for that feeling engenders a feeling of its own kind in the other, independent of similar motive. Home-sympathy is that primary power of the heart by which all the affections of one member are extended to all the other members. It awakens in each for all the others, those delicate sensibilities which impel to the most self-denying and benevolent acts. The parent who sympathizes with the child, will extend to it all the aids within a parent’s ability.
Its nature is to yield more of itself to weeping than to rejoicing, to misery than to joy. The parent will exert more power and do more for the wretched child than for those of his children who are not in the same condition. He will leave the latter in their security, and seek the one lost sheep of his little flock. Thus it exerts a sheltering influence against the dangers and miseries of human life. It is the law of home-preservation, written upon the heart, obeyed by the affections, and impelling each member to yield a voluntary devotion to the welfare of all the others. It is this which makes it one of the most lovely attributes of home. It is one of the golden chains that link its members together in close unity, making one heart of the many that are thus fused together, and blending into beautiful unison their specific feelings, and hopes and interests.
It is, therefore, the law of oneness in the family, weaving together, like warp and woof, the existence of the members, and locking each heart into one great home-heart, "like the keys of an organ vast," so that if one heart be out of tune, the home-heart feels the painful jar, and gives forth discordant sounds. By it we are not only bound to our kindred, but to our friends, our nation, our race. It impels us to all our acts of benevolence even to an enemy. Earth would be a dreary scene, and society would be a curse, if it did not reign in human nature.
Sympathy was a rich and interesting theme with the ancients. It entered into all their philosophy and religion, and gave rise to numerous fables. They believed that sympathy was a miraculous principle, and that it reigned in irrational and inanimate things. Thus they thought that "two harps being tuned alike, and one being played, the chords of the other would follow the tune with a faint, sympathetic music." It was also believed that precious stones sympathized with certain persons, that the stars sympathized with men, that the efficacy of ointment depended upon sympathy, that "wounds could be healed at a distance by an ointment whose force depended upon sympathy, the ointment being smeared upon the weapon, not upon the wound."
Upon this belief many erroneous, superstitious and dangerous systems of philosophy and religion were established. The natural philosophy of Baptista Porta, or Albertus Magnus, was founded upon the principle of sympathy. Plato applied this principle to marriage, and maintained that "marriage was the union of two souls that once, in their preëxistent state, were one, and that sympathy urges them to union again, and sends them unconsciously seeking it over the world." In the middle ages it was maintained that two friends could be so moved with mutual sympathy as to have, under certain conditions, a true and perfect knowledge of one another’s state, even when at a great distance apart. To the revival of this erroneous view of the law of sympathy may be ascribed the theories of Mesmerism and spiritual rappings at the present day.
Home-sympathy, viewed as a feeling and a faculty, is twofold in its nature, viz., passive and active. As passive, it is the mere sense of harmony of feeling among all the members, producing the idea and feeling of the oneness of home. It makes a unity of affection, so that the temper, hopes and interests of each member have a living echo and response in all the others. It gives to home its unitive heart, preserves its vital coherence, fuses all the hearts together, makes each a thread in the web of home-being, where each finds its true measure, is inspired with the home-feeling when all is right, and oppressed with home-sickness when separated from it.
But home-sympathy is also active. As such it is "the active power that one person has naturally of entering into the feelings of another, and being himself affected as that other is." Each member of home has the power in his feelings of making the feelings of all the other members his own, though he may not have the causes of the feelings of the one with whom he sympathizes. Thus one friend may feel the grief of another, actually and really, though he may not suffer the loss of that friend. He can make the emotion which that loss caused, his own. We may weep with the mother who pours her floods of anguish upon the grave of her child, though we may not have sustained the same loss. The husband weeps with his wife, though he may not be able to feel the pangs which penetrate her heart. The child can enter into the feelings of the parent, and be affected to tears or to joy by them.
And thus the home-sympathy demands that all the emotions of home, whether joyful or painful, must affect all,—must vibrate from heart to heart. It involves the power of home-transference, by which, each member conveys to his own affections, all within home. It is thus the law of adaptation and assimilation, for the home-affections. In obedience to this law the hearts and interests of the members are bound up in beautiful harmony. The necessities of one are supplied by all. It is this which makes the members faithful to each other, and prompts them to deeds of disinterested love.
It is, therefore, only when the home-sympathy, as a feeling and a faculty, is carried out and acted upon according to its instinctive impulses, that it becomes an effective agent of good. This, however, is not always done. Often it is neutralized by not being permitted to express itself according to the laws of its own operation. Many members have acute feelings and great powers of sympathy, but it exists in them only as feeling, only as a stimulus, a sentiment, and is, therefore, nothing but home-sentimentalism,—a disease of home-sympathy. Thus, for instance, parents may weep over the wickedness of their children, and the pious wife may lament the impenitence of her husband; but if they go no further, their sympathy is really false, because it does not share in and feel the state of others, nor seek to alleviate their impending miseries. The home-sympathy is not simply the look of the priest and Levite upon the half-dead traveler, but also the help of the good Samaritan. Its language is not only, "Be ye clothed and fed," but also, "I will clothe and feed thee." The mere indulgence in the feeling of sympathy is but to harden the heart in the end. Such were the sympathies of Rosseau,—mere heart-stimuli, without legitimate deeds and objective force, existing only as a love-sick sentiment. And this was both the theme of his eloquence and the cause of his misery. Such, too, were the sympathies of Robespierre,—a mere ebullition of disembodied sentiment, borne up like a floating bubble upon muddy waters, and exploding upon the slightest depression.