Living the Radiant Life: A Personal NarrativeJames, George Wharton
Religion
Living the Radiant Life: A Personal Narrative
James, George Wharton
Conduct of life
The true brotherhood of man is that which takes upon itself all the
weaknesses, all the burdens, all the woes, all the sins of the world of
men and women. This is what Christ did! Ah, that we might perceive and
realize it! This is what makes Walt Whitman so great a poet,--that he
tries to teach us this lesson. This is what gave to Ernest Crosby his
power, gave to Golden Rule Jones his influence. They felt the
brotherhood, truly, really, deeply, even though imperfectly. Christ felt
it perfectly. Can we not try to feel it? Whenever we behold sin in
others it behooves us to remember that Paul said, "_All_ have sinned and
come short of the glory of God," and that whenever we condemn sin in
another we condemn some sin in ourselves. We are all sinners in some way
or another. There are those who feel the oneness of human relationship
so keenly that they have declared that when another did a wrong they
felt it as if it were their own personal act. While I have not yet come
to so close a recognition of my brotherhood to all men and women as
that, I can deeply sympathize with the feeling. We all know how a
brother feels if one of his own family--sister or brother--"goes wrong."
He is grieved and disgraced. A burden is placed upon him. When we fully
recognize the brotherhood we owe to all men and women I doubt not we
shall then feel this personal sorrow and disgrace, which will lead us to
seek our brother's speedy reclamation, with helpful sympathy and loving
encouragement.
Only those touched with the essential spirit of the love that belongs to
the Divine, or those who have sinned much, can know the great secret of
human tenderness and long suffering towards the wrong doer that alone,
_at times_, can help him. Oh for more of this human tenderness and
sympathy, this long suffering and patience, this active principle of
Divine Love that burns through all crusts and coatings of evil into the
most secret corners of the heart where the good is enshrined, though
forgotten.
I have just been talking with a prominent editor about a man in his
office, competent, thorough, reliable, manly, a systematic worker and
able to get the best results out of those in his department, yet who,
once in a while, goes off on a terrible debauch. He will drink up all
the money at hand, then draw out whatever he has saved in the bank
(sometimes nearly a thousand dollars), engage an automobile, surround
himself with dissolute companions, squander his money on them, then
borrow from his friends, who, knowing that when sober he will pay back
every cent, cruelly lend it to him, and thus "go the pace" until either
money gives out, or physical endurance can no longer stand the strain.
Then his true friends come and pick him up out of the gutter, or care
for him in a hospital until he recovers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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