Who wants to carry about a mass of personal prejudices when he can
replace them by the warm, healthy feeling of sympathetic friendship?
Who wants his nerves to be steadily irritated by various forms of
intolerance when, by understanding the other's point of view, he can
replace these by better forms of patience?

This lower relief is little compared with the higher power gained,
but it is the first step up, and the steps beyond go ever upward.
Human nature is worth knowing and worth loving, and it can never be
known or loved without open sympathy.

Why, we ourselves are human nature!

Many of us would be glad to give sympathy to others, especially in
little ways, but we do not know how to go to work about it; we seem
always to be doing the wrong thing, when our desire is to do the
right. This comes, of course, from the same inability to take the
other's point of view; and the ability is gained as we are quiet and
watch for it.

Practice, here as in everything else, is what helps. And the object
is well worth working for.



IX.

OTHERS.