"sympathy breathes
a prayer that no untimely frost may blight the blossom; beholding the
sparrow, sympathy fills a box with seeds for the birds whose fall 'the
Heavenly Father knoweth'; beholding some youth going forth to make his
fortune, sympathy prays that favorable winds may fill these sails and
waft the boy to fame and fortune. Do the happy youth and maiden stand
before the marriage altar, the Christian breathes a prayer that love's
flowers may never fall, and that 'those who are now young may grow old
together.'"

One of the pleasing stories told of Richard Harding Davis, the writer
and war correspondent, was of an incident when real sympathy transformed
him.

In May, 1898, when the Massachusetts troops were about to go from
Florida to Cuba, Mr. Davis entered the encampment as the men were
saddened by the first death in the company. At once his cheerful face
took on a subdued look. The next day proved to be "a broiling dry hot
day which set the blood sizzling inside of one," but Davis tramped for
two hours in the search of flowers. Then he learned that eight miles
away he might secure some. Though no one was abroad who did not have to
be, Mr. Davis started on a sixteen-mile horseback trip. Securing the
flowers, he brought them back and made a cross of laths on which he tied
them. Then came the search for colors to make the flag. Again he tramped
a weary distance, but at last he found red, white and blue ribbon. That
night he laid his tribute on the casket.

An American author who lived several generations before Davis was noted
for his sympathetic attitude to the suffering. Richard Henry Dana was
compelled when a young man to take a voyage around Cape Horn on a
sailing ship. That classic of the sea, "Two Years Before the Mast," was
one of the results of that experience. Another result was that when the
author became a lawyer in Boston, his knowledge of ships made him a
favorite advocate in nautical cases. His knowledge of the sufferings of
the men before the mast, who were so often abused, was responsible for
his taking their part in many an unprofitable case. He had learned by
bitter experience what the sailors under a brutal captain had to suffer,
and any mistreated seaman had in him a firm friend and a fearless
pleader.

The truest sympathy comes from those who, like Dana, know what suffering
means. An author in Scotland, who lived in Dana's generation, never
heard of the American friend of seamen, but he