hour?" And the picture is so comforting, because it tells
us that that craving for sympathy, which all of us feel at times, is a
true human instinct, that there is nothing wrong in it, that one of the
things that we can do for one another is to be like comrades on a night
march, when one or another is stricken down, to stand over him, and be
ready, at any moment, with the cup of sympathy to give him. And when
Jesus goes to His own disciples to ask them for sympathy, it is a
lesson that the need for sympathy is a true need, and the desire for it
a true instinct of the human heart.

But, then, remember, the sympathy He looks for is the sympathy which He
always gave, something as tender and gentle as the touch of a good
surgeon's hand upon a wounded limb, but also something as strong, and
as firm, and as helpful. Why sympathy gets discredited, why people
speak of "a morbid craving for sympathy," is because so much sympathy
is sympathy of the wrong sort. There is some sympathy which enervates
instead of strengthening. It thinks of itself, it thinks of the
happiness of having to itself the object of its sympathy, it seeks
merely to soothe. But the true sympathy goes far beyond that; the true
sympathy never thinks of itself at all. It is simply concentrated upon
one thought--how can I, in this trial-time, when my brother or my
sister is stricken down by my side, how can I nerve and strengthen him
or her to rise to the glorious vocation to which God has called him or
called her, to strengthen them to be what God would have them be? And
that was the sympathy, was it not, that Christ gave perpetually. It
was within Him like a spring working by law, a spring which had all the
regularity, as well as the spontaneity, of some beautiful spring among
the hills, and it was at the service of every sufferer that came to
Him; but He never hurt people when He tried to comfort them, because He
gave them the nerving and strengthening sympathy of love. And then,
again, notice how constant it was with Him. He was never too tired to
be kind. He might be disappointed forty-nine times, but the fiftieth
time found Him perfectly ready still. Wake Him up from His sleep, and
He is ready to do an act of mercy. Place Him, tired, by the well, and
He is ready there to try and help a sinful soul. Let Him have a little
quiet time far away but the multitude find Him out, and then sympathy
for them is ready to spring to His lips, for "He had co