IT is a great thing to enter in spirit into the trials and circumstances of others. It is easy to look on coldly while others suffer, and to criticize and blame; but he who, like Ezekiel, puts himself in their place and can say, “I sat where they now sit,” will find his heart going out to every sufferer in pity and compassion, and will seek to be a blessing and a help to those who are in any distress it was the Spirit of Christ manifested in the prophet which led him thus to enter into the sorrows of his people, and that same Spirit, when He controls our lives, will fill us with loving sympathy for the needy and despairing, who await a kind word or kind deed to cheer them on their way.
“People we’ve laughed and had fun with
Are sometimes forgot down the years.
There’s something so fleeting to pleasure,
It never endears as do tears;
A casual encounter some summer,
Then we leave them and pleasantly say,
‘It was awfully nice knowing you, really,’
And each of us goes his own way.
But people who’ve suffered together
Never drift very widely apart;
Those who have shared your deep anguish
Forever abide in your heart;
For somehow there’s something to sorrow
That draws us all ever so near,
The laughter is shortly forgotten,
But we always remember the tear!”