10. Sympathy Created By Kindred Experience

Sympathy Created By Kindred Experience "I am as ye are"—Galatians 4:12.

"Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity,"—Hebrews 5:2. The present week (the close of April, 1878), witnesses an extensive strike among the Lancashire operatives, who strongly resist a reduction of wages, which the masters declare to be absolutely necessary. There appears to be a hope that the dispute may be speedily ended, and the "Daily Telegraph" mentions one element of the question which is exceedingly encouraging. It says:—" There is one characteristic which distinguishes the present from all previous strikes in the same trade. Lancashire artizans are in some cases now able to look at the difficulty from exactly the same point of view as the masters, being, in fact, masters themselves. In the many co-operative spinning concerns, the shareholders are nearly all artizans and small tradesmen. The managers are all practical men, and every economy or improvement is carefully utilized. Hence, if the business can be made to pay at all, these mills should leave a profit. It happened, however, that all last year the results of the working of joint-stock companies became more and more unfavourable; and the first quarter of the present year was worse still. The decline has been gradual, but constant. Of nearly thirty such under-, takings within a given radius, fully half were found to return a loss at the beginning of this month, and none of the remainder showed what could fairly be called a working profit. It is not, therefore, a mere accident that the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners and Weavers of Lancashire and the adjoining counties has, after a long discussion, recommended the men to accept the ten per cent reduction for the present. Being to a certain extent employers and capitalists themselves, they understand the crisis with a clearness enlightened by self-interest. This advice cannot fail to have a great effect on many wavering operatives." No one understands another so as to enter into his case unless he has been himself in a like position. Even our Lord could not become perfect as the Captain of our salvation without enduring hardness as all his followers must do. He must needs be found in fashion as a man, and be tempted in all points like as we are ere he could be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. To us it must ever be a source of abounding joy that our Lord Jesus wears our nature and intensely sympathizes in our experience. This is one reason why the Lord's ministers have such a fight of outward afflictions and inward temptations. How else could they enter into the experience of the tried people of God? Luther placed affliction among the three essential things for a good minister; but we would enlarge the area of expression, and say that experience of all kinds must be the preacher's school. He must know how to be full and to be empty, how to abound and how to suffer loss. Like the psalmist David, the preacher must be a man of ups and downs, rising till he reaches in excelsis, and sinking till his note is de profundis. All their varied moods are meant to qualify men of God to sympathize with the afflicted. "For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause." Our own personal obligation to sympathize with others and have patience with them arises out of our being in the same nature and partakers in the like perils. We are to weep with those that weep, and to rejoice with those that do rejoice, because we are followers of the same Saviour, and carry the same cross. It is not always true that "a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," but it ought to be so. The apostle says, "Remember them that are in bonds, as being bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body," and again he writes," Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Yet this argument is often slighted till it is brought home to us in actual life. The workman cannot feel for the employer till he becomes a master himself, and the child does not appreciate a father's love till he is himself a parent. A master would probably be all the more considerate for his men if he took a turn at their labour, and shared their domestic trials; and hearers would treat their ministers differently if they were themselves occasionally called upon to preach. This is no doubt the reason why some Christians have to pass through so chequered a career—they are to learn how to see out of other men's eyes, and judge matters from other men's points of view. The lesson is worth learning, cost what it may. Should the operatives prove to have learned nothing by their own experience, the fact will be in opposition to the old proverb, experientia docet (experience teaches), and it will not be the only time in which we have seen that to learn by experience a man must be wise to begin with, and that is not the case with all.