Love is said to be the noblest passion of the soul, a beam caught from the divine Sun; for we are told "God is love." Now if we examine this attribute, we shall find sympathy its fairest and rarest ingredient. Love is a mighty river, which, winding onward and onward, is a source of wealth and pleasure wherever it flows. Sympathy is that river overleaping its boundaries, and silently finding its way into innumerable recesses, a thing of joy and beauty, where it is impossible for us to follow its course. Love stoops to scatter blessings on the objects of its affections, but sympathy actually becomes a sharer of the joys and sorrows of these whom it is endeavoring to reach. Ah, the magic of sympathy! Like some white-robed angel from above, she pushes her way through all barriers into our hearts, and we feel, though we cannot explain it, that our burden is lifted because it is shared.

To follow in this path is no light thing; our own spirits may perforce have to bleed in the cause, for it is a rule in life that what costs us little accomplishes little. The tree that furnishes the healing balm has to submit to have the knife thrust into itself; and may we not draw from this analogy the reason why we have to feel the sharpness of suffering? Who can guide another's footsteps like the one who has traveled the same road ? Whose tears fall with such healing balm on wounded hearts as those who have known the same sorrow? It is no light thing to find an open sesame to the hearts of our fellow-creatures; and he who does so must submit to the inevitable process, and find that loss and gain ever go hand in hand. Ah, but there is a reflex influence:as sympathy flows from our hearts, it returns to us with far more precious blessing than ever the stagnant waters of self-serving could yield.

"No man liveth to himself." To live so as neither to give nor receive impression on those around us is impossible ; and when the pages of our life are open before us, we shall be startled to find how wide-spread has been the influence of our actions. Let us throw away harsh judgments, casting a rich mantle of love and sympathy around us, for "the least flower with a brimming cup may stand and share its dew-drops with another near."

We are told, if two instruments are tuned in perfect harmony, and placed side by side, when one is struck, the vibration is carried to the other, and the sound repeated by it. Let us remember that we must have our hearts so in unison with those whom we are endeavoring to comfort that unconsciously to themselves they will respond. Are we feeling the touch of bereavement in our homes? Let us write the memories of our loved ones in deeds of light and love in the hearts of other sufferers. Are our hands palsied from long waiting in the furnace? Strive to clasp our feeble fingers in another's still more helpless; the touch will revive our own powers.

"Art thou stricken in life's battle?
Many wounded round thee moan;
Lavish on their wounds thy balsam,
And that balm shall heal thine own."

May the prayers, efforts, and tears exhaled like dew-drops from our hearts return in such living showers, that under their influence our souls, expanded and ennobled, even here may join hands with that saintly ministration from above, and by and by find our place in that service where love and sympathy reign supreme. Extract