True Compassion GLADYS C. FULTON          How to be truly compassionate is born in human consciousness with the spiritual understanding of what man really is, his relation to God, and to his fellow man. Compassion finds nothing at which to be impatient or irritated, because spiritual understanding reveals the fact that anything claiming to produce such conditions of thought does not constitute the real man, who is the manifestation of Love. In the first chapter of Genesis, twenty-seventh verse, we read, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." It is this truth realized, through the light of Christian Science, that enables us to have true compassion.          In studying the character of Jesus of Nazareth no quality is found more prominent than the compassion with which he dealt with mankind at all times and under all circumstances. To the doubting and scornful, as well as to the Jews who accepted his teaching, he bestowed his "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." To all laboring with the belief in a selfhood apart from God, subject to sin, sickness, and death, and bound by the chains of so-called material law, he spoke the healing word. It mattered not whether it was the nobleman from Capernaum seeking help for his son, or the Magdalen, who came for aid; his true sense of the Christ-image enabled him to be compassionate to all.          Knowing the need of the multitudes for that which it was his mission to make known, namely abundant life, he climbed the steep and sometimes thorny pathway up the mountain of revelation to its summit, and from this exalted peak of unobstructed spiritual vision he beheld the glory of God, the unity of God and man. Descending from this mount of inspiration with its wonderful realization, he taught the truth by simple parables and healed the sick and sinful. It was compassion that brought him down to the place where he could be understood by the needy ones.          As we follow him in his healing ministry his compassion for all mankind stands out in bold relief. It was this quality that enabled him to say to the adulterous woman, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Again, it was with compassion for her ignorance of true existence and of man's indestructibility as the spiritual idea of God that he restored her son to the widow of Nain. "I have meat to eat that ye know not of," he told his disciples when they would get him food; and yet, seeing the need of those still dwelling in ignorance of the wonderful fact that man is sustained by God, who is the Life of all, he compassionately supplied food to the multitude who had continued with him three days. Jesus' compassion for those in all states and stages of thought development, enabled him even on the cross to forgive those who mocked him. What wonderful opportunities for doing good to the sin-sick and world-weary are at hand for those Christian Scientists who acquire this characteristic of the Master, and strive to follow him who is in all things the Way-shower.          Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, urges this quality, when, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 367) she tells us, "The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love." Having, therefore, heard the call of the Christ in Christian Science, let us strive more and more earnestly for the spiritual understanding that makes true compassion possible.   "True Compassion" by Gladys C. Fulton Christian Science Sentinel, February 25, 1922

 

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