The true brotherhood of man is that which takes upon itself all the weaknesses, all the burdens, all the woes, all the sins of the world of men and women. This is what Christ did! Ah, that we might perceive and realize it! This is what makes Walt Whitman so great a poet,--that he tries to teach us this lesson. This is what gave to Ernest Crosby his power, gave to Golden Rule Jones his influence. They felt the brotherhood, truly, really, deeply, even though imperfectly. Christ felt it perfectly. Can we not try to feel it? Whenever we behold sin in others it behooves us to remember that Paul said, "_All_ have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and that whenever we condemn sin in another we condemn some sin in ourselves. We are all sinners in some way or another. There are those who feel the oneness of human relationship so keenly that they have declared that when another did a wrong they felt it as if it were their own personal act. While I have not yet come to so close a recognition of my brotherhood to all men and women as that, I can deeply sympathize with the feeling. We all know how a brother feels if one of his own family--sister or brother--"goes wrong." He is grieved and disgraced. A burden is placed upon him. When we fully recognize the brotherhood we owe to all men and women I doubt not we shall then feel this personal sorrow and disgrace, which will lead us to seek our brother's speedy reclamation, with helpful sympathy and loving encouragement.
Only those touched with the essential spirit of the love that belongs to the Divine, or those who have sinned much, can know the great secret of human tenderness and long suffering towards the wrong doer that alone, _at times_, can help him. Oh for more of this human tenderness and sympathy, this long suffering and patience, this active principle of Divine Love that burns through all crusts and coatings of evil into the most secret corners of the heart where the good is enshrined, though forgotten.
I have just been talking with a prominent editor about a man in his office, competent, thorough, reliable, manly, a systematic worker and able to get the best results out of those in his department, yet who, once in a while, goes off on a terrible debauch. He will drink up all the money at hand, then draw out whatever he has saved in the bank (sometimes nearly a thousand dollars), engage an automobile, surround himself with dissolute companions, squander his money on them, then borrow from his friends, who, knowing that when sober he will pay back every cent, cruelly lend it to him, and thus "go the pace" until either money gives out, or physical endurance can no longer stand the strain. Then his true friends come and pick him up out of the gutter, or care for him in a hospital until he recovers.