If The root of all that was peculiar in Mr. Kobertson's character and correspondence lay in the intense sensitiveness which pervaded his whole nature. His senses, his passions, his imagination, his conscience, his spirit, were so delicately wrought, that they thrilled and vibrated to the slightest touch. His great power of sympathy arose out of this sensitiveness. My mis- fortune or happiness (he says) is power of sympathy. I can feel with the Brahmin, the Pantheist, the Stoic, the Platonist, the Transcendentalist, perhaps the Epicurean. At least, I feel the side of Utilitarianism which seems like truth, though I have more antipathy to it than anything else. I can suffer with the Tractarian, tenderly shrinking from the gulf blackening before him, as a frightened child runs back to its mother from the dark, afraid to be alone in the fearful loneliness ; and I can also agonize with the infidels, recoiling from the cowardice and false rest of superstition. Many men can feel each of' these separately, and they are happy. They go on straight forward, like a one-eyed horse, seeing all clear on one side. But I feel them all at once, and so far I am allseitig, tin ganzer Mann. But I am not such in this sense, that I can harmonize them all; I can only feel them. For this greatness there must be an all-feeling heart, together with an all-seeing eye.1
II.
The Uses of Adaptability.
The attitude of St. Paul in the first age is the precedent for Christian workers in all ages. We too, like the Apostle, must
1 Lift and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 154.
i CORINTHIANS ix. 22 243
in a certain sense strive to be all things to all men. Effectual Christian service is a difficult and delicate art. No amount of zeal will save us from blundering and failure, unless along with our zeal we possess some of the insight which comes from sym- pathy with the people we try to help. There are few gifts more necessary, and less common, among Christian workers than this gift of imaginative sympathy, which can enter by intuition into other men's feelings and appreciate their condition and understand instinctively how to deal with their case. Such a gift is too precious to be common. It depends partly on moral endowment and inheritance. But a sensitive nature may be coarsened and blunted by selfishness, as it may be cultivated by faithful obedience. Thoughtful love grows wise by constant watching, and strong by patient self-denial. Only the heart at leisure from itself has skill to sympathize. How few of us attain to the height of George Fox's wonderful petition : " I have prayed to be baptized into a sense of all conditions, that I might be able to know the needs and feel the sorrows of all."
K There are seven octaves on an ordinary piano. And most of us can hear every musical note which a piano sounds. But there are both higher and lower octaves which certain instru- ments reach, and which many human ears cannot take in. Some can hear the higher notes, but not the lower, and with others it is the reverse. We all differ in the same way with regard to the things which impress us, catch hold of our imagina- tion, appeal to the best and worst in us, and bring out our evil and our good. There are sermons preached in every sanctuary which move some to tears, stir them to impassioned devotion, and lift them up to the very gates of heaven. Yet when those very sermons have been preached others will declare that the preacher has been quite out of form, and that his words were wearying and unprofitable. And it by no means follows that they are not good and earnest Christian men. It only means that the preacher has been touching chords which are not found in them.1
1. Behind all efficient personal Christian service, there must lie this principle of adaptation. St. Paul became Jew, Greek, Roman, and accursed in order to save men. He put himself into the place of the one he sought to help, and from that new stand-
1 J. G. Greenhough, The Mind of Christ in St. Paul, 157.
244 ADAPTABILITY
point learned the secret path of access to his soul. No one can understand another who is unable to leave himself behind and look upon the world as the other person does ; and this requires the sympathetic nature. It is the method of the loving heart. To him who really loves, the inner chambers of the other life are opened that he may dwell therein a welcome guest. The magic of a fellow-feeling has not been equalled as a means where- by the full life of a Christian is admitted to the starving life of him who knows only the flesh.
If Sanctified ingenuity is a gift to be prized highly, both for its value and for its rarity.1
If Mrs. Stelling was not a loving, tender-hearted woman : she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a pre-occupied air when she inquired after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent a great social power, but it is not the power of love.2
Tf You mistook me in thinking I did not sympathize. A few years ago, when I felt less, you would have been more satisfied, when the eyes showed moisture, the voice emotion, and when I had a gentler manner and a more ready show of responding to what was expected. Now, a certain amount of iron has gone into my blood ; and a sardonic sentence often conceals the fact that I wince to the very quick from something that has gone home.