superintendent with all her heart, and from that day she began to
learn the difference between true and false sympathy. It took her
some time, however, to get thoroughly established in the habit of
healthy sympathy. The tendency to unwholesome sympathy was part of
her natural inheritance, along with many other evil tendencies which
frequently have to be overcome before a person with a very sensitive
nervous system can find his own true strength. But as she watched
the useless suffering which resulted in all cases in which people
allowed themselves to be weakened by the pain of others, she learned
to understand more and more intelligently the practice of wholesome
sympathy, and worked until it had become her second nature.
Especially did she do this after having proved many times, by
practical experience, the strength which comes through the power of
wholesome sympathy to those in pain.

Unwholesome sympathy incapacitates one for serving others, whether
the need be physical, mental, or moral. Wholesome sympathy not only
gives us power to serve, but clears our understanding; and, because
of our growing ability to appreciate rightly the point of view of
other people, our service can be more and more intelligent.

In contrast to this unwholesome sympathy, which is the cause of more
trouble in the world than people generally suppose, is the
unwholesome lack of sympathy, or hardening process, which is
deliberately cultivated by many people, and which another story will
serve to illustrate.

A poor negro was once brought to the hospital very ill; he had
suffered so keenly in the process of getting there that the
resulting weakness, together with the intense fright at the idea of