Of the two forms of sympathy which are here enjoined, the former is the harder.  To ‘rejoice with them that do rejoice’ makes a greater demand on unselfish love than to ‘weep with them that weep.’  Those who are glad feel less need of sympathy than do the sorrowful, and envy is apt to creep in and mar the completeness of sympathetic joy.  But even the latter of the two injunctions is not altogether easy.  The cynic has said that there is ’something not wholly displeasing in the misfortunes of our best friends’; and, though that is an utterly worldly and unchristian remark, it must be confessed not to be altogether wanting in truth.

But for obedience to both of these injunctions, a heart at leisure from itself is needed to sympathise; and not less needed is a sedulous cultivation of the power of sympathy.  No doubt temperament has much to do with the degree of our obedience; but this whole context goes on the assumption that the grace of God working on temperament strengthens natural endowments by turning them into ‘gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.’  Though we live in that awful individuality of ours, and are each, as it were, is landed in ourselves ‘with echoing straits between us thrown,’ it is possible for us, as the result of close communion with Jesus Christ, to bridge the chasms, and to enter into the joy of a brother’s joy.  He who groaned in Himself as He drew near to the grave of Lazarus, and was moved to weep with the weeping sisters, will help us, in the measure in which we dwell in Him and He in us, that we too may look ’not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.’

On the whole, love to Jesus is the basis of love to man, and love to man is the practical worship of Christianity.  As in all things, so in the exhortations which we have now been considering, Jesus is our pattern and power.  He Himself communicates with our necessities, and opens His heart to give us hospitable welcome there.  He Himself has shown us how to meet and overcome hatred with love, and hurt with blessing.  He shares our griefs, and by sharing lessens them.  He shares our joys, and by sharing hallows them.  The summing up of all these specific injunctions is, ’Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.’

STILL ANOTHER TRIPLET

   ’Be of the same mind one toward another.  Set not your
   mind on high things, but condescend to things that are
   lowly.  Be not wise in your own conceits.’—­Romans xii. 16 (R.V.).

We have here again the same triple arrangement which has prevailed through a considerable portion of the context.  These three exhortations are linked together by a verbal resemblance which can scarcely be preserved in translation.  In the two former the same verb is employed:  and in the third the word for ‘wise’ is cognate with the verb found in the other two clauses.  If we are to seek for any closer connection of thought we may find it first in this—­that all the three clauses deal with mental attitudes, whilst the preceding ones dealt with the expression of such; and second in this—­that the first of the three is a general precept, and the second and third are warnings against faults which are most likely to interfere with it.