Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/412

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SYMPATHY. 387

mon or unclean." Ere we arc aware, some polemic or militant feature, which, as an excrescence, had de formed our faith, exfoliates, and we find it possible to love those of differing creeds, and to respect every form in which the Supreme Being is worshipped with sincerity.

Travelling teaches the value of sympathy. The smile of welcome, the caress of affection, are never prized according to their worth, until we feel the need of them in a foreign land. Suffering, and the depend ence of sickness, among those who, without any tie of natural or national affinity, serve you but for money, are lessons never to be forgotten. If from the coldly rendered service, meted out by the expectation of re ward, you were transferred to the care of those who, though born under a foreign sky, had been taught by the spirit of a Christian s faith to " be pitiful, be cour teous," then in those periods of convalescence, when the events of a whole life sweep in vision through the soul, did you not resolve, if the Merciful Healer restored you to your own home, to obey more faithfully his precepts, to u use hospitality without grudging," and to "love the stranger," since you had thus learned to know the heart and the solace of a stranger?

Travelling should incite to a warmer and more en during patriotism. The depth of the " amor patrias " is never fully disclosed, till we see the misty line of our native hills recede, or, after long absence, thrill with ecstasy, as they again gleam upon the horizon, like the wings of a guardian angel. Then, when every remem-

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