God's willingness to sympathize with...
Illustration
God's willingness to sympathize with us in our weakness can teach us to do so on behalf of others. But translating sympathy into appropriate acceptable behavior on behalf of another without destroying his/her dignity is no easy task. Jean-Baptiste Corot, a French impressionist painter, was a colleague of the artist Honore Daumier. The latter was very poor in his old age. On his sixty-fifth birthday, nearly blind, he was threatened with eviction from his little cottage because he could not pay the rent. He then received a letter from Corot, which read: "I have a little house which I could not, for the life of me, think what to do with. Suddenly I thought to give it to you, and liking the idea I have had your ownership legally confirmed. I had no idea of doing you a good turn. The whole scheme was carried out to annoy the landlord. Ever yours, Corot." In his reply, Daumier wrote, "You are the only man from whom I could accept such a gift and not feel humiliated."
-- Sherer
-- Sherer
