All do not know it, but it is a fact that the grandest quality that man can exercise, and the one which brings the largest amount of blessing itself, is the exercise of the God-like quality of mercy, compassion, benevolence. The Lord lays great stress upon this quality of mercy, declaring that whatever else may be our attainments of knowledge or of grace, if we have not this one we can never be acceptable to Him—if we do not have mercy upon others neither will our Heavenly Father have mercy upon us. And to insure that we do not consider this mercy to be merely an outward form, an expression of forgiveness and benevolence, our Lord expounds the matter, saying, "If ye do not from the heart forgive one another, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you." … Only the merciful shall obtain mercy; and if we have not mercy at the hands of the Lord, all is lost; for by nature we were children of wrath, even as others, and under just condemnation.
Mercy is possible of exercise amid conditions of evil only; for it is compassion relieving the weak and unfortunate. Weaknesses and misfortunes are along physical, mental, moral and religious lines; and all these lines of weakness and misfortune call upon us to exercise mercy. It is a matter of growth in its refinement of quality. At first, physical weakness and misfortune call forth its exercise; a little later it learns to listen to the cries of mental weakness and misfortune; still later it learns to heed the call of moral weakness and misfortune; and last of all it becomes solicitous of religious weakness and misfortune. In every case it is thrice blessed: it blesses him that gives, him that takes, and him that sees. Usually in his need the merciful man receives mercy from his fellows; but from God he receives mercy in his need always; and usually the Lord gives His mercy along the same lines as the merciful one has manifested it to others.
REPRINTS
Psa. 18:25; 41:1; Prov. 3:3; 11:17; 14:21, 22, 31; 21:21; Mark 11:25, 26; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:12, 13; 2 Tim. 1:16; Heb. 6:10, 11; Jas. 2:13; Matt. 18:35; Mic. 6:8; Luke 6:36; Rom. 12:8.
