It
is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add unto any
afflicted parties misery, or endeavour to multiply in
any man a passion whose single nature is already above
his patience. This was the greatest affliction of Job,
and those oblique expostulations of his friends a deeper
injury than the down-right blows of the devil. It is
not the tears of our own eyes only, but of our friends
also, that do exhaust the current of our sorrows; which,
falling into many streams, runs more peaceably, and is
contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within
the power of charity, to translate a passion out of one
breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out
of itself; for an affliction, like a dimension, may be so
divided as, if not indivisible, at least to become in-
sensible. Now with my friend I desire not to share or
participate, but to engross, his sorrows; that, by mak-
ing them mine own, I may more easily discuss them:
for in mine own reason, and within myself, I can com-
mand that which I cannot entreat without myself, and
within the circle of another.
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