Arousing feelings of sympathy or gratitude (8)
I believe the answer is:
touching
'arousing feelings of sympathy or gratitude' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
This is all the clue.
(Other definitions for touching that I've seen before include "meeting ..." , "Contiguous" , "feeling" , "Arousing feelings of sympathy or gratitude" , "Moving; in contact" .)