THE WAR AGAINST GLOOM
Not for all sunshine, dear Lord, do we pray--
We know such a prayer would be vain;
But that strength may be ours to keep right on our way,
Never minding the rain!
It is a great thing to be young, when every vein throbs with energy and
life, when the rhythm of life beats its measures into our hearts and
calls upon us to keep step with Joy and Gladness, as we march
confidently down the white road which leads to the Land of our Desire.
God made every young thing to be happy. He put joy and harmony into
every little creature's heart. Who ever saw a kitten with a grouch?
Or a little puppy who was a pessimist? But you have seen sad children
a-plenty, and we are not blaming the Almighty for that either. God's
plans have been all right, but they have been badly interfered with by
human beings.
When a young colt gallops around the corral, kicking and capering and
making a good bit of a nuisance of himself, the old horses watch him
sympathetically, and very tolerantly. They never say; "It is well for
you that you can be so happy--you'll have your troubles soon enough.
Childhood is your happiest time--you do well to enjoy it, for there's
plenty of trouble ahead of you!"
Horses never talk this way. This is a distinctively human way of
depressing the young. People do it from a morbid sense of duty. They
feel that mirth and laughter are foreign to our nature, and should be
curbed as something almost wicked.
"It's a fine day, today!" we admit grudgingly, "but, look out! We'll
pay up for it!"
"I have been very well all winter, but I must not boast. Touch wood!"
The inference here is that when we are healthy or happy or enjoying a
fine day, we are in an abnormal condition. We are getting away with a
bit of happiness that is not intended for us. God is not noticing, and
we had better go slow and keep dark about it, or He will waken up with
a start, and send us back to our aches and pains and our dull leaden
skies! Thus have we sought to sow the seeds of despondency and
unbelief in the world around us.
In the South African War, there was a man who sowed the seeds of
despondency among the British soldiers; he simply talked defeat and
disaster, and so greatly did he damage the morale of the troops that an
investigation had to be made, and as a result the man was sent to jail
for a year. People have been a long time learning that thoughts are
things to heal, upbuild, strengthen; or to wound, impair, or blight.
After all we cannot do very much for many people, no matter how hard we
try, but we can contribute to their usefulness and happiness by holding
for them a kind thought if we will.
There are people who depress you so utterly that if you had to remain
under their influence they would rob you of all your ambition and
initiative, while others inspire you to do better, to achieve, to
launch out. Life is made up of currents of thought as real as are the
currents of air, and if we could but see them, there are currents of
thought we would avoid as we would smallpox germs.
Sadness is not our normal mental condition, nor is weakness our normal
physical condition. God intended us to laugh and play and work, come
to our beds at night weary and ready to sleep--and wake refreshed.
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!" No truer words were ever
spoken, and yet men try to define themselves by houses and lands and
manners and social position, but all to no avail. The old rule holds.
It is your thought which determines what manner of man you are. The
respectable man who keeps within the law and does no outward harm, but
who thinks sordidly, meanly, or impurely, is the man of all others who
is farthest from the kingdom of God, because he does not feel his need,
nor can anyone help him. Thoughts are harder to change than ways.
"Let the wicked man forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts," declared Isaiah long ago, and there is no doubt the
unrighteous man has the hardest and biggest proposition put up to him.
When the power of thought is understood, there will be a change in our
newspapers. Now the tendency is to ignore the good in life and
underline the evil in red ink. If a man commits a theft, it will make
a newspaper story, bought and paid for at regular rates. If it is a
very big steal, you may wire it in and get telegraphic rates. If the
thief shoots a man, too, send along his picture and you may make the
story two columns. If he shoots two or three people, you may give him
the whole front page, and somebody will write a book about him. It
will sell, too. How much more wholesome would our newspapers be, if
they published the good deeds of men and women rather than their
misdoings. Why should not as much space be given to the man who saves
a life, as is given to the man who takes a life? Why not let us hear
more of the boy who went right, rather than of the one who went wrong?
I remember once reading an obscure little paragraph about a man who
every year a few days before Christmas sent twenty-five dollars to the
Postal Department at Ottawa, to pay the deficit on Christmas parcels
which were held up for insufficient postage. Such a thoughtful act of
Christian charity should have been given a place on the front page, for
in the words of Jennie Allen: "Life ain't any too full of nice little
surprises like that." Why should people enjoy the contemplation of
evil rather than good? Is it because it makes their own little
contribution of respectability seem larger by comparison?
We have missed a great deal of the joy of life by taking ourselves too
seriously. We exaggerate our own importance, and so if the honor or
distinction or the vote of thanks does not come our way, we are hurt!
Then, too, we live in an atmosphere of dread and fear--we fear poverty
and hard work--we fear the newspapers and the neighbors, and fear is
hell!
When you begin to feel all fussed up, worried, and cross, frayed at the
edges, and down at the heel--go out and look up at the stars. They are
so serene, detached, and uncaring! Calmly shining down upon us they
rebuke the fussiness of our little souls, and tell us to cheer up, for
our little affairs do not much matter anyway.
The earthly hope men set their hearts upon
Turns ashes, or it prospers--and anon
Like snow upon the desert's arid face,
Cooling a little hour or two--is gone!
It is a great mistake for us to mistake ourselves for the President of
the company. Let us do our little bit with cheerfulness and not take
the responsibility that belongs to God. None of us can turn the earth
around; all we can ever hope to do is to hit it a few whacks on the
right side. We belong to a great system; a system which can convince
even the dullest of us of its greatness. Think of the miracle of night
and day enacted before our eyes every twenty-four hours. Right on the
dot comes the sun up over the saucer-like rim of the earth, never a
minute late. Think of the journey the earth makes around the sun every
year--a matter of 360,000,000 miles more or less--and it makes the
journey in an exact time and arrives on the stroke of the clock, no
washout on the line; no hot box; no spread rail; no taking on of coal
or water; no employees' strike. It never drops a stick; it never slips
a cog; and whirls in through space always on the minute. And that
without any help from either you or me! Some system, isn't it?
I believe we may safely trust God even with our affairs. When the war
broke out we all experienced a bad attack of gloom. We were afraid God
had forgotten us and gone off the job. And yet, even now, we begin to
see light through the dark clouds of sorrow and confusion. If the war
brings about the abolition of the liquor traffic, it will be justified.
Incidentally the war has already brought many by-products which are
wholly good, and it would almost seem as if there is a plan in it after
all.
Life is a great struggle against gloom, and we could fight it better if
we always remembered that happiness is a condition of heart and is not
dependent on outward conditions. The kingdom of heaven is within you.
Everything depends on the point of view.
Two prisoners looked out once through the bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.
Looking into the sky one sees the dark clouds and foretells rain, and
the picnic spoiled; another sees the rift of blue and foretells fine
weather. Looking out on life, one sees only its sad grayness; another
sees the thread of gold, "which sometimes in the patterns shows most
sweet where there are somber colors"! Happiness is a condition, and if
you are not happy now, you had better be alarmed about yourself, for
you may never be.
There was a woman who came with her family to the prairie country
thirty-five years ago. They built a house, which in those days of sod
roofs and Red-River frames seemed quite palatial, for had it not a
"parlor" and a pantry and three bedrooms? The lady grieved and mourned
incessantly because it had no back-stairs. In ten years they built
another house, and it had everything, back-stairs, dumb-waiter, and
laundry shoot, and all the neighbors wondered if the lady would be
happy then. She wasn't. She wanted to live in the city. She had the
good house now and that part of her discontent was closed down, so it
broke out in another place. She hated the country. By diligently
keeping at it, she induced her husband to go to the city where the poor
man was about as much at home as a sailor at a dry-farming congress.
He made no complaint, however. The complaint department was always
busy! She suddenly discovered that a Western city was not what she
wanted. It was "down East." So they went. They bought a beautiful
home in the orchard country in Ontario, and her old neighbors watched
development. Surely she had found peace at last--but she hadn't. She
did not like the people--she missed the friendliness of the new
country; also she objected to the winters, and her dining-room was
dark, and the linen closet was small. Soon after moving to Ontario she
died, and we presume went to heaven. It does not matter where she
went--she won't like it, anyway. She had the habit of discontent.
There's no use looking ahead for happiness--look around! If it is
anywhere, it is here.
"I am going out to bring in some apples to eat," said a farmer to his
wife.
"Mind you bring in the spotted ones," said she who had a frugal mind.
"What'll I do if there are no spotted ones?" he asked.
"Don't bring any--just wait until they do spot!"
Too many people do not eat their apples until they are spotted.
But we know that life has its tragedies, its heartaches, its gloom, in
spite of all our philosophy. We may as well admit it. We have no
reason to believe that we shall escape, but we have reason to hope that
when these things come to us we will be able to bear them.
"Thou shalt not be _afraid_ of the terror by day, nor of the arrow that
flieth by night, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor
for the destruction that wasteth at noonday."
You will notice here that the promise is that you will not be afraid of
these things. They may come to you, but they will not overpower you,
or destroy you utterly, for you will not be afraid of them. It is fear
that kills. It is better to have misfortunes come, and be brave to
meet them, than to be afraid of them all your life, even if they never
come.
Gloom and doubt and fear paralyze the soul and sow it thick with the
seeds of defeat. No man is a failure until he admits it himself.
Tramps have a way of marking gateposts so that their companions who may
come along afterwards may know exactly what sort of people live inside,
and whether it is worth while to ask them for a meal. A certain sign
means "Easy people--no questions"; another sign means "Nothing
stirring--don't go in"; another means "Beat it or they'll give you a
job with lots of advice!" and still another means "Dog." Every doubt
and fear that enters your heart, or tries to enter, leaves its mark
upon the gatepost of your soul, and it serves as a guide for every
other doubt and fear which may come along, and if they once mark you
"Easy," that signal will act as an invitation for their twin brother
"Defeat," who will, without warning, slip into your heart and make
himself at home.
Doubts and fears are disloyalty to God--they are expressions of a want
of confidence in Him, but, of course, that's what is wrong with our
religion. We have not got enough of it. Too many of us have just
enough religion to make ourselves miserable--just enough to spoil our
taste for worldly pleasures and not enough to give us a taste for the
real things of life. There are many good qualities which are only an
aggravation if we have not enough of them. "Every good and perfect
gift cometh from above." You see it is not enough for the gift to be
"good"--it must be "perfect," and that means abundant. Too long we
have thought of religion as something in the nature of straight life
insurance--we would have to die to get the good of it. But it isn't.
The good of it is here, and now we can "lift" it every day if we will.
No person can claim wages for half time; that's where so much
dissatisfaction has come in, and people have found fault with the
company. People have taken up the service of God as a polite little
side-line and worked at it when they felt like it--Sunday afternoons
perhaps or rainy days, when there was nothing else going on; and then
when no reward came--no peace of soul--they were disposed to grumble.
They were like plenty of policy-holders and did not read the contract,
or perhaps some agent had in the excess of his zeal made it too easy
for them. The reward comes only when you put your whole strength on
all the time. Out in the Middle West they have a way of making the
cattle pump their own water by a sort of platform, which the weight of
an animal will press down, and the water is forced up into a trough.
Sometimes a blase old ox who sees the younger and lighter steers doing
this, feels that he with his superior experience and weight will only
have to put one foot on to bring up the water, but he finds that one
foot won't do, or even two. He has to get right on, and give to it his
full weight. It takes the whole ox, horns, hoofs and tail. That's the
way it is in religion--by which we mean the service of God and man. It
takes you--all the time; and the reward is work, and peace, and a
satisfaction in your work that passeth all understanding. No more
grinding fear, no more "bad days," no more wishing to die, no more
nervous prostration. Just work and peace!
Did you ever have to keep house when your mother went away, when you
did not know very well how to do things, and every meal sat like a
weight on your young heart, and the fear was ever present with you that
the bread would go sour or the house burn down, or burglars would come,
or someone would take sick? The days were like years as they slowly
crawled around the face of the old clock on the kitchen shelf, and even
at night you could not forget the awful burden of responsibility.
But one day, one glorious day she came home, and the very minute you
heard her step on the floor, the burden was lifted. Your work was very
much the same, but the responsibility was gone, and cheerfulness came
back to your eyes, and smiles to your face.
That is what it feels like when you "get religion." The worry and
burden of life is gone. Somebody else has the responsibility and you
work with a light heart. It is the responsibility of life that kills
us, the worry, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. How we envy the man who
works by the day, just does his little bit, and has no care! This
immunity from care may be ours if we link ourselves with God.
Think of Moses' mother! There she was hired to take care of her own
son. Doing the very thing she loved to do all week and getting her pay
envelope every Saturday night. So may we. God hires us to do our work
for Him, and pays us as we go along--the only stipulation being that we
do our best.
"I have shown thee, O man, what is good!" declared Micah long ago.
"What doth now the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love
mercy and walk humbly with thy God!" In "walking humbly, doing justly,
and loving mercy," there is no place for worry and gloom; there is
great possibility of love and much serving, and God in His goodness
breaks up our reward into a thousand little things which attend us
every step of the way, just as the white ray of light by the drop of
water is broken into the dazzling beauty of the rainbow. The burning
bush which Moses saw is not the only bush which flames with God, and
seeks to show to us a sign. Nature spares no pains to make things
beautiful; trees have serrated leaves; birds and flowers have color;
the butterflies' wings are splashed with gold; moss grows over the
fallen tree, and grass covers the scar on the landscape. Nature hides
her wounds in beauty. Nature spares no pains to make things beautiful,
for beauty is nourishing. Beauty is thrift, ugliness is waste,
ugliness is sin which scatters, destroys, integrates. But beauty
heals, nourishes, sustains. There is a reason for sending flowers to
the sick.
Nature has no place for sadness and repining. The last leaf on the
tree dances in the breezes as merrily as when it had all its lovely
companions by its side, and when its hold is loosened on the branch
which bares it, it joins its brothers on the ground without regret.
When the seed falls into the ground and dies, it does it without a
murmur, for it knows that it will rise again in new beauty. Happy
indeed is the traveler on life's highway, who will read the messages
God sends us every day, for they are many and their meaning is clear:
the sudden flood of warm sunshine in your room on a dark and dreary
afternoon; the billowy softness of the smoke plume which rises into the
frosty air, and is touched into exquisite rose and gold by the morning
sun; the frosted leaves which turn to crimson and gold--God's silent
witnesses that sorrow, disappointment and loss may bring out the deeper
beauties of the soul; the flash of a bluebird's wing as he rides gaily
down the wind into the sunlit valley. All these are messages to you
and me that all is well--letters from home, good comrade, letters from
home!
God knew that some would never look
Inside a book
To know His will,
And so He threw a varied hue
On dale and hill.
He knew that some would read words wrong,
And so He gave the birds their song.
He put the gold in the sunset sky
To show us that a day may die
With greater glory than it's born,
And so may we
Move calmly forward to our West,
Serene and blest!
End of Project Gutenberg's In Times Like These, by Nellie L. McClung