HOPING AND WATTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOPING AND WATTING.

(By S.)

One of the old American races had a curious custom when a child was born. It was the practice for one of the older people to say to the infant: "Child, thou art come into the world to suffer. Endure and hold thy peace." It reminds us that suffering is part of every life and that the strength of mind that enables one to meet it with calmness is far from easy. And yet, it is desirable, and there is a memorable saying in the book of Lamentations, the short composition in which the writer mourns over the state in which the Babylonians left Jerusalem and Judah when they destroyed the city, devastated the surrounding country, and departed with the flower of the people prisoners—there is a memorable saying in it to this effect: "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Provided what we hope for is reasonable and wise, it is always good to hope in the Lord, for it will give us the inward strength and poise to which all true culture tends. And even should our desire and expectation be in vain, it will be good for us to hope. For hope is more than desire and expectation; there is faith and there is imagination in it, and if it will do < no more than strengthen our faith in God, wive wings to our imagination, lift us out of our unhappiness and depression, and enable us to possess our soul, it will be good for us. We usually associate hope with the young and the middleaged, but it is as much needed by the oWest of us. "The sadness of age," as someone has said, "consists in this, not that one ceases to enjoy, but that one ceases to hope." If we would avoid the temptation to cease to hope when our vital energy begins to ebb, and we feci that life is behind us rather than in front of us, it will be as good for us to hope in the Lord then as ever it was. It is also good for a man. to quietly wait for the Lord, to wait, that is, without fretting, for as an Italian proverb has jt, he that holds his peace reaps. If it is difficult sometimes to iope, it is more difficult still to quietly wait, and, yet, if hope is to be of the utmost value to us, we must also wait. W T « may be in need of the discipline it will give us. It may be needful for us to think more deeply than we have been accustomed to do It may be needful for us to exercise powers in us that we have never yet brought into play. To hope, and, best of all, to hope in the Lord, will give us the energy and movement we need; to quietly wait for the Lord will give us the composure and endurance we need. "Let your hope strengthen your patience, and your patience strengthen your hope, and you will neither burn yourself out with fruitless longing, nor sink into the quietude of despair."