MESSAGE OF CHEER

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 241, 8 July 1938, Page 10

MESSAGE OF CHEER

A Gloomy Moment In History

THE WORLD OF 1857 In a letter to “The Times” (London) of May 27, Mr. Eric G. Underwood wrote:— The following newspaper extract was sent me a few days ago by a friend in New York, who describes it as “A Message of Cheer.” I should have been inclined to throw it away after reading the first few sentences but for the title which my friend attached to it: — “It is a gloomy moment in history. Not for many years—not in the lifetime of most men who read this—has there been so much grave and deep apprehension ; never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. In our own country there is commercial prostration . . . thousands of our poorest fellow-citizens are without employment, and without the prospects of iL “In France the political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty; Russia hangs, as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent, upon the horizon of Europe, while all the energies, resources and influences of the British Empire are sorely tried in coping with the vast and disturbed conditions in China.

“Of our own troubles, no man can see the end. They are, fortunately, as yet mainly commercial; and if we are only to lose money, and by painful poverty to be taught wisdom—the wisdom of honour, of' faith, of sympathy, and of charity—no man need seriously despair. And yet, the very haste to be rich, which is the occasion of this widespread calamity, has also tended to destroy the moral forces with which we are to resist and subdue the calamity.” The quotation is over 80 years old, yet, as you will see, there is hardly a sentence in it which would not apply to the conditions of to-day. It is an extract from au issue of “Harper’s Weekly” in the year 1857. The troubles to which it relates have long since been forgotten by most of us and, as I need scarcely remind you, were succeeded by years of great industrial development and social progress. What has been can be again. We may well have confidence that our present difficulties will be surmounted and that the future holds prosperity at least equal to that of the past.