BURDEN-BEARERS.

Evening Star, Issue 18140, 2 December 1922, Page 2

BURDEN-BEARERS.

Not Jong ago there was an article on this subject in tho New York ‘ Outlook.’ It was illustrated by photographs of some of the typical burden-bearers of Europe. Some,of thorn—'indeed, all of them—were Very suggestive. For instance, there was a woman of Nice drawing a heavy load on a oari. Others, again, are seen with huge bundles of firewood or big boxes of.some sort piled up on their backs. Burdened boys also figure in tho pictures. The destruction of animal life dining the war puts more loads on human backs, and it is wonderful what they are capable of carrying. Think of the soldiers carrying over sixty pounds weight “ under full marching orders.” The loads that coolies can run with in India and China are astonishing. A Chinaman will trot along between a couple of baskets, slung on a slim stick across his shoulders, that tho average person would find it difficult even to lift. But our purpose just now is not to discuss these burden-bearers of the photographs. They suggest to us tho burden-bearers of life. * # * * We are all carrying burdens of some sort. They may not bo seen on our shoulders. The- ate within, in the mind or conscience or heart. Among tho 4 Outlook’ photos there is one showing a street in Vienna. Everybody in tho crowd looks fashionably and lavishly dressed. There are no burdens on the backs of this crowd. No, there are none visible; but if you could look into tho inner rooms of their lives you would likely form a different opinion. For wo have all got our burdens to carry. Tljp higher tho life the heavier tho burden. Few among ns are seen with burdens on our backs. Civilisation has invented numerous contrivances for relieving us of these. Horses, motor cars, aeroplanes, ships, trains, trains, cabs, drays, and a bnndrcd-and-one other things supply the means for taking tho burdens from our backs. But just because of all this the burdens within are heavier and more numerous than over. The anxiety is transferred! from tho body to the brain, from tho shoulders to the soul. That is 111> price wo pay for civilisation. As life increases in function it. increases also in ret’ponfiibilities. The savage had few burdens to cany. His wants were easily supplied, his cares few. Rut as wo rise in the scale of existence all these grow greater, and the highest life is the most burdened of all. * * * * Think of a few of these burdens that people are carrying to-day. There in the burden of daily work in uncongenial spheres. How few aro in the positions they desire or for which they are fitted. But they have to stick it out, though they hate it. A little poem we once saw in a Scottish newspaper tells the story of thousands: Weemen’s work is never done, Oh, hey, hum! Trachlin’ out and trachlin’ in, Oh, hey, hum! For a’ my fauch and a’ my pains

There’s naught for mo but ■weary banes. Wi’ a thowless man and gamin’ weans, Oh, hey, Hum! And then it goes on to detail the whole story of the weariful household duties, the fire building, the. dish washing, the clothes mending and the meals preparing, and the child earing, etc., etc., and it ends with :

I’ll waohlo on till Death comes roun’ Wi’ his muclde scythe to mow me doon; I’ 11 sleep at last, and that fu’ soun’, Oh, bey,'hum! It may be thought that perhaps there is not much of that kind of thing in. this country. But ask the back blocks or even the near blocks, and. you will be surprised. You will notice that, one of our New Zealand poets —‘Miss Baugh an—does not, exaggerate in the picture she draws of it as applied to this land. Work in itself is not, or at least ought not to bo., a burden : but. as in Miss Baughan’s poem, it is the sense of uselessness, of nothing of any worth being accomplished 1 by it—no great or good end or purpose in it all—it is this that turns the load to lead 1 and makes it well-nigh insufferable. And one cannot think on this subject of burdens without recalling the great classic picture of it in Bnnyan’s immortal allegory. The central figure there is a man with a burden on his back. And because it is behind it suggests his past; and in the past of him, as of us all, there are errors, guilt, remorse. Sir Oliver Lodge said some time ago that people are not now worrying about their sins. It was a very silly saying for so able a man to utter. At bottom it is just what realty dojs worry people. It is what we bring down out of this past of ours that creates the heaviest of all burdens. It adds weight and 1 complications to all the rest. It is, in fact, rightly understood, the fountain head from whence all the others issue. " And then there is the burden that comes from the opposite quarter—th 6 future. “I looked for my past,,” says the poet, “ and, 10, it had gone before.” There is, indeed, a sense in which our finest hope is finest memory. But multitudes have no fine memoirs, only vexing ones, and these throw their shadow on ahead. This is the mystery of life and of death and of the beyond. Whence have we come? Whither are wa going? What is death? Is it the end? If not, what then? The war, with its flights of countless souls into the unseen, accentuated this burden, for multitudes' who thought little of it before. No ; knowledge and progress, while they have shifted the burdens from the shoulders, have only increased them immensely for the mind and heart and conscience of humanity. And what then? * «• * * What are we lo do with these burdens that wo all have to carry ? The natural answer would be: Got rid of them, drop them. A child looking at the picture of Atlas with the world on his back sold : “ Why does not the man lay that thing down?” And it is only a childish solution that suggests the escape from our burdens. A wiser question would be : How can we got strength to carry them? There are some considerations that may help to give us this strength. It is good to remember, for instance, that it is the common lot of humanity. We think if we could only change our circumstances we should get free from our burdens. It might be so; also it might not. The one thing sure is that everybody has burdens of somo sort to carry. And when wo come to know more about others wo begin to realise that, after all, we would not care to change places with them. Thou, again, it is wise to consider that burdens, when rightly carried, become blessings in disguise. When the present writer was in Italy years ago he was struck with the erect carriage of the Italian woman. He learned it was due to their habit of carrying parcels and packages and boxes on their head. It squared their shoulders, and made them step out straight and steady and stately. And it is a parable of life when it arranges its burdens rightly. We are told that the air pressure on our body is equivalent, to 151 b to the square inch —that is, about fourteen tons for the whole body. And we don’t feel it, not, a bit—at least, when wo ara in health. But suppose wo were

translated to tho moon, what then? -Then wo would have lost our load indeed, for the air pressure is so much lighter there; but we would he in imminent danger of losing our life, too. The slightest spring of tho foot and you bound like a ball into mid-air, and if you attempt to leap over an obstruction you go off fnto space, goodness knows where. So, after all, to slip off our burdens even here might be the worst thing that could happen to us. As a matter of fact, we know that the lives who have been happiest themselves, and made others happy too, are those that have been the most burdened. » «• # * Again, it is helpful always to look away from our own burdens to those that other people aro carrying. Some of them seem to us to bo less heavy and less numerous than ours. But, if we knew everything, they might not bo so. But, on tho other hand, multitudes have far greater ones. And it is curious that when wo try to take over some of theirs we And ft easier to carry our own. We were reading the other day about the method in which the Chinese coolies of earlier years used to train themselves for their long journeys. They had a quantity of hags disposed over their whole body. Into these they dribbled handfuls of flour, little by little, every day, when they were exorcising, till all the bags were full. So pounds of deadweight were clinging all about their body. Then when they threw off this self-imposed burden they found themselves so free, and their muscles so tough, that they could run thirty miles in four hours or less. Tho principle of training may not bo scientific, but it is sound philosophy relative to the sharing of burdens. Those who do this most, strangely enough, are usually the happiest and tho most buoyant. “A man with two grievances never pities himself so much as a man with only one; and a man with half a dozen treats them all with a good-humored Indifference little removed' from positive satisfaction.” Hence the truth of the saying that it is the.busiest man who seems to have tho most time. Tf you want anything done, don’t go to the man of leisure. Furthermore, it is wise to talk little to others about our burden;-,. Hero silence is golden. As euro as you do they will gradually seem to grow greater. A little pride is a good thing when it teaches us to near our own hurts quietly, not hurting others. But pride may become a vice when it hinders us from making any signals to those who ought to be told, and who would help if they knew. There is a wise reticence about oar own difficulties, but there is also a silence that may be unjust to others. Still, we all arrive at experiences which we cannot disclose to anybody else. There are burdens of conscience and of heart that are incommunicable to others; that we feel it impossible either to be shown by or even mentioned to them. These are the ones that really bend us clown, and often break the heart. * # Is there no relief? We recall tho hint in tho ‘ Ancient Mariner.’ He was oppressed by the hopelessness of his burden : Instead of tho cross the albatross

About his nook was hung. It is tho old age-long story of a man’s past hanging its burdens upon him. 0 wedding guest this soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea, So lonely ’twas that God Himself Scarce seemed there to be. But bo ultimately reached the condition in which he could pray. It was his forlorn hope, and, 10, when ho did,

From my nock so freo Tho albatross foil off, and sank Like lead into tbo sea. la all that a mere poetic fancy? Long ago an old, Hebrew poet—one of many such—advised: ‘‘ Oast, thy burden on the Lord, and ITo will sustain fchoo.” Observe the sanity of this ancient singer. Ho docs not say : “ Cast thy burden on tho Lord, and He will take it from thee—He will let you go free—Ho will give you none to carry.” No, it is not that. It is that He will sustain thee. He will give tho« strength to bear it, strength to transmute it into a blessing. That’s the true solution of the incommunicable and unsharablo burdens of existence—not to have them taken away, but to have the inner life so empowered that.it can cany them and transmute them. The child cries cut against going to school. It is an intolerable burden. And tbo wise mother takes the child on her knee and croons a little song to it, puts her own thought and spirit into it, and so it is comforted and encouraged, and takes up again the burden of education. And what if this mother is God? And- when His children go to Him like the Ancient Mariner, like the Hebrew poet, they, too, discover not that they escape their burdens, but that eomehow they get a power to take them and cany them triumphantly “ on to the bound of the waste, on to the city of God.” And multitudes in tho ages since set their seal to the testimony of the Ancient Mariner and the Hebrew singer. If they have been deluded, thou wo know who the duped are. They are the holiest and tho -happiest anti tho wisest who ever trod our earth. And, if this bo so, then earth's base is built on rottenness, and dust and ashes all that