AN EASTER MESSAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20217, 30 March 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

AN EASTER MESSAGE.

Ip- Office of Minister of Health, Vj :J| Wellington. 1| My Dear Boys and Girls, It is because I know your hearts are tender and full of pity l| |1 for all those who suffer, that I write this letter to you at Easter JD time, the season of hope and rejoicing. I have seen many sic " qr people lately, some very sick indeed. One would expect to ik |L those who lie in hospitals very, very sad, but that is not t.ie f? case. ra If They are most wonderfully patient, so full of hope an j| 55 willing to believe that their sufferings will be lightened, an K w that they will be strengthened and kept from despair in their time 1 |f tr ' a k j* || H 1 have visited many hospitals and sanatoria lately, an Si heart goes out to the brave, oatient people whom I saw there. b If Pity is turned to praise that they can be so strong and courageous jj R of spirit. Not in the hustling crowds of the street, not in the c. M stress and strain of business nor in the whirl of social lite, not |i even in the heyday of joyous youth, but by these beds of pam, wit 1 JJ « the men and women and little children—Gold bless them. v. o |f suffer along, 1 have found the cheeriest optimism and sweetest ]j ii philosophy. Here is the wonderful stillness and calm or spirit K B that know.* the inner secrets of things. ... fe |j In these aisles of pain 1 can hear the gentle footfall of the jj jM Great Physician who says to every patient sufferer, Lo, lam wit P 8 you always." Faith, Hope and Charity—the three cardinal h jj virtues—make a handmaiden even of physical disease. When, jj £3 perchance, the tear-drops fall, they are as dew-drops upon rose- k W loaves on summer's morn, eloquent of the shadows and stillness K ff of the night, but radiant with reflected glory of earth and sky. jj In the work-a-day world, balances of trade and finance are H not to be despised, but most of all let us be glad for the human K jjf balance of life's wonderful compensations, so manifest in the J| M ranks of the poor and sick and needy. cl bj And let each one of us, in this glad Eastertide, send out a j| (j! thought of love and compassion to all those broken in body and W £4 spirit, that they may know the sweet consolation of the hope G that was given to the world on that first glad Easter morning. HI Your sincere friend, | | Minister of Health.