WHAT LIFE TEACHES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21254, 6 August 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

WHAT LIFE TEACHES

THE LOVELIEST FLOWERS SUFFERING AND HARDSHIP It is definitely worth while to have been through hard times —which may perhaps comfort a little the people who are going through such hardships, financial and mental, to-day. If you look round on your friends who matter I don't think you will find one of them who has not been up against it in some way, says a writer; maybe money troubles, maybe a long period of self-sacrifice to some member of tho family, maybe the frustration of hopes and ambitions have put them through the mill. But in almost every case these hard experiences have given them something curiously worth while, something that makes them worth knowing, something that ripens them and mellows them. The loveliest flowers of the human spirit seem to grow in stoniest soil. I suppose it is the human law of compensation; when everything you care for is taken from you something grows inside you—a sort of divine patience, a serenity, and, above all, an understanding of others that you would never have got if you had not been through the mill yourself. You may say, " Yes, but it isn't worth while. I want to be carefree and happy. I want life to treat me well. I don't particularly want to be serene. I don't particularly want to sympathise with others." No, but wait awhile. In your, happy carefree times, you don't know what serenity is. The ship that has never left the slips does not know the joy of coining back into harbour; it is only after she has buffeted her way through storms that she can appreciate serenity and calm weather. And if you are tho sort of person whom people only seek out in gala moments, just wait till you arft sought out in moments of trouble and you will find what real human contact means. Suffering and hardship como to every one. Don't grouse about it, don't try to shirk it. Accept it, and it will make you. It is only the peoplo .who resent hardship who aro broken by it.