THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3333, 30 January 1918, Page 53

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 231. Br Dttncan Dunedin. TROUBLES, AM3 HOW TO MEET THEM. There's a ©aying old and rusty, But good as any new—'Tis, "Never trouble trouble Till trouble troubles you." Do not borrow sorrow, You'll surely have your share; He who dreams of sorrow Will find" that sorrow's there. Do not hurry worry By worrying, lest it come; To flurry is to worry, 'Twill miss you if you're mum. If minding will not mind it, Then better not to. mind); The best thing is to end it, Just leave it all behind. Then do not trouble trouble Till trouble troubles you; You'll only double -trouble, And trouble others too.- —Anon. To be, or not to be: that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mmd to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? —Shakespeare. trip! Up! my friend, and quit yon books, Or surely you'll grow double! Up! Up! my friend, and clear yon looks! Whv all this toil and trouble? —Wordsworth. But when trying to solve the hard question of ceaseless and universal troubles don't forget the words of the old, up-to-date Book: "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." (Job v, /.) Or the wordte, "Man that is born ot a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." (Job xvi, 1.), An*anonvmous writer says : ' "Taking "trouble is the best way ot avoiding troubles. The lack of taking trouble has been the means of making trouble in many ways. Have we not seen most cheerful workmen who take great pains? And have Ave not been often perplexed and saddened by the lives made cheerless and painful just for lack of taking pains? One of the American novelists has said: 'There's not so much difference in the troubles in this earth as there is in the folks that bear them.' And perhaps the greatest difference in those who bear troubles is the difference between those who take their trouble first, and those who wait for it to come afterwards. It is a homoeopathic remedy this, where like cures like."

Newell D. Hillis has a striking and fresh way of dealing with this subject, and is of opinion that it should be studied in the light of imagination. "Do you say." he asks, "that your life has been a storm-centre? The life of Robert Bruce and' Luther and Paul represent storm-centres. Why not let imagination paint you a picture of children and youth a generation from, now who stimulate heroism in themselves by recalling you as one whose life was a storm-centre, but who made God your covert in the time of storm? Do you say that sorrow has been a plough that has run through your home nest, and turned it under? imagination whispers: It will be with you as with that mouse's nest that the plough turned for Robert Burns, that became a song for the encouragement of all the generations. Do you say that the troubles are incessant, and fall like sheeted rain and hail storms? Imagination will tell you that the rain and hail of March reappear in the purple floods of the vineyard of July. Do you say my life was a vine—fruitful, indeed, —yet trouble came in with many a sharp knife and lopped away the bough? But imagination whispers, This bough was cut away that it might be translanted to the happy hills of paradise, and bloom amidst eternal summer. 'Remorse has laid hold upon me,' sobs someone, 'and one sin and mistake has ruined my life.' 'lmagination whispers, 'Paul took his sin of murder, and bv reaction sprang the further back towards the heights of virtue. And by showing the generations to como that Christ would redeem and save even the chief of sinners he almost glorified this sin.' What if you, with your wracked life, should study it from the point of view of imagination, and rise so completely victorious through the help of God and Christ, His Son, as that men discouraged should behold your career and marvel, and recover hope once more! Lift up your trouble, your thorn in the flesh, your mistake and sin of yesterday. Imagine the greatest possible good that might come therefrom. Now that very thing will fall out when long time has passed if you do the best you can."

May Gorges sings: Fret not, poor heart—by tho old grief oppressed, Tempt&d to question if God's will bo beet.

Take courage, for He loves thee, all is well— How well, Eternity alone can tell.

There slialt thou learn the meaning of that blow Which made thee- every hold on earth let go, Live for the present—mourn not o'er the past; "Strangers and sojourners" we learn at last. Faint not, when morning -wakes thee to thy cross, » Take it up bravely be it pain or loss, Or the dull ache of long continued strain Ho holds thee; to the end he will sustain. On that strong Hand cast all thy weight of care, Life's burdens then will not seem so hard to bear; Only obey Him as its hours unfold, How soon they pass! How soon the tale is told! Fear not—thy future may loom dark and strange. Beset -with many a trouble, many a change, Fight not the shadows—-shelter in the name Of Him—through every change and chance, the same. He keeps thee—He will never let thee go— The waves may rise, they shall not over-flow: Now will to trust Him through life's little day; In Heaven, the need for trust hath passed away! "Some time ago," says Rev. J. H. Jowett, M.A., "I saw a picture which represented a rising storm. Seen at some little distance, it appeared as though dark, black, threatening cloud battalions were speedily covering the entire sky and blotting out all the patches of light and hope. # But when I went a little nearer to the picture I found that the artist had subtly fashioned his clouds out of angelfaces, and all these black battalions wore a winsome aspect of genial friends. "I have had that experience more than pnee away from the" realm of picture and fiction, in the hard ways of practical life. The clouds I feared and worried about, and concerning which I wasted so much precious strength, lost their frown and revealed themselves as my friends. Other clouds never arrived—they were purely imaginary, or they melted away before they reached my threshold." If none were sick and) none were "sad, What service could we render? I think if we were always glad, We scarcely could be tender. Did our beloved never need Our patient ministration, Earth would grow cold, and miss, indeed, Its sweetest consolation. If sorrow never claimed our heart, And every wish were granted, Patience would die and hope depart, Life would! be disenchanted. —Anon. "The Trouble-seeker" is the slightly fantastic heading of a useful article by a writer with the initials O. S. M. Who is he, I wonder? Do you recognise him? I do. Perhaps he may be in your neighbourhood, only you use another word a little less euphonious : "There is always a cloud on his face, because he is constantly expecting that something unfavourable is going to happen. There is going to be a slump in business, or* he is going to have a lose, or somebody is stealing from him or trying to undermine him; or he is worried about his health, or fears his children will be sick or go wrong or be killed. ■ In other words, although he has achieved quite a remarkable success, yet he has never really had a happy day in his life. All his life this man has been chasing rainbows—thinking if he could only get a little further on, a little higher up, if he could only achieve this or that, he would be happy; but he is just as far from it as when a boy. "I believe this condition has all come from the habit of unhappiness, which he had formed during his hard boyhood, and which he had never been able to overcome. He has learned to look for trouble, to expect, and he gets it. I have been his guest many a time. He has a beautiful home, a very charming wife, a most delightful family; but there is always the same cloud on his face, the same expression of anxiety, of unhappiness, of foreboding. He always looks as though he expect trouble right away. "A little properly-directed training in his boyhood would have changed his whole career, and he would hive been a happy, joyous, harmonious mar., instead of being discordant and unhappy. There is everything in right starting. What is put into the first of life is put into the whole of life." Moral: Whatever happens in life don't be a Trouble-seeker. There's a saying old and rusty But good as any new: 'Tis, "Never trouble trouble Till trouble troiibles you." Then do not trouble trouble Till trouble troiibles you ; You'll only double trouble, And trouble others too.