DOMINION PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

White Ribbon, Volume 26, Issue 13, 1 June 1955, Page 3

DOMINION PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

I 'ear Fellow MemD I have just celebrated a lurthda> and mar\el at the spec I of the years I rememher. oung woman, standing on a high mountain and hefore me la) the panorama of the Japanese Alps What a glorious Deep fertile valleys, rushing lot rents cascading down mountainside-, scoured and scarred ravines, dazzling shades of trees and -I- and the sun shining on the inow-white locks of Alp-land

late is something like that; we go through quiet glades to come upon a madly foaming cataract. which calls for faith and < ( >urage to ford Then ruander along a quiet stream and listen I music as u tumbles on the smooth pebbles of its bed; then we turn a corner to he faced with ugh scoured rocklands, which in their starkness sfright and repulse. Climbing hands and feet gel bruised and weary; to look downwards make's one's mind red and balance in jeopardv. lias your heart ever been thus af righted? If w- wr learn to plant our feet on safe ledges and to hold only to roots and rocks of stability, Yt . our faith in God's guidance helps us to clunh upwards and we catch a vision of the golden glory of the cit\ I iod un one's birthday, it is good to s?and on the mountain-top and to look back and remember that that in the darkened valleys (iod was very near; and to look up and still remind ourselves that the glor) we now have i- nothing to in compared to the glory of our Father's House. I am reminded of a young person whom 1 knew, who, in the world of business, climbed high; however, a chain of circumstances brought about disSSter and 1 grieve, because, in the Climbing, I left out of all his calculations. His ambition m itself was not wrong; we needs must have ambition as a driving force, bin when it is not allied to the spiritual realm, it, alas, leaves ashein the mouth. The decision, which would have carried him safely over rocks of moral danger, was ne\er made, and with God left out of life, there is no safe foot-hold on life's mountains. Drink, that arch fiend, slays its thousands, bringing proud ambition to the dust. Gambling, too, takes its toll ir generation, and the mountains are strewn with their broken lives.

M. n> yean ago I wrote a verse in my Bible and it i-; it contains a great truth"l expect to pass through this world but once; ■'«" filing therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any fellow-creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pa-> thil way again." After our climbing w • must all pass over the "River of Heath" A Christian dare not enter the "Portals" of (iod" with empty hands. Yours in Joyous Service, TOOME&