Everyman’s Hut

Camp News, Volume 3, Issue 141, 25 September 1942, Page 4

Everyman’s Hut

Have you got a load of care, Friend-upon-the-way ? Have you got an extra share, Rather more than you can bear? « Are you courting grim despair All the livelong day ? Come, away with gloom and care! Come, dispel them now! If you have a cross to bear, Do it cheerfully, and dare Through your troubles yet to wear Sunshine on your brow. Keep your heart as light as air; - You’ve no time to mope, Fight and conquer grim despair Beard the monster in his lair, Leaven life with laughter rare, / ' Love and prayer and hope. (Author Unknown) «» Someone has described a pessimist as one who is compelled to live with an optimist. We all know the type of neighbour whose outlook on life resembles a wet blanket, and the one whose views on everything remind us of the unrelieved sunshine of an August afternoon. Neither is very helpful, and we need to be on our guard against both. I often think of the way in which Matthew Arnold expressed the ideal life, which he described as “seeing life steadily, and seeing it whole.” It may be objected, of course, that war-time is not an easy period for doing either. Each one of us has our own particular problems, difficulties and anxieties; and the advice which may be suitable for one is not acceptable by another. Somehow or other, we must steer our way between undue pessimism and excessive optimism, and prove that, “simply trusting every day,” it is possible to do our duty with cheerfulness and courage. There is nothing easier, of course, than to be so absorbed with our own affairs that we have no time to think of the trials of others.. My experience would suggest that, as we enter into the sorrows and difficulties of our friends and neighbours, we are delivered from many of the grasshoppers which can so easily make life burdensome. Those who have few cares can easily be optimistic, and those who are being called upon to face new responsibilities can easily be pessimistic and fear the worst; but the wise person, remembering a hundred events of the past, camly trusts God, and greets the unseen with a cheer. At a time when everything was going wrong in his circumstances, Paul cried: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and, again I say, Rejoice.” Only Christian people can act in this way, because they possess a secret which is denied to those who know not the Saviour. The One whom we serve is the God of Hope, and He is able to

make us abound in joy and hope, so that in the darkest hour we can cling to the Almighty, and discover, to our infinite joy and the thankfulness, that His strength is made perfect in our weakness.