Article June 4, 1938 Issue

"That your joy might be full"

[Written Especially for Young People]

MARY EDGE HARLAN

Often , in the midst of happy experiences, one is troubled by suggestions that such happiness cannot last; and many people feel that an especially joyful time is sure to be followed by correspondingly unhappy or painful moments, even though the former was right and harmless.

While living away from home for the first time, when she began her college course, the writer frequently found herself confronted by such thoughts. She became afraid to give herself wholeheartedly to the enjoyment of any happy incident or wholesome pleasure, because the disappointment or discouragement which, she believed, seemed bound to follow was so much harder to bear. Deeply disturbed by the succession of emotional ups and downs, one afternoon she had an experience which even yet is vivid in her memory.

She was following a winding path through a cool grove of wide-spreading evergreens, and across a green valley to the part of the campus appropriately called Sunset Hill. Just before leaving her room she had received a letter full of cheering news, and she joyously sped along the woodland trail. Brilliant sunbeams flashed from the white and yellow daisies dotting the sloping meadows spread out before her as she reached the top of the hill, and the gracious landscape seemed to express the brightness of her thoughts. But suddenly the clutching fear that some distressing disappointment would soon blot out her gaiety assailed her, and she thought rebelliously: "Why do I always have to be on the heights or in the depths? I'll try to hold myself on a level, neither up nor down, and perhaps that will help."

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