[From the Labor News, as quoted in the Milwaukee Leader, Wisconsin]

When one sinks into a reflective mood the inquiry suggests itself, What are people actually thinking about, and are they thinking at all? We watch them strolling up and down the streets, we see them standing at street corners and hanging around this or that place of business, apparently resigned to their misery as if it were by divine decree. They do not seem to understand that within their own being lies the power to turn this nation from a national almshouse into a "garden of Eden." Everything we need is here in abundance, and not a human being in this great land need be in want.

[Editorial in the New Outlook, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

If you think a habit of being sorry for one's self is not a very serious matter, and scarcely worth talking about, you ought to read your Old Testament over again. You will find there stories of several men, great, strong, fine men, too, who came very near to wrecking their whole life's work by indulging such a habit. There was Moses and Elijah and Jeremiah and Jonah and Job, and where will you find better or finer than they? ...

Being sorry for one's self makes for cowardice. Letting the mind revolve around and around one's own troubles and cares softens the fibers in a man's soul. Quite apart from the fact that when a man is in a mood to indulge in self-pity he is just about sure to make his case out very much worse than it is, the exercise is unwholesome because it weakens the will and tones down courage and high resolve and makes the brave and resolute and aggressive thing much less possible than it was. But that many a brave and enduring soul is tempted toward that sin of being sorry for himself seems quite evident. It would appear that such a temptation came to Jesus on one occasion, and the sternness of his rebuke of the disciple through whom such temptation came is evidence of the strength of the recoil of his soul against it. And experience has shown that a few hours of indulgence in self-pity has often done more to hinder a man's usefulness than any amount of antagonism and opposition.

[Rev. James Reid, M. A., in the British Weekly, London, England]

There are two points of view from which we can look on Christ [Jesus] as he went to Calvary. We can see him as an unresisting victim—a lamb led to the slaughter. Or we can see him as the victor—taking the tragic situation into which life had brought him, and using it as the channel of his love for men, the very means of his uttermost self-giving. That is how he looks on himself. He was master of circumstances all through. The cross was the last triumphant example. "No man taketh it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself." ...

There are times when most of us have allowed ourselves to be mere victims of necessity. We have been led unwillingly to the sacrifice. A call came to do some rather irksome bit of service, or some bit of work. We obeyed, but we grudged every minute of the time, thinking, perhaps, of other pleasant ways in which we might have been occupied. That energy was just as much stolen from us as if our pocket had been picked, and there was no joy and, what is more, no real effectiveness in the thing we did. We did not give ourselves. But suppose we had taken the other method, and consciously looked on the duty as an opportunity, what a sense of freedom, even of joy, of being at least master of the situation! Is it not just here that many people miss the road to real freedom, and become unwilling slaves? ...

Of course, it is only as we are ready to see God in it all that we can take the point of view of Christ [Jesus]. Only as we believe that God's purpose meets us in the call of life's necessities—sometimes its bitter necessities—can we give ourselves gladly to them. But that is just what Christ [Jesus] came to help us to see. He saw the will of God to be done even in bearing his cross. Even in drinking that bitter cup there was something divine to be done. The channel may be a very mean one. It may even threaten to crush and cramp our life. But the spirit we put into it can make for the healing of the world.

[From a Correspondent, in the Times, London, England]

Our relations to each other, whether of our own family or of the remotest peoples, are determined by our consciousness of God and our will to obey Him in every action of our lives.

If we reflect on these matters we shall see how they call us to a new way of life. ... True religion comes from God. All that is true, pure, honorable, and righteous is from above. This is a hard lesson to learn, perhaps the hardest of all lessons for clear-thinking and self-sufficient men and women, but until it is learned we can never hope to attain life's true goal, individually or collectively. We must being and end all in God. He alone is our hope and our strength. If we give this faith its practical expression we shall find, not a ready solution of our difficulties, but sufficient light to carry us forward in the darkest day and sufficient strength to endure every sacrifice, knowing that He will surely lead us to that city into which all men may enter and enjoy that perfect fellowship which has its source and crown in God.

[Bruce S. Wright, in the Christian Advocate, New York, New York]

Some things are proof against oblivion. The sun cannot be hid. The day may be dark and dreary; heavy, leaden skies may completely cover the face of the sun, but the sun is there, its penetrating rays piercing the darkness, carrying forward, behind the clouds, its beneficent work. A mountain cannot be hid. A mountain, seen from afar as one approaches, its mastering presence remains with one long after he has left it. The sea cannot be hid. Living near the sea you are conscious ever of the sea. Storm or calm, day or night, the tides and waves sing, the haunting voice of the sea is forever in the ears. A seed cannot be hid. You bury it in the ground, cover it in its tomb. But with that inherent quality which refuses to stay hid it pushes its way up toward ... light. Truth cannot be hid.

As Peter Pindar said in his epistle to John Nichols, "Truth needs not, John, the eloquence of oaths." God sends us the truth to make us free, and that truth cannot be hid.

[Editorial in the Los Angeles Times, California]

Acres of print paper and seas of ink have been used up in endless discussions of the condition which has prevailed for the past three years, of what brought it about and of the methods for overcoming its sorry effects.

Yet its fundamentals can be simply stated and the remedy surely applied.

Selfishness, greed, and the pursuit of personal interest are the rank soils from which have sprung the thorns and brambles of sordid thinking, stunted effort, and scrambled makeshifts to throttle the fair growth of ... industry. Evidently a general application of the opposite qualities, helpfulness, generosity, and regard for the good of the majority, is the quickest and most certain way to speed the recovery. Civilized progress, stripped of its excrescences, is a human and not an economic problem. And its human side is determined by the morality it employs. The old text still stands, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." ...

How can we better humanity if we cling to the old bitter doctrine of dog eat dog? After centuries of enlightenment are we still wolves and termites, governed by the law of the pack? Is it our inalienable right to sink to the level of the beasts who can survive only at the expense of one another? Is it true that

All around us is evidence of a better way out, if we combine to take it. Simultaneously with these selfish applications of the law of the pack we see everywhere, chiefly on the part of individuals who could prevail were they to combine, a nobler spirit of helpfulness, of charity, of willingness to share their little with those who have less, than we have ever seen before. ...

What, then, is the answer to our economic troubles? We know what produced them: the things which Paul the apostle once categoried as the fruits of the flesh. And against these we must marshal not passively, but actively, the qualities listed again by the great apostle as the fruits of the Spirit.

This is not to indulge in mawkish sentimentality or to invoke copybook platitudes. It requires ... practical sense. ... When we learn the lesson of real cooperation and mutual service our troubles will be over, not for the nonce but for all time.

[Editorial in the Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York]

Someone has said with caustic wit that gratitude is thankfulness for benefits about to be received. Unhappily it is true in many instances that gratitude goes no further than this. It seems to be much easier to be grateful for favors still in the future, especially the very near future, than for those whose enjoyment is a memory growing dimmer and dimmer as the days mount into weeks and years. It has been remarked that favors are quickly forgotten, while slights, whether real or only seeming, are allowed to rankle in the mind and poison a whole life. ...

Ingratitude is far too common, but, thanks be, there is another side to the picture. True gratitude, heartfelt appreciation of favors past, is not unknown. Indeed, this may be more general than surface appearances would indicate. ... That which is calm, which is serene, which like a deep river runs smoothly and noiselessly is truth. Gratitude is of this nature.

A great, a marvelous future lies before the human race. One of the important forces which will help to realize this future is gratitude, gratitude which recognizes and pays its moral debts by loyal service in the common good, which does not hoard its talent or its talents.