Article August 18, 1934 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from S. J. Duncan, James Reid

[From the New Outlook, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]

The world's work will never be done by the people who are easily discouraged and turned aside. It may be that persistence is never found in any orthodox list of the virtues, but it has some right to be there, nevertheless. Very many of the things that are best worth doing will not be done save by sticking at them day after day through months and years and even decades. Kingdoms are never built overnight, and least of all the kingdom of heaven. It is true that Jesus said, when he started out on his life-ministry, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, but none knew better than he how slow and laborious and even discouraging would be the task of incorporating it into the lives of individual men and women, and the society which they would build up through the years. As a great opportunity and possibility that kingdom is at hand just as it was in his day, but the wisdom to see opportunities and possibilities and the courage to embrace and use them are not easy to find, save through patience and the trying road of experience. And if we haven't the courage and the endurance and the fine staying qualities necessary to walk that kind of road, our service to the great undertaking will not be very great. It is a great and a most necessary thing that we keep our courage up to that high point.

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