[From the Canadian Statesman, Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada]

"Take ... no thought for the morrow," counseled the great Teacher as he talked to the multitude on the mountainside, "for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Reading the rest of that great sermon and then reading the talk on the Mount of Olives when the disciples of the Nazarene came to him for instructions, it is clear that it was farthest from his mind to discourage industry, foresight, and thrift. The stories of the wise and foolish virgins, the faithful servant and the talents, all that he taught and preached, was directed toward the encouragement of those and other virtues, and toward the correction of human frailties.

Among these, without doubt, is a disposition to worry and fret about what tomorrow holds. This sort of thing makes it impossible for us to give our very best attention and effort to the thing at hand.

Too many of us have let tomorrow become our master. We should make tomorrow our servant. Perhaps that is easier said than done. But it is true.

[From the Ludlow Advertiser, Shropshire, England]

Those who are careful observers of their fellows know full well that there are always around them some who are tempted to despair. Foes within and without seem to them at times relentless. They feel that they have failed, and they have reached the stage when it seems useless to make a new effort. They are persuaded that they must give up the struggle. Reviewing the facts, discouragement and despondency destroy hope. We can and do every day meet with the man who is down.

How can we help in such cases? How can they regain a vision of hope? All who love their fellows must desire and endeavor to bring back the light of joy to the eye and new buoyancy to the heart.

The first thing is to lead them to face the causes. It may be that the position, bad as it is, is not as desperate as it appears. The cause is not infrequently misguided feelings, and a blurred impression of the whole situation. If the situation can be reviewed with an unbiased mind the darkness might be dispelled. ...

Even to set ourselves to tell one whom we can trust our difficulties leads to the consciousness that we are never alone, and new factors come in that dispel the doubts and fears. To know that we have about us those who sympathize and care for us is a help. We may find, too, that we give help by seeking it. And to know that we are of use to somebody is a great tonic.

This suggests one of the greatest helps in conquering hopelessness. It is the man who has ceased to believe in his own usefulness, and sees no worthy future, who is in the saddest state. When he resolves to find something, however little it may appear, to brighten the path of another, his feet are already on the road to recovery.

Here we come to the greatest of all helps. Faith in One whose purpose cannot be defeated is the greatest of all tonics. One who doubts the wisdom of the eternal Mind must rid himself of that doubt, or else he will never know a contented mind. Faith lights up the whole world and every experience which we must meet. Lack of faith in God is the influence that produces cloud-filled skies which no sun can penetrate.

Contentment is not caught when we seek it. It comes to those who are obedient to known duty. That is why the greatest teaches have always exhorted the troubled and burdened to turn from their own perplexities, and do what they have the opportunity of doing to bring the light of joy to other souls. The greatest teacher the world has ever known was constantly exhorting those who listened to him to act in the light of conscience, and do good; in other words, "Have faith in God," which means have faith in purity, goodness, and love.

[From the Evening Democrat, Fort Madison, Iowa]

Men and women feel in these days the need of something which will ensure stability. Years have been spent in search of something of this kind. The thing that has kept them from realizing their hopes along these lines is that they have been looking in the wrong place. Stability—that stability that really serves the need—is not to be found in materiality. Where, then, may it be found?

Isaiah gives definite information when he says, "And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times." Wisdom and knowledge! Simple enough, it seems. Too simple, maybe, for the mentality befuddled with theories of materiality.

True wisdom and knowledge, of course, are of God. True wisdom and knowledge, then, pertain to the things of God. Truly, then, they would constitute the "stability of thy times."

Idealistic, someone says. The need of today is for something of a practical nature. Yes, something practical is needed, and has been needed for a long time. The things which we for years have regarded as practical have crumbled and disappeared.

True wisdom and knowledge are not capable of crumbling. They truly are ... indestructible. They are permanent. They are, in fact, substantial.

[From the Newburgh News, New York]

Wisdom is the capacity to know life, and especially to know the meaning of life. If a man knows only books, he does not have wisdom. If he knows only what his personal ambitions lead to, he has never gone far enough to find wisdom. But if he is not able to read, yet knows that life is an opportunity to learn how to live in a universe presided over by Almighty God—that man has wisdom.

[Dr. Alfred Grant Walton, as quoted in the Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York]

The Christian faith not only brings certain acquisitions to the soul, but it also promises deliverance from the burdens that oppress us. The average person feels acutely the oppression of fear. For many it is the fear regarding economic security. Most people are not greatly disturbed because they do not happen to be rich, but we are deeply concerned lest there might come a time when we would be dependent on others.

Often we worry about health, particularly when we are aware of the illness of others or bereavement which has come to those whom we have known. We fear about the possibility of loneliness and of old age, yet the clear and implicit teaching of the Christian religion is that man may have freedom from his fears. Simple faith may not bring us economic prosperity, and it may not destroy the ravages of disease. ... But Christianity should bring us such a trust in God and such confidence in His love that we may be able to rise triumphantly above all the uncertainties of this temporal life.

Christianity brings us deliverance from sin, and penitence may lift man out of the depths of despair into the fullness of the life of God. Every person has a potential self which represents the fullest possibilities of achievement for his soul. All critical attitudes should be cast aside.

It is easy to find fault with others, concerning their modes of dress, their habits of life, or their thought formations. But if we understood all the circumstances which play upon their lives, their heredity and environment, we would be far more sympathetic with them.

[Winfred Rhoades, in Advance, Boston, Massachusetts]

One of the most pernicious things you can do for yourself is to cultivate the habit of feeling sorry for yourself. It poisons your happiness, it unsettles your mental balance, it blasts your happiness, it spoils the happiness of other people, it disorganizes your relations with the world about you. It upsets your whole life.

A man who lives alone in an upstairs room or two, in an old wooden tenement, and has few of the pleasures of life in his experience, was talking the other day. "I want to tell you one thing," he said; "when you get control of your faculties the question of riches and poverty is of small account." And he went on his way cheerful. ...

You learn to lift yourself up above fear, and you find your life taking on straightway a new strength and freedom. ... Self-pity and fear—grip them and they will grip you, and become your torturers and wreck your life. Lift yourself up above them, practice yourself in a reasonable detachment, take life as a great adventure of the soul, learn to live in the thought of those supreme words that in God "we live, and move, and have our being," elevate your mind and spirit to the thought of moving daily as a conqueror with God, find happiness even in learning to do without happiness: I believe there is no other way to make life good through thick and thin.

[Frank M. Selover, in the Post, Pasadena, California]

The frequently repeated statement, "Virtue is its own reward," may have a deeper foundation in logic than is realized by those who lightly quote it; for purity is the breath of the perfect life, the product of a loving heart, the badge of godliness, the key to heavenly peace. It is the whole "armour of righteousness," against which evil may rave in vain.

It was when the prodigal son "came to himself," when he awoke from the dream of pleasure in riotous living, that he went to his father, ready to confess his error, to plead forgiveness, and to accept the most menial servitude in his old home. When he who follows evil ways is aroused from the mockery of gratification in deceit, when he recognizes the falsity of Satan and all his works, he, too, will arise and embrace with joy the opportunity to share the safety of his Father's kingdom, where mansions of peace and plenty and purity await everyone who has had his fill of the husks of vanity and vexation.

When other means fail, innocency will encompass the defeat of the devil's fraudulent designs. This was the case when Jesus met every approach of Satan by firm reliance on and implicit obedience to his Father's laws and teachings. The cornerstone of the Christly defense against evil was the First Commandment, which bases and epitomizes all of these sacred decrees.