Article May 27, 1944 Issue

Failure Vanquished

[Of Special Interest to Youth]

MARY LUELLA RICHEY

The world was very dark and bitter to Alice one morning. She was a failure. And the beginning had been so promising. All who knew her had anticipated that she would be a successful teacher.

Alice had finished college with honors the year before. She had earned most of her expenses in work that required much time and effort. She was a few years younger than most graduates. In the face of this, her success had undoubtedly given her quite an exalted opinion of herself. Now she recalled the words from Proverbs, "When pride cometh, then cometh shame."

As a result of excellent recommendations, she had secured a teaching position in a high school. But the year had brought only misery and failure. She could not teach, and she could not preserve discipline. Inattention, disorder, disrespect marked her classes. She would not return the following year. Alice had planned to teach a few years, while she helped a sister through college. Then she was going to study medicine and become a missionary to some non-Christian country. But how could she be a missionary and try to lift a heathen people out of their false beliefs and superstitions when she could not find the answer to a simple little prayer to be a better schoolteacher? The words, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss," rang in her thoughts. She returned to her home miserable and ashamed, while she tried to be gay and keep this unhappiness to herself.

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