In Times Like These

by Nellie L. McClung

But we know that life has its tragedies, its heartaches, its gloom, in spite of all our philosophy. We may as well admit it. We have no reason to believe that we shall escape, but we have reason to hope that when these things come to us we will be able to bear them.

"Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by day, nor of the arrow that flieth by night, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday."

You will notice here that the promise is that you will not be afraid of these things. They may come to you, but they will not overpower you, or destroy you utterly, for you will not be afraid of them. It is fear that kills. It is better to have misfortunes come, and be brave to meet them, than to be afraid of them all your life, even if they never come.

Gloom and doubt and fear paralyze the soul and sow it thick with the seeds of defeat. No man is a failure until he admits it himself.

Tramps have a way of marking gateposts so that their companions who may come along afterwards may know exactly what sort of people live inside, and whether it is worth while to ask them for a meal. A certain sign means "Easy people—no questions"; another sign means "Nothing stirring—don't go in"; another means "Beat it or they'll give you a job with lots of advice!" and still another means "Dog." Every doubt and fear that enters your heart, or tries to enter, leaves its mark upon the gatepost of your soul, and it serves as a guide for every other doubt and fear which may come along, and if they once mark you "Easy," that signal will act as an invitation for their twin brother "Defeat," who will, without warning, slip into your heart and make himself at home.

Doubts and fears are disloyalty to God—they are expressions of a want of confidence in Him, but, of course, that's what is wrong with our religion. We have not got enough of it. Too many of us have just enough religion to make ourselves miserable—just enough to spoil our taste for worldly pleasures and not enough to give us a taste for the real things of life. There are many good qualities which are only an aggravation if we have not enough of them. "Every good and perfect gift cometh from above." You see it is not enough for the gift to be "good"—it must be "perfect," and that means abundant. Too long we have thought of religion as something in the nature of straight life insurance—we would have to die to get the good of it. But it isn't. The good of it is here, and now we can "lift" it every day if we will. No person can claim wages for half time; that's where so much dissatisfaction has come in, and people have found fault with the company. People have taken up the service of God as a polite little side-line and worked at it when they felt like it—Sunday afternoons perhaps or rainy days, when there was nothing else going on; and then when no reward came—no peace of soul—they were disposed to grumble. They were like plenty of policy-holders and did not read the contract, or perhaps some agent had in the excess of his zeal made it too easy for them. The reward comes only when you put your whole strength on all the time. Out in the Middle West they have a way of making the cattle pump their own water by a sort of platform, which the weight of an animal will press down, and the water is forced up into a trough. Sometimes a blasé old ox who sees the younger and lighter steers doing this, feels that he with his superior experience and weight will only have to put one foot on to bring up the water, but he finds that one foot won't do, or even two. He has to get right on, and give to it his full weight. It takes the whole ox, horns, hoofs and tail. That's the way it is in religion—by which we mean the service of God and man. It takes you—all the time; and the reward is work, and peace, and a satisfaction in your work that passeth all understanding. No more grinding fear, no more "bad days," no more wishing to die, no more nervous prostration. Just work and peace!

Did you ever have to keep house when your mother went away, when you did not know very well how to do things, and every meal sat like a weight on your young heart, and the fear was ever present with you that the bread would go sour or the house burn down, or burglars would come, or someone would take sick? The days were like years as they slowly crawled around the face of the old clock on the kitchen shelf, and even at night you could not forget the awful burden of responsibility.

But one day, one glorious day she came home, and the very minute you heard her step on the floor, the burden was lifted. Your work was very much the same, but the responsibility was gone, and cheerfulness came back to your eyes, and smiles to your face.

That is what it feels like when you "get religion." The worry and burden of life is gone. Somebody else has the responsibility and you work with a light heart. It is the responsibility of life that kills us, the worry, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety. How we envy the man who works by the day, just does his little bit, and has no care! This immunity from care may be ours if we link ourselves with God.

Think of Moses' mother! There she was hired to take care of her own son. Doing the very thing she loved to do all week and getting her pay envelope every Saturday night. So may we. God hires us to do our work for Him, and pays us as we go along—the only stipulation being that we do our best.