New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-03-26
FIGHTING TROUBLE.

There can be no better subject for examlna-
ton III this Lcnten season of self-drill and
self study than that of the best way to meet
trouble. No man need hope to dodge it or
rid himself of it altogether whatever his pO-
sition, birth or circumstances, there it is lying
in wait somewhere for him i'll his path. 1t is
true it puts on a variety of shapes. TO one
man it comes in hcartrending grief, the death
perhaps OF the man or woman dearer to him
than his own soul-it is the flaming sword of
Apollyon who stands across his path and
cleaves him to the marrow. To another it
takes the shape of innumerable petty, nasty
trials. dyspepsia a sicllly or ill-tcmpered wife,
smoky chimneys-a cloud of unclean, bat
like disasters that flap about his way un-
ceaslngly and shut out the sunshine into one
perpetual twilight. This man fights poverty
all through his life that, with money which
he does not value, is disgraced by an ill-doing
son, or racked 10y ii neuralgia jaw, or
vainly tortured by a gnawing ambition
to push his way in some social clique.
Neither is there any use in comparing or
weighing these troubles one against another,
as we are apt to do, boasting how easily we
could shoulder our neighbours burthen. 1t is
the effect on the man, not the actual sharp
ness of the pain, that counts. If troublesome
stomach in one weak fellow ruins his temper,
racks his nerves and clouds his sense of Gods
goodness, it is as heavy a weight for him TO
carry as the death Of his son is to "a stronger
man, the amount of hurt to body and brain
being the same.
The thing being inevitable to every reader
of TIE TRIBUNE, the wisest course at the
outset would be for each one of them to make
up his mind to meet it, and i'll the surest
practicable way strangle and kill it. But
how? Nature, that agent of God whose work
is never neglected or undOne, has fitted each
one of them with some especial kind of armOr
against trouble belonging to his character,
just as she has provided every animal, from
the lion to the grub, with peculiar claws, poison,
color or wings as a defence against foes
Some men are endowed with an alligator
stolidity, thickness of hide on which troubles
which would overwhelm a weaker brother pelt
and run off like water; others Especially women)
have a keen interest in present trihes which
duls them to great shocks the cut Of their new
mourning draws their mind from the stark
body yonder in the coffin. Others again are
gifted with silly, bubbling cheerfumess, the
result of shallOwncss and vanity, in which pain
is diluted and washed away while there are
men of powerful intellect and intense self-es-
TEEN whose belief i'll their own strength car
ries them with head erect long way through
the slough There is another class, like the
last in brain power and cOnceit, but fewer in
number of a morbid, self-cOntemplative habit,
who spend most of their lives in philosOphizing
Oh their own probable action in case of dan
ger. Hamlet was one type of these, Goethe
another When the actual danger comes they
are 80 engIossed in speculation IA to how
they Will act that they do not act at ALL and
really feel very little.
No man, we suppose, was ever born with
that trust in a Power which oyerrulcs trouble
and which is the only real defence against it.
Nature does not give that We must acquire it
for ourselves. Now what is a man to do when
disaster meets him ! Nature will invariably
throw up this ldiosyncratic barrier for him. But
that is not enough What can he do for
himself Much may be gained by few
minutes Of cool reflection on other troubles
which have come and gone. They did not
last They often turned ont great advantages.
What a stroke of good luck, after all, was
that heartrending agony which we endured
at sixteen. The toughest hour is only sixty
minutes long. Shut your teeth and keep 81
lent, and the clock will soon strike.
Another tonic il the reflection that we have
no right to load others with our misery. Why
should We saddle our govt, our disgrace. our