Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1896-07-08
The Brave Fight.

When Paul saw, he thanked God. and took
xviii, IS
What is needed to give us good cheer
in life is courage with faith behind it. |
Courage without faith is not courage
at all, but merely desperation, and
there are many people in the world
who live desperately and even reckless
ly because they have no faith.
The man who is most to be pitied is
he who asks himself what all these
things mean which go to make up his
experience and gets no answer to the
question On the other hand, the man
to be most envied is he who has dis
covered that there is plan in the uni,
verse of which he is a part, and that
nothing of ill fortune can come to him
which does not bring with it com
pensation, and nothing of good fortune
that does not bring responsibility and
duty.
Religion always produces courage,
and is therefore a prime necessity. We
may not change events, but we can
change our attitude toward them.
There are struggles and sorrows at ev
cry turn in the road. and they cannot
be avoided. Time spent in devising a
way to escape from them is time vast
be mastered by them. The chief value
of religion, therefore, lies in the fact
that it teaches us how to face them and
make them subserve our spiritual de
yelopment. Philosophy and science
can do a great deal for US in this dire c
ton, but, after all, the really religious
man has a better, a more cheering and
more hopeful outlook than any other
that lives.
Now, there is a courage of the battle
field, and it is admirable. To read of
the soldier who exposes himself to dam
ger without fiinching is to make the
nerves tingle and the cheeks flush with
excitement. He counts death as moth
ing. does not even give it passing
thought, and when he falls cries as did
the French officer, ''Pish it is no mat
ter; we have won the fight Such
things show us what human nature is
made of, how grand it is and how self
sacrificing it may become when great
thought burns in the brain and noble
emotion fills the heart.
There is counterpart to this physi
cal courage, for there is another kind of
battle to be fought, and in that battle
we must be either towards or heroes.
The events which Providence ordains,
and which occur in every household,
require courage different in kind from
that of tie soldier, and very much
higher. To die on the field is certain
ly very noble, but to live patiently.
quietly, sweetly and with resignation
is very much harder than to die. To
calmly meet your fate, to bravely do
your work from day to day, to bend
your shoulders to the inevitable bur
den, and SO force it to contribute to
your strength of character, one must
have learned great secret to be able
to do all this, and that secret can only
be whispered into his ears by messen
gers from the throne of God. The
ideal man, the man of calmest soul.
the man of moral valor is he who has
found some means of communicating
with heaven and whose spirit is fed by
faith as his body is nourished with
food.
You are not without troubles, and
you never will be until you fall asleep.
Sometimes they are like an easterly
storm, which simply renders you I'm
comfortab BILE and puts you to inconven
fence, and then again they are like the
cyclone which comes in irresistible
fury and tears everything up by the
roots. You have business perplexities
which render your nights sleepless, or
you have domestic arrangements
which throw the home into gloom, or
the sharp pangs of bereavement flood
-FOUR eyes with tears and drown your
heart in grief. All these things are a
part OF life, and no human being has
ever been exempted. Why it is SO I
cannot tell, neither can the wlsest of
us all.
We must take courage, though, for
the fight must be won, not lost. And
this victory does not depend on
chance. Hard as the struggle may be.
and however prolonged, you cannot
be defeated if you get your tactics
from on high. No man can teach you
how to become victor, but God can
and He will. You alone may not be
able to do much, but you and He can
do all things.
Keep up your courage by adding to
your faith. Wherever you are, what
ever you may be called on to suffer,
your faith will give you strength,
while your doubts will make you weak.
The road is sometimes long and
weary one. but if year by year you see
heaven more clearly because every
step you take brings you nearer to the
mountain top, and if your soul is
mellowed rather than embittered by
events, your life will have a radiance
like that of the full moon at night,
and in your heart there will be a peace
which only the consciousness that
rest is close at hand can give Cour
age. dear soul, for to morrow will be a
bright and glorious day.
GEORGE HI. HEPWORTH.