The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-11-21
W Oh B Y.
BY oRIsoN SWEET MARDEN.


One who could rid the world of
worry would render greater service to
the race than all of the inventors and
discoverers that ever lived.
We Americans pity ignorant sava-
ges who live in terror of their cruel
gods, their demons which keep them
in abject slavery, but we ourselves
are the slaves of a demon which blasts
Our hopes, blights our happiness,
casts its hideous shadow across all our
pleasures, destroys Our sleep, mars
our health, and keeps us in misery
most of our lives.
This monster dogs US from the
cradle to the grave. There is no oc-
casion so sacred but it is there. Un-
hidden it comes to the wedding and
the funeral alike. It is at every re-
ception, every banquet; it occupies a
seat at every table.
No human intellect can estimate
the unutterable havoc and ruin
wrought by worry. 1t has forced
genius to do the work of mediocrity /;
it has caused more failures, more
broken hearts, more blasted hopes,
than any other one cause since the
dawn of the world.
What have not men done under the
pressure of worry! They have plung-
ed into all sorts of vice; have become
drunkards, drug fends; have sold
their very souls in their efforts to
escape this monster.
Think of the homes which it has
broken up; the ambitions it has
ruined; the hopes and prospects it
has blighted Think of the suicide
victims of this demon If there is any
devil in existence, is it not worry,
with all its attendant progeny of
evils?
Yet, in spite of all the tragic evils
that follow in its wake, visitor from
another world would get the impress
sion that worry is one of our dearest
most helpful friends so closely do we
hug it to ourselves and so loath are
we to part from 1t.
Is it not unaccountable that people
who know perfectly we'll that success
and happiness both depend on keep
ing themselves in condition to get the
most possible out of their energies
should harbor in their minds the
enemy of this very success and hap
piness7 Is it not strange that they
should form this habit of anticipating
evils that will probably never come,
when they know that anxiety and
fretting will not only rob them of
peace of mind and strength and abil-
ity to do their work, but also of pre-
cious years of life
Many strong man is tied down,
like Gulliver, by Lilliputians-bound
hand and foot by the little worries
and vexations he has never learned to
conquer.
What would be thought of a busi-
ness man who would keep in his SER
vice employees known to have been
robbing him for years, stealing lit
tie here and little there every day
Yet one may be keeping in his men,
tai business house, at the very source
of his power, a thief infinitely worse
than one who merely steals money or
material things; thief who robs
him of energy, saps his vitality, and
bankrupts him of all that makes life
worth while.
We borrow trouble; endure all OUT
lives the woe of crossing and recross-
ing bridges weeks and years before
we come to them; do disagreeable
tasks mentally over and over again
before we reach them anticipate our
drndgery and constantly suffer from
the apprehension of terrible thing:
that never happen.
/ know women who never open q
telegram without trembling, for they
feel sure it will announce the death o.
friend or some terrible disaster. II
their children have gone for a sail OF
a picnic, they are never easy mo-
ment during their absence they work
themselves into fever of anxiety fol
fear that something will happen tc
them.
Many mother fritters away more
energy in useless frets and fears fol
her children, in nervous strain ovel
this or that, than she uses for hel
daily routine of domestic work. She
wonders why she is so exhausted a
the close of the day, and never dream!
that she has thrown away the greater
part OF her force.
Is it not strange that people will
persist in allowing little worries
petty vexations, and unnecessary fric
tions to grind life away at such ;
fearful rate that old age stares then
in the face in middle life? Look a
the women who are shriveled anC
shrunken and aged at thirty, not be
cause of the hard work they hav'
done, or the real troubles they hav'
had, but because of habitual fretting
which has helped nobody, but ha
brought discord and unhappiness t.
their homes.
Somewhere 1 read of worrying
woman who made list of the unfor
tunate events and happenings whicl
she felt sure would come to pass ant
be disastrous to her happiness ant
welfare. The list was lost, and t
her amazement, when she recovered
it, long time afterwards, she foun'
that not a single unfortunate expert
ence in the whole catalogue of disas