The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1918-12-28
At TURN OF ROAD
Beginning of New Year Good
Time for Retrospection.
inspiration for All Of Us In Reallza.
ton That Things Which Worried
and Saddened Were Only
Trifles.
BY WIN. GEORGE JORDAN.


THE beginning Of the new year is
a natural, sharp turn in the road
Of time. Here we may wisely
rest a while, and in thespeace and
quiet and calm Of self-comnaunion see
the long stretch of the road of a sin
gle twelvemonth. It is built imperish-
ably of short steps of living-from mo-
ment to moment.
Many of the purposes for which we
labored and struggled, in our narrow,
close, selfish absorption, seem poor,
petty and puny when seen from the
turn of the road. The structure of
some effort we thought marble now
is shown in it's sickening sham as a
nasty affair Of show and pretense,
made Of staff, that could not stand the
wear and tear and test of time. 1t was
not built on square lines of character.
OF the best that was in us. 1t lacked
strength, sincerity, simplicity. The ma
terlal was made up of policy and sell
dshness put together on hurried plans.
1t was failure; it cannot be rebuilt :,
but 1t is worth only passing regret
and realization Of the lesson of it's
nonsuccess-at the turn of the road.
The look backward from the turn of
the road should inspire us by making
vivid to us how much of what we fear
ed never came to pass. The tyranny
Of worry, that dominated us and held
US for months trembling slaves to
weak fear, that dissipated our energy,
dulled our thinking, and darkened our
mental vision, at the very hours that
should have given us fullest control
Of our best, is now seen as an enemy
to truce individual growth. It means
harder fight in the unending battle
against worry and grief.
The broader view of life reveals that
the only great things In life are trifles;
that what panied us most, saddened
our hearts, and turned our hopes to
ashes were only trifles-cumulating in
to overwhelming Importance. A cruel
word, an unkindness, a little misun-
Outstanding may darken day and sep
arate us from one we love or may pet
r1fy US into a mood Of doubt and de-
spafr. The most joyous moments of
life, the high lights in the pictures of
memory, may too be only trifles of
Kindness, fine expressions of love, sim
pie tributes of confidence and trust
that make the very heart smile-as we
remember.
Nature Is constantly giving us new
turns Of the road. It may be BIRTH
day or some general anniversary In the
cycle Of the year. 1t may be some red
letter day in the private calendar of
our emotions or some date eloquent to
us as telling Of some joyous FIRST" or
some pathetic 'last" time in the sacred
diary of the heart. It may be a supreme
sorrow, an agonizing sense Of loss, the
coming OF great joy, the closing of
some epoch In our lives, the proving of
the actually of something too awful
for US even to have feared, some exult-
ant half-hour that changes irrevocably
all our living. These and numberless
other days, hours or single moments
may bring us alone to-the turn of the
road.
Then may come one Of those rare
moments Of life, Of fine spiritual dis
cernment, of luminous revelation, of
coming to ones highest self, when the
sordid, the mean, the temporary, the
selfish are stripped in an instant of
their garish shams and tinsel. Then
the real, the true, the eternal stand out
IN their majesty, bathed in the splendor
and glow Of the revealing of truth. In
such a spirit the very Jingle Of the in
SEPARATION Of the infinite fills us. We
seem born again to new, better and
greater things, for we have seen the
divine vision-at the turn of the road.