The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-01-15

man affairs. Generally speaking, they
have had no great tragedy Of their
own to suffer-that is rather differ
ent kind of problem and there is plenty
Of il, too7-but they are depressed bv
the tragedies all around them and the
apparent hopeleSsncSs Of finding a rem
edy for the multiplying ills of man.
There are those who have lost touch
with God on account of the world =
woe and are impatient when the sub
.ect of religion is mentioned; it seems
to me 50 trivial, so useless in face Of a
problem so vast and awful as that
which confronts the thoughtful mind
in the present dread hour The patter
of conventional phrases of comfort
falls upon unheeding ears; the deeps
remain undisturbed Instances abound
III which good work has been given up
because the doer can no longer con-
sclentiously believe in the adequacy of
the gospel that work is supposed to
commend as a panacea for human need
To look for once upon the horrors a
Red Cross stretcher bearer has to en-
counter from day to day remarked
one former churchgoer recently in the
writer g hearing, ''leaves one with
nothing to say; to come from the at
mosphere of home church into that
inferno is like passing from an arti-
ticlally heated orchid house into Jan
uary blast
This may well be, and there is good
and sufficient reason for it. Moreover,
when hope goes faith does not long
survive. Dark and troubled is the soul
that has ceased to look for good on the
earth. Chronic depression is fearful
thing, loosening of all the bonds that
bind to grandeur and beauty and de
hight. What the monks of old used to
call accldle is as great a besetment
today as ever-the tumbling down of
Ideals and high resolves, the loss of
ze5t and enthusiasm in God s service.
dlsenchantment with human nature and
human trust, WEAKNESS in well doing,
the doubt whether anything in life is
worth while. The bottom drops out of
existence when this spirit gains pos
session, as ii too readily can and does.
There are times when the hands fall
paralyzed by ones side, as it were.
times when will and resolution alike
fall and all one s moral horizons be-
!. come dreary and overcast. There needs
no war to make US acquainted with
these TO our grievous undoing; the
cruel days of peace can do it equally
well. We may be betrayed or forsaken
or have the principal incentive to good
snatched from us by some dastardIy
act. We seldom know how dependent
we are upon human love even for orr
fellowship with God till that love fails
US and we stand bereft of the iov of
spiritual comradeship. Never to be
happy, ever yearning, never satisfied.
ever lonely, never comforted, seeking
help and solace in vain-what won
der if the heart heats low and life
goes dispiritedly, glad to finish?''
The remedy. is to be found, first in
plucking out the root of the evil, and
secondly in staying the soul upon i'm
perishable foundations There is near
ly always an clement Of self love, self
worship, somewhere to be eliminated
To be in charity with one S self is
| right, as right as to be in charity VITA
others; to enthrone one = self at the
center of one s thoughts and aims is
wrong and leads to mischiefs hard to
trace. How fatal is self-pitys Give