Читать книгу Levels of Living - Henry Frederick Cope - Страница 8

Who has not cried out, in haste but still in anguish: "Alas! All things are against me; foes are many and friends there are none!" The roads to pessimism are many; but surely this is the shortest one, to get to think that life is but a conflict waged single-handed against great odds, a long story of struggle, difficulties, pains, disappointments, temptations, failures, wounds, ending only in death.

Even though you escape that chronic jaundiced view of life there are seasons of depression when it seems easy to get out of bed on the wrong side and to plow all day into stumps instead of in the good, clear ground. Ever we need the vision that Elisha of old gave to his young man, to see the hills about us alive with our allies. Otherwise it is easy to conclude the fates fight against us.

How slight is the evidence on which men base their gloomy conclusions! The pessimist always argues from a single instance to a general law. If he strikes a poor peach on top he throws the whole basket away—or sells them as soon as he can. He insists on sitting square on the cactus bunch when there is only one on the whole bench-land. He then becomes an authority on cactus. If he can discover a few foes on the horizon he is blind to a regiment of friends close at hand.

But the seers, our poets and teachers, have a wider vision; they seek the glory rather than the gloom and they tell us that every man has more friends than foes. This is the song of those who told us long ago of Providence, the one who backs a man up and fights on his side and furnishes him in the hour of need. This is the song of Lowell, Tennyson, Whittier, and Browning. Life is not a lone-handed fight against unnumbered foes; it is not a losing fight to any who will fight it well.

Every force in this world works with the man who seeks the good. This is a right world and only he who fights the right faces the unconquerable. A man may meet rebuffs, battle's tides may sweep back and forth, but in the end, as it has ever been in all the long story of man's conflict with nature, so in the conflict with every other foe, he is bound to win. This is as true in the individual life of every fighter as nature and history show it to be in universal life.

On our side there is the great world of the unseen. Little do we know of it, but still that little gives us confidence to believe it is peopled with our allies. Our fairest hopes of good angels may be delusions as to details, but they are essentially true, being born of an eternal verity.

The gospel of good hope declares there is One over all, the friend of all; greater is He that is with you than any against you; greater is He than your temptations, your adversaries, your difficulties, and your sorrows. This was what the great Teacher came to tell men, that God was on their side, seeking to help them, loving, caring, coöperating, leading them into the life of victory over every enemy.

Let a man face life in this confidence and he is invincible. He goes forth and an unseen army goes with him. He gains the seer's vision to see even the plotting of the enemy and the forces that fight against him all working for his good. From many combats he gains strength for the decisive struggle. All things work together for good. He serves the right, the truth, the things that are eternal; he fights for character, for manhood, and the good; and the eternal forces that rule the universe fight by his side. He beholds the hills full of the hosts of heaven; though he has no time to enjoy the vision he knows they are there, his allies, his assurance of ultimate victory.