"DON'T CROSS A BRIDGE UNTIL YOU COME TO IT."
There was once a man and a woman who planned to go and spend the day at a friend's house, which was some miles distant from their own. So one pleasant morning they started out to make the visit, but they had not gone far before the woman remembered a bridge they had to cross which was very old, and was said not to be safe, and she immediately began to worry about it. "What shall we do about that bridge?" she said to her husband. "I shall never dare to go over it, and we can't get across the river any other way." "Oh," said the man, "I forgot that bridge; it is a bad place; suppose it should break through, and we should fall into the water and be drowned!" "Or even," said his wife, "suppose you should step on a rotten plank, and break your leg, what would become of me and of the baby?" "I don't know," said the man, "what would become of any of us, for I couldn't work, and we should all starve to death." So they went on, worrying and worrying, till they got to the bridge, when lo and behold! they saw that since they had been there last, a new bridge had been built, and they crossed over it in perfect safety, and found they might have spared themselves all their anxiety. Now that is just what the proverb means; never waste your worrying on what you think may possibly be going to happen. Half the time the troubles we look for do not come, and, as I said, it is never worth while to waste worrying.—Youth's Companion.