THE LEADERSHIP OF HOPE.
By Christian Union
THE difference between taking counsel with one's fears and with one's hopes was practically illustrated twenty-five years ago in the campaigns of McClellan and Grant. Both were honest men, well-trained officers, and sincere patriots; but the one always waited on his apprehensions, and the other moved with his hopes. It is safe to say that no great enterprise was ever yet inaugurated, sustained, or completed in any other spirit than that of hope. The Suez Canal was not built, nor the ocean cable laid, nor the great war of a quarter of a century ago brought to a successful termination, by men who were easily discouraged. All these undertakings, and all undertakings of equal magnitude, have had their roots in hope. Nothing is ever to be gained by taking counsel with one's fears. Courage is the keynote of success—the music to which every attacking column that has ever surmounted a strong position has always marched. In the vicissitudes of life, which come not only to one's personal estate, but to one's affections, one's aspirations, and one's bodily health, there are recurring depressions, times of discouragement and almost of despair; these are unavoidable in every life, however resolutely directed. No one can avoid them; they seem to inhere in the order of growth. One secret of successful living is to learn to recognize them when they come, and to refuse to follow their promptings. No man ought ever to settle an important question when he is discouraged or depressed; he ought to recognize such a condition as something abnormal and unhealthful—a condition which makes wise judgment and right action impossible. If we learn to treat our times of depression and discouragement as symptoms of disease, and avoid deciding or acting when they are upon us—to look at them as something apart from our best and truest selves, we shall avoid the mistakes into which they will lead us, and we shall do much to overcome them. When depression is not distinctly physical, it is largely a matter of habit; it can be thrown off by force of will. When it is purely physical, it must be treated as a disease, and one must wait upon the return to health. But there is a great deal of depression that is a matter of feeling, and that can be overcome by fighting against it, and by treating it as if it were an unnatural and abnormal thing. A discouraged man is a defeated man. Many a man has given up in the moment of discouragement advantages which, if they had been pushed a little further, would have resulted in a permanent success. Many an enterprise has failed because at the critical moment, when courage was the essential thing, counsel was taken with fear, and the flag was struck which might have been successfully carried forward and planted on the citadel. The inspirations of life, those sudden revelations of things we may attain, are the children of hope; depression never yet gave birth to an inspiring thought or purpose. We only really live when we hope, and when hope leads us forward by its divine impulsion. If the good and evil angels of each were personified, hope would shine from the face of one and despair from the face of the other. To listen to the words of discouragement is to throw away one's strength and opportunity, to reject the crown of achievement. To wait on the counsel of hope is to strike resolutely through all difficulties and to grasp that success to which all men were born, if character matched faith, and faith kept locked hands with hope.—Christian Union.