Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 16, 19 October 1945, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the Wbakatnne Ministers' Association!.

VOICES OF THE NIGHT—AND MORNING By An Octogenarian "Sweet are the uses of adversity!" This Shakespearean line came to me recently as 1 lay abed in a dictatorial atmosphere of M.D.'s drugs and "Thou shalt nots"! It may be that one has to be laid aside ere some of the most difficult lessons of life can be learned. Even the aftermath of pain may clear mental fogs; sharpen the faculties; give deeper meanings' to life's experiences; and humour, that genial quality that takes the stings out of daily jars and rebuffs may be quickened . But there were cheerful interludes in those weary hours when sleep had deserted me. . Poems learned long ago came back like homing pigeons. There were deep thoughts from Shakespeare; verses from Whittier—the poet who believed that "the, song the sarts of morning sung had never died away." Robust inspiring slogans came from Browning: "Then welcome each rebuff that turns earth's smoothness rough." And: "We fall to rise are baffled to fight better." Perhaps never before did I understand so well Wordsworth's lines: For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood They flash upon the inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude. In "the dumb hours clothed with blacky" Gray's "Elegy" was a great solace. Once upon a time I had memorised the most of it and now, it passed before me in a series of pictures accompanied by soothing word-music: "the lowing herd; the weary ploughman; the moping owl." R.L.S. has been often in our thoughts lately. I recalled what he said when writing to a friend: "For fourteen years I have not had a day's real health; I have wakened sick

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

and gone to bed weary . . . the Powers have .so willed it that my battlefield should be this dingy inglorious one of the bed and physicbottle!" And vet he longed to "radiate happiness"! And bow bravely he lived up to his three favourite virtues — and courage! When someone spoke of that thrilling yarn "Treasure Island/' L said, ''Oh! I must read it again for I have quite forgotten how the boy got out of the barrel!" Stories of other heroic souls of the "bed and physic-bottle" species came to mind. When Thomas Hood had a mustard plaster put on his thin chesty he "It seems u lot of mustard for so very little meat!" And Charles Lamb in whimsical mood tells his friend Edward Moreton, "1 have two cough and cramp. We slcep } three in a bed!" I'm afraid I must have been "girnin"" about my slow physical progress recently lor the other one of us (to whom I have given the honourably lettei M.A. (ministering angel) said in that wise and couthie way of hers: "You must remember you have a stey brae to climb." 1 remembered the Scots proverb: "A stout hert to a stev brae." And then I fell a.thinking. People speak of old folks as "going down the hill." Burns' lines: Now we maun totter doon John And hand in hand we'll go '9 And sleep thegither at the. (it! may have helped to foster this idea; but is it not better to think of the long last mile as an onward upward ascent? As Christina Rossctti has said: Docs the road wind upward all ' the way ? Yes to the very end. But though rough and toilsome at times, when the summit is gained Avhat a glorious vision there will be of the lovely Land of Everlasting -Suring—the Land o' the leal!