The Chronicle PUBLISHED DAILY. LEVIN. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1915. DARE TO STAND ALONE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 6 February 1915, Page 2

The Chronicle PUBLISHED DAILY. LEVIN. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1915. DARE TO STAND ALONE.

Many of the greatest men in liistoiT never discovered what they had in them unti' they lost everything but their pluck and grit, or until some great misfortune overtook them and they were " driven to desperation to invent a way out of the dilemma. Giants are made i in the stern school of necessity. They are giants because they have been conquerors of difficulties, supreme masters in difficult situations. They have acquired the strength of the obstacles they have overcome. Many of our great men never got a glimpse of their I roal power until some great panic or misfortune swept their property away and knocked their crutches from under them. Many men and women never discovered their ability until everything they thought would help them to success had been taken away from them —until they had been stripped of everything thai they held dear in life. Our greatest power, our highest possibility, lies so deep in our natures that it often. takes a tremendous emergency, a powerfal opportunity, to call it out. Tt is only when we feol that all bridges behind us are burned, all retreat cut off, and that we have no outside aid to lean upon, that we discover our full inherent power. As long as we get outside help we never know our own resources. How many young men and young women owe their success to some great misfortune, which cut off a competence : the death of a relative, the loss of business or home, or some other great calamity, whioh threw them on their own resources and compelled them to fight for themselves. Young men suddenly forced by accident or death into positions of tremendous responsibility are often not the same men after six months. Hundreds of men in this great war are discovering their pluck and grit, which in ordinary ihum-arum life would have lain dormant. They have developed strong, manly qualities which no on* ever thought they possessed. Responsibility and opportunity nns made splendid men of them. The eamo may bo said; of the women who are out on the baftle-leld as Red Orosi nurses. People wno a.re never thrust into responsive positions never develop their real strength. This is one reason why it is so rave to find very strong m«n and women among those who have spent their lives in subordi- I nate positions—in the service of others. They go through lifo comparative weaklings because their powers have nevrr been tested or developed by having great responsibility thrust upon them. They have simply carried out somebody else's programme. They have never learned to stand alone—to think for themselves—to act for themselves. There is nothing more misleading than the philosophy that if there is anything in a young man or woman it will come out. It may—it may not. It depends largely upon circumstances, upon the presence or absence of any anibitiimarousing. a grit-awakening environment. Give a man or a woman r*vsponsibility; leave {hem to themseivos and the demand will bring out what there is in them. It will call out their ingenuity, their resourcefulness, their -reliance, their power to accomplish.

To every young man and woman wo say should responsibility fall upon vou don't shirk it, but welcome it gladly. Shoulder it; carry it. You will be better mentally, morally, physically, and you will become a power among your fellow-men. "Keep on climbing up!"