BELIEVE IN YOUR FRIENDS

Shannon News, 11 September 1928, Page 4

BELIEVE IN YOUR FRIENDS

WHEN A LITTLE FLATTERY IS WISE. People generally live up to our ideas of them. If you require much of a map, the chances are that he, will try to meet that requirement. You pay a tribute to the manhood or womanhood of an individual every time-you show belief in him; and since oven the lowest has a spark of bigness in his nature, he eannot but fie touched by' that belief. It is, if you will, a subtle sort of flattery to expect goodness and truth and wisdom from poor human beings, but it is flattering in the right direction; it is not selfish; it tends to aid the flattered, and not the flatterer. Cynieism and disbelief are, on the other hand, an invitation to the cowardly. They are nothing more than a eondoncment of wrong. To the man who expects nothing, nothing will be realised. Do you care to prove to a man that you are manly if he sheers at you for a fool and suspects a darker motive for your goodness? Not so. But do you not feel bigger and better with a soul who believes in the inherent good of the race and of you as an individual?

The lesson is plain. Not only attempt to reach a higher mark in your own living, but be one of those cheerful souls who believe in the people about them. Require of your friend? that they act wisely. Show some trust in their motives. Believe in their virtues and goodness until you have absolute proof in the other direction. So will you be giving them a push up the hill, instead of like the cynic, continually dragging them down .by the coattails. The cynic may tell you that you are foolish, he .may laugh at your innoccnse; never mind/' his belief is no. more philosdphy, and it has the added disadvantage of not being chbcrful. Belief is positive, disbelief is negative, and positiveness is the most bracing philosophy.