HEROISM IN DAILY LIFE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1938, Page 9

HEROISM IN DAILY LIFE

FACING UP TO DIFFICULTIES

We usually think of the hero as the man or woman who does the unusual in literature, a T. E. Lawrence in life, or a Douglas Fairbanks on the screen, writes Dr E. D. Bebb in his life of St Paul entitled “The Man Who Got There.” This is wrong; such a man may be a hero or not, but the wore reliable criterion of heroism is the way in which a person faces up to the things with which everyone is familiar. Living on the same level as others, he does not expect to receive special treatment, bqt does the actions which belong to the common life and shares the everyday interests of his neighbours. Yet such is the force of his personality and the soundness of his character that he leads and others follow. He does not bother about his dignity, for he has the true dignity of personal worth. He knows that life is a hard and dangerous affair, yet he glories in it, because the difficulties of life are the salt by which his soul is purified. He takes part with others, and allows them to take part with him, for his superiority over others involves nq sacrifice of his equality with them. The hero is the ordinary person quitting himself like a man.