Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1917 — CARE FLOURISHING [ARTICLE]

CARE FLOURISHING

The Joy That Comes With the Revival of an Old Loyalty and Love. Mr. Howells once said there were two kinds of pleasure, the pleasure of surprise and the pleasure of recognition, We need not. enter into analysis or discussion of which is the keener pleasure. Analysis spoils no little of life’s happiness. But - there Is nodoubt about it that our pleasures may be pretty well grouped under those two heads, the pleasure of the brand-new and the delight of the long lost but found again. Paul wrote to his friends in Philippi that he rejoiced in the Lord greatly that their care of him had flourished again, and, as always, in his lightest illusions he set vibrating great, fundamental chords in the human heart. No one in all the world ever had such lightness of touch as Paul, no one could handle the gravest themes as he could and lighten them up in a half-dozen homely words. With his life full of happenings which came in such swift succession that with most of us the latest sweeps away the earlier, he always had room in his heart for a renewal of the old ties. Probably a great normal life will always have this double capacity for new friends and new experiences and for old andtrue friends and past experiences. Lesser folks take up pretty exclusively with either one or the other. But interest revived is always a beautiful sight, and always has the power to thrill us. In the experience of all of us there come times when we hardly know how some connection or loyalty or attachment drops out of our life. We no longer seem to care. The letter-writing ceases between two friends, and they would be at a loss to say just how it all happened, but there is the fact, they go on without each other and silence reigns. Time was when such a thing seemed impossible, but they have forgotten, and the relationship seems almost dead. Not a little of our sadness in this world is occasioned by the strange way in which loyalties that were once as the breath of life seemingly lose their force. We feel it in the chureh when someone who for years was devoted and ardent in that great relationship has dropped it all and no longer cares. Sometimes the defection spreads abroad so widely that people are heavyhearted about it. With each one of"us it is high time that some care which has for too long lacked expression should begin to flourish again. It may seem little to you, but that letter you have meant to write for months or even years will make as much difference as anything you can possibly do if you will go and do it today. No new thing that can happen to your friend will compare in relish with that intimation that your interest in him is alive and active. There is a visit you have intended to make for altogether too long, and the more you think about it the more difficult it gets. But you may appear at that place this very week, and with your appearance there will set in currents of renewal and interest and ’freshness that seem all out of proportion to what you have done. It is not the great tragedies which make life so disappointing. It Is far more the lack of the word that might perfectly w’ell have been spoken, the letter which might have been written, the visit that might have been paid. It takes very little sometimes to set life at the full again, and our hearts do leap with joy it is more often than not because something old has flourished again. The pleasure of new members In a church is great, but the joy of seeing return those who have been cold, dead, and indifferent, showing some yearning, . acknowledging that they have missed the rest, “turning again home,” has a unique power to gladden the heart of everyone. It is beyond their deserts, logically they ought not to have any such power, but the fact is that they,do. It is so good to know that that attachment which seemed almost killed to the roots is still alive. There are strange years in people’s lives which we know not how to account for, when the old loyalties seem to fail and no influence avails to revive them. We have to let people alone sometimes, but let us not believe the attachment is quite dead. Neither let us believe that our solicitude, our care, our interest, is of no mhment to them. Perhaps our highest tribute and serv, ice to many such is still to treat them as if they did care. We never really know when men care the most. They have a sort of pride in letting us go on without a response and making us feel thaFwe'are“aTdne in our interest, but all the time they are being influenced, arid our care is not wasted. After all, people do look up to affection. ■There is no sweeter or more rewarding moment in life than when suddenly there leaps forth the sign that the care of some heart has turned again toward what it had forsaken and forgotten. We need not compare too precisely the two pleasures of surprise and recognition, but there is no thrill or joy that this life has to give greater than the old love, which we fancied almost perished, appearing again. 4 ' . 1 And the beauty of it all is that they can flourish again. They may seem sometimes to perish almost to the roots, and then they come forth a root out of a dry ground. And best of all, their best life may even be. after that long and blighting frost .—Sunday School Times.