On Solving Our Own Problems

IN LOOKING back upon the pioneers and pilgrims of all times past, one cannot help being moved by how much they sometimes did with so little, and, by comparison, how little some of us sometimes do with so much. Those who succeeded best with least material advantage were usually those who were driven by firm conviction. Usually they could have lived more comfortably in established places_that is, more comfortably as to the physical man, but not more comfortably as to conscience, for the compromising of principles and convictions never brings comfort inside, where men have to live with themselves and all their thoughts. And so they ventured forth in the spirit of self-dependence as to the favors of men, but with great dependence on the providence of God, and set about to do what had to be done. Now those who are breaking the wilderness a thousand miles from populous places have no one to run to the minute life becomes difficult or the minute problems become perplexing. So they did as men have always done when faced with necessity: they solved their problems with what they had. Now comes our day, with all of its realities, all of its problems, all of its perplexities, and we are led to ask what we would do if the props and the pampering were taken from us. It would be shocking to begin with, of course. There would be much confusion, much consternation. Walking is always difficult to one long accustomed to riding. But when the machinery breaks down, forgotten energies and common sense and neglected resourcefulness come gloriously alive again, and some of the artificial props which we seem to be so desperately dependent upon are not missed so much nor so long as might seem to be the case. Our sons have proved this over and over again in the unexpected extremities of war. And, given reason enough for doing so, the same stuff that made men and women self-reliant in the pioneering past would make them so again.