Facing Life

In prosperous times we are apt to forget that we are all brethren. It seems to require now and then a period of hard times to keep alive in the world have the sense of our common brotherhood. Perhaps this is the meaning of "these hard times" we are having now. Undoubtedly our wealth was tending to desocialize us, to segregate us to divide us into social cliques, into antagonistic groups into classes and masses, into plutocrats and proletarians; and perhaps the distressing conditions that have come upon us are meant to break up these divisions, to democratize us make us realize that we are all indeed brethren.

"Failure is a great leveler," said one who had been reduced to hardships by adverse fortune. It is a bitter truth. The unity we break with our successes we cement with our failures. As another writes: "We separate in the light of day, but we congregate in the shadows of night. We go our various ways under the tranquil sky, but when the storm breaks we seek a common center in search of the courage of companionship. There is a difference in laughter, but there is brotherhood in tears."

There are many lessons we learn in the school of adversity, and not the least of these is the lesson of brotherhood. When reduced by adversity a man forgets the lofty tone and supercilious language of prosperity. Reverses teach us to be more humble, more sympathetic, more kindly, more brotherly. There is fellowship in trouble. There is democracy in poverty. There is a tremendous social gravity in adversity. Prosperity in all of its forms of manifestation is deficient in the spirit of brotherliness and comradeship, and often adversity is the only thing that can correct this deficiency.

Aaron and Moses, though brothers in the flesh, were never brothers in heart until their brotherhood was cemented in the wilderness. It seems as though we all have to meet in some wilderness to learn the meaning of being brothers. "All ye are brethren." But to many of us that means little, if anything, as long as we are prosperous and things are going easily and well with us. We never discover our common brotherhood until we are drawn together in some common sorrow or calamity. A superlative lesson that comes to us out of the hard times from which we suffer today, is that of the brotherhood of man. Le us heed the lesson. Let us be brethren.