ntary. Here, for instance, is a man surrounded by all
manner of calamity and misfortune; and some well-meaning but foolish
friend comes to him, and, without giving him a single reason for the
advice, says, 'Cheer up! my friend.' Why should he cheer up? What is
there in his circumstances to induce him to fall into any other mood? Or
some unquestionable peril is staring him full in the face, coming
nearer and nearer to him, and some well-meaning, loose-tongued friend,
says to him, 'Do not be afraid!'--but he _ought_ to be afraid. That is
about all that worldly wisdom and morality have to say to us, when we
are in trouble and anxiety. 'Shut your eyes very hard, and make believe
very much, and you will not fear.' An impossible exhortation! Just as
well bid a ship in the Bay of Biscay not to rise and fall upon the wave,
but to keep an even keel. Just as well tell the willows in the river-bed
that they are not to bend when the wind blows, as come to me, and say to
me, 'Be careful about nothing.' Unless you have a great deal more than
that to say, I must be, and I ought to be, anxious, about a great many
things. Instead of anxiety being folly, it will be wisdom; and the folly
will consist in not opening our eyes to facts, and in not feeling
emotions that are appropriate to the facts which force themselves
against our eyeballs. Threadbare maxims, stale, musty old commonplaces
of unavailing consolation and impotent encouragement say to us, 'Do not
be anxious.' We try to stiffen our nerves and muscles in order to bear
the blow; or some of us, more basely still, get into a habit of
feather-headed levity, making no forecasts, nor seeing even what is
plainest before our eyes. But all that is of no use when once the hot
pincers of real trouble, impending or arrived, lay hold of our hearts.
Then of all idle expenditures of breath in the world there is none to
the wrung heart more idle and more painful than the one that says, Be
anxious about nothing.

II. So we turn to the only course that makes the apparent impossibility
possible.

Paul goes on to direct to the mode of feeling and action which will
give exemption from the else inevitable gnawing of anxious forethought.
He introduces his positive counsel with an eloquent 'But,' which implies
that what follows is the sure preservative against the temper which he
deprecates; 'But in everything by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.'