The Prairie Schooner Part 9

If I could pay any greater tribute than this to life in the open I would do it; and if there were a possible love story in this record I would ignore it because, while it might entertain and please some tastes, it would not answer the main purpose of these tales, namely:

To demonstrate that as long as there is life there is hope, especially if the spark of life is properly fanned in a salubrious, glorious and vigorous climate.

"As long as there is life there is hope!" But after all is it not truer to say "As long as there is hope there is life?"

Hope is the centerpiece of the familiar trio--Faith, Hope and Charity--and not the least one of these virtues. It is practical to be hopeful and to order our lives in the spirit of hopefulness; the world will be better for our hopefulness, especially in these depressing times. Moreover, it is a Christian duty to be hopeful.

"Hope," says the Rev. Julian K. Smyth, head of the Swedenborgian church in the United States, "is an affection of the will, and the will is ever in the desire to act; thus hope is not only a lively virtue, but a heroic and even a practical one."

It is a good rule of life never to be discouraged no matter what the misfortune, disappointment or mistake. Life will have been a success to one who lives in hopefulness, for life will have been lived happily through many human failures and errors. Life in the world of the flesh is a battle which, if well fought--if we have faith in the Divine Providence--means a victory over what we call Death, for Death is in truth not the End, but the--

BEGINNING.