"What's the use of worrying?
It never was worth while!
Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag
And Smile, Smile, Smile!"

Not a bad chorus, either, for the trenches! You can't stop a shell
from bursting in your trench, even if Mr. Rawson can! You can't stop
the rain, or prevent a light from going up just as you are half-way
over the parapet ... so what on earth is the use of worrying? If you
can't alter things, you must accept them, and make the best of them.

Yet some men do worry, and by so doing effectually destroy their peace
of mind without doing any one any good. What is worse, it is often the
religious man who worries. I have even heard those whose care was for
the soldier's soul, deplore the fact that he did not worry! I have
heard it said that the soldier is so careless, realizes his position
so little, is so hard to touch! And, on the other hand, I have heard
the soldier say that he did not want religion, because it would make
him worry. Strange, isn't it, if Christianity means worry and anxiety,
and if it is only the heathen who is cheerful and free from care? Yet
the feeling that this is so undoubtedly exists, and it must have some
foundation. Perhaps it is one of the subjects which ought to engage
the attention of Churchmen in these days of "repentance and hope."

Of course, worrying is about as un-Christian as anything can
be. [Greek: "mê merimnate tê psychê umôn"]--"Don't worry about your
life"--is the Master's express command. In fact, the call of Christ is
a call to something very like the cheerfulness of the soldier in the
trenches. It is a call to a life of external turmoil and internal
peace. "I came not to bring peace, but a sword"; "take up your