What matter if I stand alone? 
  I wait with joy the coming years;
  My heart shall reap where it has sown,
  And garner up its fruit of tears.

  The waters know their own and draw
  The brook that springs in yonder height,
  So flows the good with equal law
  Unto the soul of pure delight.

  The stars come nightly to the sky;
  The tidal wave unto the sea;
  Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high
  Can keep my own away from me.

I have been wonderfully struck by the fact that in studying the Upanishads, and other sacred books of the East, there is practically no reference to the kind of worry that is the bane and curse of our Occidental world.  In conversation with the learned men of the Orient I find this same delightful fact.  Indeed they have no word in their languages to express our idea of fretful worry.  Worry is a purely Western product, the outgrowth of our materialism, our eager striving after place and position, power and wealth, our determination to be housed, clothed, and jeweled as well as our neighbors, and a little better if possible; in fact, it comes from our failure to know that life is spiritual not material; that all these outward things are the mere “passing show,” the tinsel, the gawds, the tissue-paper, the blue and red lights of the theater, the painted scenery, the mock heroes and heroines of the stage, rather than the real settings of the real life of real men and women.  What does the inventor, who knows that his invention will help his fellows, care about the newest dance, or the latest style in ties, gloves or shoes; what does the woman whose heart and brain are completely engaged in relieving suffering care if she is not familiar with the latest novel, or the latest fashions in flounced pantalettes?  Life is real, life is earnest, and this does not mean unduly solemn and somber, but that it deals with the real things rather than the paper-flower shows of the stage and the imaginary things of so-called society.

It is the fashion of our active, aggressive, material, Occidental civilization to sneer and scoff at the quiet, passive, and less material civilization of the Orient.  We despise—­that is, the unthinking majority do—­the studious, contemplative Oriental.  We believe in being “up and doing.”  But in this one particular of worry we have much to learn from the Oriental.  If happiness and a large content be a laudable aim of life how far are we—­the occidental world—­succeeding in attaining it?  Few there be who are content, and, as I have already suggested few there be who are free from worry.  On the other hand while active happiness may be somewhat scarce in India, a large content is not uncommon, and worry, as we Westerners understand it, is almost unknown.  Hence we need to find the happy mean between the material activity of our own civilization, and the mental passivity of that of the Orientals.  Therein will be found the calm serenity of an active mind, the reasonable acceptance of things as they are because we know they are good, the restfulness that comes from the assurance that “all things work together for Good to them that love God.”