Some teachers worry their pupils until the latter fail to do the work they are competent to do; and the want of success of many an ambitious teacher can often be attributed to his, her, worrying disposition.  Remember, therefore, that when you worry you are making others unhappy as well as yourself, you are putting a damper, a blight, upon other lives as well as your own, you are destroying the efficiency of other workers as well as your own, you are robbing others of the joy of life which God intended them freely to possess.  So that for the sake of others, as well as your own, it becomes an imperative duty that you

QUIT YOUR WORRYING.

CHAPTER XXIV

WORRY VERSUS INDIFFERENCE

The aim and object of all striving in life should be to grow more human, more humane, less selfish, more helpful to our fellows.  Any system of life that fails to meet this universal need is predestined to failure.  When, therefore, I urge upon my readers that they quit their worrying about their husbands or wives, sons and daughters, neighbors and friends, the wicked and the good, I do not mean that they are to harden their hearts and become indifferent to their welfare.  God forbid!  No student of the human heart, of human life, and of the Bible can long ignore the need of a caution upon these lines.  The sacred writer knew what he was talking about when he spoke of the human heart as deceitful and desperately wicked.  It is deceitful or it would never blind people as it does to the inutility, the futility of much of their goodness.  A goodness that is wrapped up in a napkin, and lies unused for the benefit of others, rots and becomes a putrid mass of corruption.  It can only remain good by being unselfishly used for the good of others, and to prove that the human heart is desperately wicked one needs only to look at the suffering endured by mankind unnecessarily—­suffering that organized society ought to prevent and render impossible.

The parable of the lost sheep was written to give us this needful lesson.  The shepherd, when he found one of his sheep gone, did not sit down and wring his hands in foolish and useless worry as to what would happen to the sheep, the dangers that would beset it, the thorns, the precipices, the wolves.  Nor did he count over the times he had cautioned the sheep not to get away from its fellows.  Granted that it was conceited, self-willed, refused to listen to counsel, disobedient—­the main fact in the mind of the shepherd was that it was lost, unprotected, in danger, afraid, cold, hungry, longing for the sheepfold, the companionship of its fellows and the guardianship of the shepherd.  Hence, he went out eagerly and sympathetically, and searched until he found it and brought it back to shelter.