The Other Man’s Burden – Sunday, March 31, 1940

The Other Man’s Burden – Sunday, March 31, 1940

ANNOUNCER: Most of the men and women who move about us from day to day are carrying hidden within their hearts a load of trouble and sorrow of one kind or another, and we, with, our unseeing eyes, often walk rough-shod over them, not understanding their cares and not being considerate of their burdens. So often we misjudge those whose circumstances we do not know. Those whom we meet in an impersonal way in places of business and on city streets and in all the crowded ways of life may seem to us at times to be sullen, to be impolite, to be inattentive to our wants. And not knowing what cares are oppressing them; with our lack of understanding, we ignore their breaking hearts, and fail to perceive the tears that lie close to the surface – and the world seems thoughtless because it does not understand. And so we reach a trite but fundamental conclusion – that every man’s burdens are important to him, and that judgments must be withheld where wisdom and understanding are not sufficient.

Time has a way of casting a halo over the past. The long look back gives credence to things at which the present scoffs. The squalor of a distant city is often a place of glamour to those who are far removed from it. Nor does a man usually take his rightful place in the annals of history until those who knew his human weaknesses have likewise faded from the scene. We may believe of another century what we are not willing to believe of our own, and that the God of Heaven guided a people in ancient times seems plausible even to many who would deny such guidance today. Time has a way of casting a halo over the past – but there are as many things to be rightfully believed today, as ever there were in the dim and distant ages.

March 31, 1940
Broadcast Number 0,554