Tonic For Our Times – Sunday, September 3, 1950
With false philosophies, world-shaking weapons, and unwelcome world events added to all our other perennial and personal problems, men’s fears are multiplied, and men’s hearts fail them—and it is apparent that we need a tonic for our times. And whatever else may go into the making of this much-needed tonic, it must be full of faith—faith in the future, faith in ourselves, faith in God and in life’s ultimate objectives. And to be effective our faith must bring us to face this fact: that there isn’t enough time in any man’s life to worry about all that could or might happen. The things that could happen are so numerous, and the chances of choosing the right worry at the right time are so slight that attempting to worry about all possibilities and probabilities isn’t even a good gamble. Furthermore, much of what actually does happen, happens too fast for worry. But suppose the worst were to happen. Suppose that some brilliantly stupid mortal were to blow up the whole world. Still, as Thomas Carlyle observed, “The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once.” And we take our chances on being killed once—often, and every day, and in many ways. Another fact for our faith is that there are limitations to what man’s dangerous mixture of brilliance and stupidity will be permitted to do. This is a universe of law. And the Administrator of all things will not permit His ultimate purposes to be set aside by mere man. And no matter when or how we should leave this life, our ultimate immortal expectancy would not be essentially different from what it is and always has been. We should still pursue our ways where, in His mercy and wisdom and purpose, the Father of us all is pleased to take us. The intelligence and power of the Creator still keep creation in its course. And so, as a tonic for our times, let’s get down to work and down to sober sanity, with repentance for the past and with faith in the future, and see what we can do to hold the world together in our time—for it is still the best place any of as can remember ever having lived in.
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September 3, 1950
Broadcast Number 1,098