“I Stepped in Your Steps All the Way”

— ——

672 IMPROVEMENT ERA

The doctrine of escape in the modern world is a fallacy from which it is reaping evil consequences. Evils have been growing to enormous proportions. Men profess to believe that they may be put at a safe distance by education and by the socalled higher civilization of man. An ever present consciousness of dangers, mental, physical and spiritual, is a helpful means of overcoming them. It is better to resist at close range the evils which threaten us than to imagine that there is a safe distance at which they will not be less painful. The theory of a safe distance is equally true in the physical world. Men trust to time and lose the benefits of the old adage that an "ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure." Time is not always a remedy for threatened dangers. Dangers often take on violence as they travel through time and space. It is safer to resist them at the beginning, and place of origin. Many troubles can be better averted than resisted.

"I Stepped in Your Steps all the Way' (Selected)

A father and his tiny son Crossed a rough street, one stormy day. "See, Papa," cried the little one, "I stepped in your steps all the way!"

Ah, random, childish hands, that deal Quick thrusts no coat of proof could stay! It touched him with the touch of steel "I stepped in your steps all the way!"

If this man shirks his manhood's due, And heeds what lying voices say, It is not one who falls, but two "I stepped in your steps all the way!"

But they who thrust off greed and fear, Who love and watch, who toil and pray How their hearts carol when they hear: "I stepped in your steps all the way!" Roy Temple House.