We hear many an earnest exhortation about the duty of bearing other people’s burdens. This is a lesson we should learn. Living for one’s self is always sinful. At certain points in life, and in certain experiences, it is proper also to allow others to share our burdens. We cannot live without brotherly help. It is sad that Napoleon, on the way to St. Helena, as he noted the fidelity with which every one on the vessel did his part, remarked that he had never before realized how dependent every man is on others for the comfort and safety of his life. We are so bound up together that countless others are continually sharing our burdens and ministering to our needs.
Yet there is a duty of bearing our own burdens which every one should learn. Many people depend too much on others. They have never trained themselves to answer their own questions, to decide upon their own course in any mater, to attend to their own affairs. They always seek advice and help. By and by, however, in some trying experience, they turn to the old sources of counsel, strength or aid, and find the place empty. Unused to act for themselves, lacking the wisdom, confidence, and ability which training in self-dependence alone can give anyone; they fail, and sink under the burden. If only they had been trained to think and act for themselves, to fight their own battles, to carry their own loads, they would not have been so helpless when caught in the sudden stress of circumstances.
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