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5.

never took that view, and, because he did not, disaster never
came.

But I do not want to refer merely to famous historical
episodes. I want you to consider how hard and difficult life was
in earlier times for our own people, and how in the darkest
moments they never lost either their courage or their cheerfulness.
The fact is that in our own day, and in our fathers' day, life
had become unbelievably secure and easy - an ease and security
which can scarcely be paralleled except perhaps for a few decades
in the early Roman Empire. In the nineteenth century we thought
this the normal state of affairs which was going to last for ever.
But it has never been the normal state of affairs. Today in our
troubles we are back again in what in history has not been the
exception but the rule.

I need not remind you of the hard and dangerous life
which your own forefathers had here in Canada, dangers arising
from the savagery of man and the cruelty of nature. It is instructive
to read the record of some of the earlier settlers here
and across the border, and to compare it with the kind of conditions
we live under now.

But I want you to look further back in history. Even
the most unfortunate of us at the present time have an easier and
safer life than the most fortunate of our forefathers. As you
know, all through the Middle Ages Europe was ravaged by wars and
pestilence. Do you realize that in one of the visitations of the