In one of his poems, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote these lines:

Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: It might have been.

Today, if we were asked to rewrite Whittier’s lines to reflect the mood of many people, we might put it this way:

Of all sad words that are on the loose,
The saddest are these: What’s the use?

Some years ago in Chicago, a parish minister sent out hundreds of questionnaires to people in every walk of life. He received a surprisingly great response, all of which he carefully indexed and tabulated. In each questionnaire only one point was raised: What is the outstanding problem or question you face daily in your thinking or living? Twenty-two percent named their family. Forty-eight percent mentioned personal living: the seemingly loneliness, general…