CHEERFULNESS
CHEERFULNESS arises from various causes: from health; but it is not dependent upon health; from good fortune: but it does not arise solely from that; from honor and position, and a tickled pride and vanity: but it is quite independent of these. The truth is, it is a brave habit of the mind; a prime proof of wisdom; capable of being acquired, and of the very greatest value not only to one’s self, but to the whole world besides. A cheerful man is pre-eminently a useful man.
A spirit of cheerfulness should be encouraged in our youth if we would wish to have the benefit of it in our old age. Time will make a generous wine more mellow, but turn that which is early on the fret to vinegar. There is more real virtue in goodness, kindness, and cheerfulness of heart, than in all the cold, canting solemnity that was ever put on as a mask for selfishness. A cheerful heart paints the world as it finds it, like a sunny landscape; the morbid mind depicts it like a sterile wilderness, pallid with thick vapors, and as dark as the “Shadow of Death.” It is the mirror, in short, on which it is caught, which lends to the face of nature the aspect of its own turbulence or tranquility. As the river flows out from under the shadow of the willow that bends over its waters, so the cheerful spirit flashes out from the cloud without bearing it along.
One of the most valuable, and one of the most infectious examples which can be set before the young, is that of cheerful working. Cheerfulness gives elasticity to the spirit. Spectres fly before it; difficulties cause no despair, for they are encountered with hope, and the mind acquires that happy disposition to improve opportunities which rarely fails of success. The fervent spirit is always a healthy and happy spirit; working cheerfully itself, and stimulating others to work. It confers a dignity on even the most ordinary occupations. The most effective work, also, is always the full-hearted work—that which passes through the hands or the head of him whose heart is glad. Hume was accustomed to say that he would rather possess a cheerful disposition—inclined always to look at the bright side of things—than with a gloomy mind to be the master of an estate of ten thousand a year. It has been said that the lively and sprightly are as open books, with the leaves turned down at the notable passages. Their souls sit at the windows of their eyes, seeing and to be seen.
If the waves threaten to engulph you, don’t add by your tears to the amount of water. If the sun is going down, look up to the stars; if the earth is dark, keep your eyes on heaven. With God’s presence and God’s promise, a man or child may be cheerful. Everything, an imate and inanimate, turns to the sunbeams. We instinctively avoid cloudy days, and cloudy faces. He who murmurs at his lot is like one baring his feet to tread upon thorns. Some people think black is the color of Heaven, and that the more they their faces look like night the holier they are. Let not the stream of your life always be a murmuring stream.
“Care to our coffin adds a nail no doubt,
While every grin so merrily draws one out.”
There is no little repining on the part of many worthy people, which must be attributed chiefly to a habit of forgetting some well known truths. It would be good for all to remember that in the long run, the things which now fret and annoy will all be seen to be parts of a plan of infinite benevolence. The evils we lament will be turned into agencies for good, and the sorrows we experience will eventuate in future joys. That life is the sweetest which is passed in extracting honey even from the bitterest adversities; and he is the wisest man who can most heartily confide in the rectitude of Providence, and in the final supremacy of truth and right. In the long run, that Christian will come out well who works cheerfully, heartily, hopefully, with out wasting his energies upon vain regrets and passionate murmurings. The birds sing in the storm; why may not the child of God rejoice too, even though the passing clouds lower?
There is no greater every-day virtue than cheerfulness. This quality in man among men, is like sunshine to the day, or gentle, renewing moisture to parched herbs. The light of a cheerful face diffuses itself, and communicates the happy spirit that inspires it. The sourest temper must sweeten in the atmosphere of continuous good humor. As well might fog, and cloud, and vapor, hope to cling to the sun illumined landscape, as the blues and moroseness to combat jovial speech and exhilarating laughter. Be cheerful, always. There is no path but will be easier traveled, no load but will be lighter, no shadow on heart or brain but will lift sooner in presence of a determined cheerfulness. It may at times seem difficult for the happiest tempered to keep the countenance of peace and content, but the difficulty will vanish when we truly consider that sullen gloom and passionate despair do nothing but multiply thorns and thicken sorrows. Ill comes to us as providentially as good—and is a good, if we rightly apply its lessons; why not, then, cheerfully accept the ill, and thus blunt its apparent sting? Cheerfulness ought to be the fruit of philosophy—much more of Christianity. What is gained by peevishness and fretfulness—by perverse sadness and sullenness? If we are ill, let us be cheered by the trust that we shall soon be in health—if misfortune befall us, let us be cheered by hopeful visions of better for tune—if death robs us of the dear ones, let us be cheered by the thought that they are only gone before, to the blissful bowers where we shall all meet, to part no more forever.
Cultivate cheerfulness, if only for personal profit. You will do and bear every duty and burthen better by being cheerful. It will be your consoler in solitude, your passport and commentator in society. You will be more sought after, more trusted and esteemed for your steady cheerfulness. The bad, the vicious, may be boisterously gay and vulgarly humorous, but seldom or never truly cheerful. Genuine cheerfulness is an almost certain index of a happy mind and a pure, good heart.
I once heard a young lady say to an individual, “Your countenance to me is like the shining sun, for it always gladdens me with a cheerful look.” A merry or cheerful countenance was one of the things which Jeremy Taylor said his enemies and persecutors could not take away from him. There are some persons who spend their lives in this world as they would spend their time if shut up in a dungeon. Every thing is made gloomy and forbidding. They go mourning and complaining from day to day, that they have so little, and are constantly anxious lest what little they have should escape out of their hands. They look always upon the dark side, and can never enjoy the good that is present, for the evil that is to come. This is not religion. Religion makes the heart cheerful, and when its large and benevolent principles are exercised, men will be happy in spite of themselves.
The industrious bee does not stop to complain that there are so many poisonous flowers and thorny branches in his road, but buzzes on, selecting the honey where he can find it, and passing quietly by the places where it is not. There is enough in this world to complain about and find fault with, if men have the disposition. We often travel on a hard and uneven road, but with a cheerful spirit and a heart to praise God for his mercies, we may walk therein with great comfort and come to the end of our journey in peace.
A cheerful life must be a busy one. And a busy life cannot well be otherwise than cheerful. Frogs do not croak in running water. And active minds are seldom troubled with gloomy forebodings. They come up only from the stagnant depths of a spirit unstirred by generous impulses or the blessed necessities of honest toil.
The cheerful are the busy; when trouble knocks at your door or rings the bell, he will generally retire if you send him word “engaged.” God bless the cheerful person-—man, woman or child, old or young, illiterate or educated, handsome or homely. Over and above every other social trait stands cheerfulness. What the sun is to nature, what the stars are to night, what God is to the stricken heart which knows how to lean upon Him, are cheerful persons in the house and by the wayside. Man recognizes the magic of a cheerful influence in woman more quickly and more willingly than the potency of dazzling genius—of commanding worth—or even of enslaving beauty.
What shall we say by way of commending that sweet cheerfulness by which a good and sensible woman diffuses the oil of gladness in the proper sphere of home. The best specimens of heroism in the world were never gazetted. They play their role in common life, and their reward is not in the admiration of spectators, but in the deep joy of their own conscious thoughts. It is easy for a housewife to make arrangements for an occasional feast; but let me tell you what is greater and better: amid the weariness and cares of life; the troubles, real and imaginary, of a family; the many thoughts and toils which are requisite to make the family home of thrift, order and comfort; the varieties of temper and cross-lines of taste and inclination which are to be found in a large household—to maintain a heart full of good nature and a face always bright with cheerfulness, this is a perpetual festivity. We do not mean a mere superficial simper, which has no more character in it than the flow of a brook, but that exhaustless patience, and self-control, and kindness, and tact which spring from good sense and brave purposes. Neither is it the mere reflection of prosperity, for cheerfulness, then, is no virtue. Its best exhibition is in the dark back-ground of real adversity. Affairs assume a gloomy aspect, poverty is hovering about the door, sickness has already entered, days of hardship and nights of watching go slowly by, and now you see the triumph of which we speak. When the strong man has bowed himself, and his brow is knit and creased, you will see how the whole life of a household seems to hang on the frailer form, which, with solicitudes of her own, passing, it may be, under “the sacred primal sorrow of her sex,” has an eye and an ear for every one but herself, suggestive of expedients, hopeful in extremities, helpful in kind, words and affectionate smiles, morning, noon and night, the medicine, the light, the heart of a whole house hold. God bless that bright, sunny face! says many a heart before me, as he recalls that one of mother, wife, sister, daughter, which has been to him all that my words have d
We can not all of us be beautiful, but the pleasantness of a good- humored look is denied to none. We can all of us increase and strengthen the family affections and the delights of home. A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as healthy weather. Life may be merry as well as useful. We always admire the answer of the man who, when asked how old he was, replied, just forty years; but if you count by the fun I’ve seen, I am at least eighty. When the celebrated Hayden was asked how all his sacred music was so cheerful, the great composer replied: I can not make it otherwise. I write according to the thoughts I feel; when I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap as it were from my pen; and since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned in me that I serve him with a cheerful spirit. The greatest and most brilliant conceptions have been the births of a genial moment, and not the wooden carving of logical toil.