The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-06-06
THE VOICE OF THE PULPIT
AN EXPLOITATION IN BEHALF OF
THE GRACE OF CHEERFULNEss.
"see the Bright side" a short Ser
Unitarian Church, Milford, n. I'll.

looking on the bright side of things was
worth a thousand pounds year; and
Wordsworth says:
I'VE must run glittering like a brook
In the sunshine, or we are unblest.
Cheerfulness is, indeed, a grace of char
acter which is a fortune in itself. 1t is
a bubbling fountain Of delight to ones
healthful, healing touch. 1t is in its ma
ture, not ecstacy, but an everyday meas
ure of gladness, and should be joyous
presence in every place and on all occa-
sions, an angel ever near, sunshine always
abroad.
Cheerfulness is health to soul and body.
It is wholesome, or holiness, or healthful-
ness, all kindred phrases, and symbols of
natures highest good. People of cheerful
temperaments look for happy delights to
be found or created about the daily path.
The smiling face, the happy heart the
CHEEKY word how noiselessly they tread,
but how full of solace and inspiration.
Most people are cheerful, naturally,
when all goes smoothly-it's in the dark
days that the test comes. Miss Wilcox
puts philosophy into her poetry when she
sings
"'Tis easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows along like a song;
But the man worth while is the one who
will smile
When everything goes dead wrong"
Yes under some circumstances happy
souls and CHEEKY frames of mind depend
on character; they are acquired oftentimes
only by process of education. 1T requires
the exercise of viii to be happy and smile
whatever let's fall its shadow. Under what
stqr we may have been born, Saturn, Mars
or Mercury, is not a matter Of our choice,
but the spirit we cultivate is ours very
largely. Though the original length of our
faces may be "a piece of fate Mrs. Stowe
thinks even that can be changed by right
guidance in the nursery. Some one has
wisely said, I'VE are not our own makers,
hut it is our privilege to be our own mend
e,s." 1t does seem as though over some
cradles the stars dance as they do not over
otlers. Plutarch said that Crates, with
on.y his scrip and tattered cloak, laughed
out his life loosely as if he had always
been at a festival"
The danger is not that we shall laugh too
much, but not enough, or be as merry as
we might OF course, too much of lightness
crowds to the wall that degree of soberness
and seriousness which is needed to give
weight and substance to character. 1t were
we'll if we could learn to take our pleasures
through the study of good literature, and
weakening amusements. which, when they
become a craze" or the burden of thought
or the business of life, leave no place for
taste for realities. The Japanese are a hap
by people, and OrientaIs work their light
ness and cheer into the very texture of their
character, but they are thinkers and
philosophers as profound as the more mat
ter-of-fact occidentalists.
iS cd in int 90
cheerfulness and happy hearts. 1t has
beauty for the eye, in flower and star, the
pearly dew and the artistic snow crystal;
it has music for the ear, and no more of
the minor notes than it's mathematics re-
quires." Nature is full Of benefits for all
who TT themselves to be served at her table.
Take your inventory of sights and sounds
and colors, anemone and arbutus, the au-
Gumn skies. and the wild birds song the
baby's smile and the mothers look of love.
All, Browning's words have a healthy tone
and tonic. Gods suns in the heavens
alls right with the worldn
He who looks for sunshine and is not
content unless full of laughter and good
cheer, gets the most out of life. We must
be optimists, not pessimists, and believers
in God and the perfect order, and all things
will work together for the best to universe
and man. Wear smiling face and laugh
our troubles down, since they are accidents
TO life's glad purpose.
pastor once asked a little girl in the
street how her mother was. 'Oh. she's
adronin, and a'dronin'," was the renlv
You have seen people half sorry and wor-
ried about an hours unalloyed happiness.
lest some dreadful thing was going to hap
pen; as though the good God was a dis
penser of wrath at times to even I'D some
sweet morsel of pleasure to his children bv
sure cyclone of laid-up wrath. People suffer
many things in life that are real. but most
OF the things they suffer never come to
pass. Lincoln's advice was good-not TO
cross an open stream till you come to it,
Too many suffer their religion instead of
enjoying it, thank God with a sigh. take
their pleasures hard and fear to smile lest
God avenge the taking of such liberties.
"oh, mamma" said a little girl. how If
makes my thumb ache to squeeze it" But
why, then, dear, do you squeeze it?" But
how shall / know whether it aches or not
If I do not squeeze it?' There is to be
found world of philosophy to instruct the
grumbler.
What a happy way some people have of
turning shadow into sunshine. One Haw-
thorne came home one night to tell his wife
that politics had lost him his place in the
custom house. For answer she brought pen
and paper, and in her sweet yet dignifad
way, setting them before him. with a kiss
on his wonderful brow, so full of mystery
she said:
Now you can write your book" and the
Iong-talked-of and always postponed great
est of novels, 1.-The Scarlet Letter" was
the result.
When Huxley and Tyndail applied to the
University of Toronto for professorships
and were repulsed. it turned their faces
TO the old country. which made their
names words of magic in the fields of
science. Emerson smilingly gave up his
Boston church because he had a word TO
say which his people were not ready to
hear, and the prophets pulpit widened to
the worlds limits. Jesus never doubted
the need or the final success of his truth
and mans and society's renewal: and he
spoke of his JOY the day before his death:
and who shall doubt where he believed, or
gaze with dependency on the looked-for
kingdom of God on earth.
If, indeed. we are wise and on good terms
with any task-teaching school, making
dresses or lninding the baby, keeping ac-
counts, selling shoes or pounding an anvil
we shall greet our duties every morning
as friends, who mean for us joy as well
as service, character as well as courage
But for Bedford Jail we had not had
Bunyans Pilgrim. Montaigne said that
''his bad memory enabled him the less to