The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1908-07-03
THE HAPPY HEROINE.
The Cheerful Women Win Success the
World Over.
The Reader.


ume, year or SO old, to be bought
for ~ copper pennies, but worth
hamual gold mine and found in tea
and sugar. as Miggs said of some
thing else. 1t contains the gospel Of
Cheerfulness, as preached by Robert
Louis Stevenson, who was one Of the
brave poor things, IL ever there was
one.
The title Of the book is simply
"Prayers, which is, III one way, UNI
fortunate. We arc all rather apt to
look on prayers as spiritual COM
positions which apply to our sacred
and elevated moments, when we arc
aspiring to the heights, and trying to
see into heaven. Few of us have time
for life of divine contemplation,
like that Of st. Francis, and the pray
ers of our church, or any other, are
nearly all designed for great crises, or
the events of the church's year. There
are some beautiful exceptions, but 1
do not think that the majority of us
find in the exalted beauties of the
prayer book the intimate help for cv-
cry day which would often be SO wei
come.
When Stevenson S health banishcd
him to Samoa, his household was COM
posed of persons of many religions,
from sava.cry upwards. To read
prayers, daily, and yet offend no.
body's prcjudiccs WAS difficult. so
Stevenson wrote his own prayers.
They are such that all men might
meet IN their comE--n aspiration
Muhammadan, Buddhist, Christian,
savage, even atheist-ror they are all
directed to an underlined Supreme Be-
ing. and they all have to DO with the
conduct of our daily life. Above all
things. they pray for chccrfulncsS.
What lie elsewhere called his "grcat
task Of happincss,' Stevenson comes
back TO again and again. In fact, he
may be said to hammer it in. Cheer
fulncsS, chccrfulncSS. chccrfulncss--in
all its forms, as gaiety, as good-hu-
NOR, as serenity, as endurance of
pain-hc never leaves this note un-
sounded, he was an apostle of cheer
fulnesS himself, The oas cxiled. in
pain, dying far from his country, con-
scious that he was the cause of eXil-
ing others; but he never neglected his
task Of happiness. 'Give us gaicty
and courage, and the quiet mind;'
"Help us to play the man, help us to
perform our petty round Of irritating
concerns and duties with laughter
and kind faces. let checrfulness
abound with indus;ry;' "Give us
to awake with smiles. to labor smil-
ing;' "IIelp us with the grace of
couragc:' "Call us up with morning
faces and with morning hearts .....
eager to be happy.'
I am afraid chccrTumcss is not one
of the things for which most women
pray. The cheerful women take
their gaiety as a matter of course,
and the sad ones only too often look
on their sadness as temperamcntal
affair which is rather to their credit,
rs proving their superior scnsibility.
"How can I be happy when there is
so much misery in the world,' is a
very false argument. "Why should I
add sadness to tilc sorrowful world 20
is far better. The Woman with dis
appointing husband. an invalid child.
an unsatisfactory environment. or
any other lasting cross, too often in
Aul@"" unnecessarily in sadness and
even in pcSsimiSm.
She lets herself go without stron"
effort. and the reason is that we en-
DIV being sad. The ma. jority Of wo-
men ar" sentimental and morbid. I'M
lc@S the" keep Il watch on themselves.
TAcy find ii easy to be sad, and not
diSagrccablc, if they would only ad-
init this. They prefer drifting with
the current to struggling against it.
If they would only begin to struggle
they would find out what wonder
FIJI exercise pulling against the tide
is: how GOOD for The health, how
glowing and fine. With every stroke
it becomes easier, too. because prac-
ticc makes perfect. Tt may sound
easy to recommend people with sor
rows TO be cheerful. bnt ii is not en-
joining the impossible.
There are very few women who
have not the makings OF heroine in
them; very few who could not an
cl, l,o,