The Nevada County picayune., 1910-05-13
Not Afraid of Good Fortune
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y supposed to show the atti-
 NXWyI tude that people ought to
 IfG take toward the mention of good fortune. "I must tap on wood says some one who has just stated that he has been specially ex- empt from bad luck" or illness. The phrase Is quite harmless, and this Is not for the purpose of undertaking a crusade against it. Only there are people who could not make them selves use the phrase because it fin wolves q state of mind which they never for a moment agree with Good fortune does not seem to them to have anything spooky or uncanny about it, while this phrase implies that when anything good has happened to us 1t is by sort of freak of nature which may cease to work in our behalf at it, we may frighten it off. It is prob ably by some oversight that this piece of welfare fell into our possession, and the true owner of it might want it back at any moment if he knew how much value we attach to it. The idea seems to be that the more we like thing, the more certain it is to be short-lived and precarious, or that if we express ourselves as greatly pleased our pleasure is quite certain to come to an end. We may be as bold as we like in proclaiming our misfortunes and no danger of their going; but if we let on about our joys we had better do it under our breath.
 Half-Heathen Conceptions.
 This is not to say for moment that these who jocosely use the. phrase re ferred to go through any such process of analysis about it as this, or that in many cases they really mean this. It is only that lurking behind the phrase there are at work lot of half-heathen conceptions about the nature of good. There is a subtle suggestion of some. thing which clouds and poisons the soul when it gets possession of us, and that is the belief that we are welcome to our troubles, but that our good things are begrudged us, and are of uncertain tenure. Let that thought color our mind, and we have the most exact opposite of the truth that we can possibly get hold of. That is the heathens outlook, and it makes the misery of his life. His gods are treacherous and arbitrary, he can never know just what they will do. and they are capable of any. thing. But the Christian knows, if he knows anything, that God loves likely that good will continue than that evil will. It may be very slight thing one way or the other, this laugh. ing phrase, but there is many man who could not use it without putting on something that he does not feel just because it would belle all his deepest convictions about life and God
 Make Public Your Happiness.
 Such as these feel that if some great happiness has come to them, that of all things is the thing to let people know about A little shy and embar. rassed they might be about publishing some ill-turn they had had; they would feel, perhaps, that they had exaggerated the importance of it, and would keep still in the belief that probably it would turn out to be some thing not worth mentioning. But tc have had a year of uninterrupted health or to have or to have gone six years without a sick day,-this would be something about which they could not honestly keep silence. For the al formative of tapping wood is thanking God The bad days are almost cer tain to pass off but in the happy ones they feel that they have now gotten hold of the real permanent substance of life. When things have gone well with them, they do not feel that the best thing to do is to get ready foI them to go wrong. They are not sus picious of their happiness, and they like to tell about 1t. If now and again they seem a bit boastful, why, so did the Psalmists when ever so little a rift pierced their clouds They may brag just a little bit. but it will be about the better side of life. and they will not reserve their eloquence fo1 life's worst passages And when Goo has given them something to enjoy freely, like children they suppose that their father has been very glad to dc it, and they do not eye it as if it were a prelude to something quite the oppo site,
 The one who is prepared for more good and more grace Is far more like ly not to meet with disappointment than the one who is always expecting reverses and trouble. His blessings he takes as things God loves to give, his chastenings as things God has to give. If God has shown him some. thing that just fills his heart and does him good, he thinks it Is more than likely that the Heavenly Father is sui ficiently like an earthly father to dc n. F.