The Blessing of Cheerfulness'.

Next Part The Blessing of Cheerfulness'. 2

"A joyful heart makes a face cheerful, but a sad heart produces a broken spirit." Proverbs 15:13

"A cheerful heart has a continual feast." Proverbs 15:15

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength." Proverbs 17:22

We are set in this world to be happy. We should not falter in our great task of happiness, nor move ever among our fellows with shadows on our face — when we ought to have sunlight.

We have a mission to others—to add to their cheer. This we cannot do unless we have first learned the lesson of cheerfulness ourselves. We cannot teach what we do not know. We cannot give what we do not have.

In this little book a lesson is set for you, my reader. It may seem a hard lesson to learn; nevertheless, it is one you need to learn, and one you can learn — if you will surrender your life wholly to the great Teacher.

There are many ways in which we may bless others. A ministry of helpfulness is a perpetual benediction, Of course, one who feeds the hungry, visits and relieves the sick, the poor, and the orphan, and comforts sorrow — is a blessing to the world. One who uses his money to do good is a blessing, One who speaks wholesome words which enter other lives, and influence, guide, strengthen, inspire, or enrich them, blesses the race.

But can one be a blessing merely by being cheerful? Yes! Moral beauty of any kind exerts a silent influence for good, It is like a sweet flower by the wayside, which has a blessing for everyone who passes by. A legend tells how one day in Galilee the useful corn spurned the lilies because they fed no one's hunger. "One cannot earn a living just by being sweet," said the proud cereal. The lilies said nothing in reply, only seemed the sweeter, then the Master came that way; and while his disciples rested at his feet, and the rustling corn invited them to eat, he said, "Children, the life is more than eating. Consider the lilies, how beautiful they grow." It certainly seemed worth while then just to be sweet, for it pleased the Master.

We measure values by the standard of utility, but we cannot always take the full measure of utility. Physical relief or comfort is not the only help one may give another. There is utility which acts on the heart, and makes one stronger, braver, more hopeful. Can we say that such usefulness means less than when one gives a loaf of bread to one who is hungry, or a cup of water to one who is thirsty?

Everyone carries an atmosphere about him. It may be healthful and invigorating, or it may be unwholesome and depressing. It may make a little spot of the world a sweeter, better, safer place to live in; or it may make it harder for those to live worthily and beautifully who dwell within its circle.

We are responsible for this atmosphere. Our influence may be involuntary in its final effect. We cannot wholly change it from evil to good on any particular day, by a mere volition. It is something that belongs to our personality. It is an emanation from our character; and our character is the growth of all our years, what has been built up in us by all the lessons, experiences, impressions, and influences of life, from childhood. Hence it is, that the atmosphere which hangs about us any day is, in a large degree, involuntary.

At the same time we are responsible for it. We are responsible for our character—our own hands have made it what it is. If a man has trained himself to be discontented and unhappy, so that wherever he goes he makes others about him less happy, he may not blame heredity, or original sin, or environment, for his unfortunate disposition. No doubt natural tendency or early influences may make it harder for a man to be sweet-spirited and sunny-tempered; but because it is hard to be good, because there is much to overcome, one need not give up the endeavor as useless and unavailing.

Cheerfulness, therefore, is a duty. Perhaps we have not thought of it in this way. We regard it as a pleasant disposition. We consider the person happily gifted, who is naturallycheerful. But we do not usually put cheerfulness among duties, as we do truthfulness, honesty, patience, kindness.

We speak much of the duty of making others happy. No day should pass, we say, on which we do not put a little cheer into some discouraged heart, make the path a little smoother for someone's tired feet, or help some fainting robin unto its nest again. This is right. We cannot put too great emphasis upon the duty of giving happiness and cheer to others. But it is no less a duty that we should be happy and cheerful ourselves.

It was the great Teacher himself who said, "Be of good cheer." He said it in substance many times. He counseled his followers against anxiety. He showed his friends an example of cheerfulness. Some people have the impression that Jesus was a sad man. He was indeed a man of sorrows, but his face was always radiant with the light of an inner joy. He never cast a shadow on any other life. Always from the Christ, wherever he moved, light streamed. His life was full of cheer. No one ever felt depressed from coming into his presence. On the contrary, everyone who looked into his face and heard his words was made happier for the time.

Then his teachings were all towards the same spirit. It is supposed by some, that religion makes people sullen, takes the sunshine out of their life, the joy out of their heart, the song out of their mouth. But the reverse of this is the truth. No other one in the world has such secrets of joy as has the Christian. Christ teaches his followers to rejoice. He bids them rejoice even in sorrow and trial.

It would have been of no avail, however, merely to command them to be of good cheer, if he had not put sources of joy within their reach. He did not remove sorrow and pain out of their lives; rather, he said, "In the world you have tribulation." Nor does this religion benumb and deaden human sensibilities, so that Christ's friends do not feel grief and trial as the world's people do. On the other hand, it makes the heart more tender, so that it suffers even more keenly from the sorrows of life, than does the heart unsoftened by divine love. The secret of joy which Christ gives we learn from his own words—the last words spoken in the upper room, as he led his disciples out toward Gethsemane: "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." John 16:33.

It is in the last of these great words that we have the secret of the good cheer which he commands. "I have overcome the world." He met the world in all its terrific power, and was victorious over it at every point. Thus he became able to be our refuge in all the world's strife. "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me."

The all-victorious Christ is like a great rock in a weary land, to whose shelter we may flee in every time of sorrow or trial, finding quiet refuge and peace in him. There is a word in an old prophet which tells all the story. "You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on you! Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock." Isaiah 26:3-4. We have hints of the meaning of these words in some rare human friendships. Here and there is a man who seems like a fragment of the rock of ages to those who trust in him. When other friendships fail, he still stands constant and true. You are always sure of him. You turn to him in your weakness and danger, and you find strength and refuge in him. In his presence dark things seem light, and however heavy your burden, you feel you can go on bearing it after seeing him. In the atmosphere of his love your heart's wounds receive healing.

The secret of such a human friendship lies in the calm, secure strength of the life. It is like a rock in its firmness, its security, its immovableness. This quality has been gotten through conflicts and sorrows in which the spirit has been victorious. This friend has met the world, and has overcome it; has been tried, and has not failed.

In such a rare human friendship we have a hint of what Christ means when he says to his disciples: "In me you may have peace." He has overcome all the world's evil, and stands in the midst of the world's broad desert plains, where storms sweep and heat oppresses. We can flee to him and find refuge. All hurts are indeed soothed in him. When he comes, night turns to day, heaviest burdens seem light, hardest tasks become easy. In the world we have tribulations; but he has overcome the world, and in him we have peace. Thus he gives us reason for his counsel: "Be of good cheer."

It is the privilege of every friend of Christ to be of good cheer, no matter what the circumstances of his life may be. Privilege makes duty. We ought always to be cheerful. We ought to carry music in our heart, and the light of joy in our face wherever we go, in whatever experiences we find ourselves.

The fact is, however, that not all Christians are cheerful at all times, in all circumstances. Some are scarcely ever cheerful—are indeed habitually uncheerful. Others are cheerful at times, when the sun shines, while all things go well with them; but the light fades out of their faces when clouds gather and storms arise. If cheerfulness is a Christian duty, we ought to learn it. How, then, can we learn to be of good cheer, even in times of sorrow and trouble?

For one thing, we must remember that cheerfulness has to be learned. It does not come naturally. The cheerfulness which comes naturally is not that which our Master bids us to have. We are to be of good cheer in tribulation, and this certainly is not a natural experience. Nor does Christian cheerfulness come as a direct gift from God when we become Christians. All the fine things in Christian nature and Christian culture, have to be learned. Even Jesus himself "learned obedience by the things which he suffered." When he was an old man, Paul wrote in a letter to some of his friends that he had learned in whatever state he was therein to be content. It is a comfort to us to think that Paul was not always thus contented, that he had to learn the lesson, and that it had taken him a long while to learn it.

We all have to learn the lessons of beautiful living. Life is a school, and God is continually setting new lessons for us. George MacDonald says: "Until a man has learned to be happy without the sunshine, and therein becomes capable of enjoying it perfectly, it is well that the sunshine and the shadow should be mingled, as God only knows how to mingle them." ‘When we find ourselves facing some unpleasant duty or in the presence of a new trial or sorrow, we should not forget that it is another lesson set for us. If it is hard, that shows it is a lesson we have not yet perfectly learned. We must not be discouraged if cheerfulness is not easy for us. We have to learn it, and it may take us a good while.

If we would learn the lesson, we must abide in Christ. "In me you may have peace," he says. We can never get true peace in any other way. If we are truly experiencing the friendship of Christ, we shall find the inner joy increasing, as the outer lights grow dim. Here, again, human friendship helps us to understand the divine. You walk with a friend for years in close, familiar relations, finding every day some new revealing of beauty. But as yet you have had only joy and prosperity. One day sorrow enters your life. In the new experience you find qualities in your friend's love which you had never perceived before. It took suffering in you to bring out the rich things of sympathy, tenderness, and comfort which were all the while in reserve in his life.

The same is true of the divine love. We never can know its best things until we enter the shadows of sorrow. Our great Teacher said, "Blessed are those who mourn." This seems indeed a strange beatitude. But to those who have learned its meaning it is no longer strange. There are blessings, rich, deep, and satisfying, which we never can know until we mourn. You would never see the stars, if the sun continued to shine through all the twenty-four hours. It would be a loss, too, to anyone if he were to pass through all the years of his human life and never once behold night's sky with its brilliant orbs. We can then say, "Blessed is the hour when the sun goes down and it grows dark; for then we see the glory of heaven's stars."

The glare of human joy hides from our sight, ten thousand blessings which we cannot see until it grows dark about us. And it would be a dire loss to live through all our days and never see these blessings. There are hundreds of Bible words which seem pale and without meaning in the time of earthly gladness, but which come out bright and shining like stars when the darkness comes on. You have no need for divine comfort when you had no sorrow; and a great part of the Bible was as yet an unopened book to you, for a large portion of it consists of comfort for those in trouble. But when the sorrow came, the words flashed out like stars at night, unseen by day. Thus we learn the meaning of the beatitude, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." We lose some joys, but we find others that were hidden in the light of those we lost. Where earth's candles burned with only flickering light, heaven's lamps now shine. Where the human face shone in its gentle grace, the face of Christ now looks upon us in its divine yearning. Where we leaned upon a human arm, often trembling, at last broken; we find now, instead, the everlasting arm. Thus when we abide in Christ the light of his love is revealed, as human joys pale. The deeper the earthly darkness, the richer are the divine comforts which are given to us, enabling us to be of good cheer whatever the tribulation.

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