The Sunshine Member

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 5, 1868

The Sunshine Member

THE SUNSHINE MEMBER.—Let us try to be like the sunshiny member of the family, who has the inestimable art to make all duty seem pleasant, all self-denial and exertion easy and desirable—even disappointment not so blank and crushing; who is like a bracing, crispy, frosty atmosphere throughout the home, without a suspicion of the element that chills and pinches. You have known people within whose influence you felt cheerful, amiable, hopeful, equal to anything! Oh, for that blessed power, and for God's grace to exercise it rightly! I do not know a more enviable gift than the energy to sway others to good—to diffuse around us an atmosphere of cheerfulness, piety, truthfulness, generosity, magnanimity. It is not a matter of great talent—not entirely a matter of great energy; but rather of earnestness and honesty, and of that quiet, constant energy which is like soft rain gently penetrating the soil. It is rather a grace than a gift; and we all know where all grace is to be had freely for the asking.