Smile, Woman, Smile! by Helen A. Steinhauer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 11, 1903

“Smile, Woman, Smile!”

By Helen A. Steinhauer

My dear, dead mother scarce would recognize This haggard face; these dreary, mirthless eyes; The anxious brow, beneath the graying hair, Once glossy brown, her pride and special care. Friends of my youth would startled gaze To see the changes—less of time and place Than circumstance. A lonely, bruised heart, And weary, painful days, all bear a part In changing her whom they of yore Called “Sunshine-maker”—now, alas, no more Courted and praised for bonnie, blithesome ways, As in the old and happy girlhood days.

Smile, woman, smile! What if thy heart be sore, Burdened and sickened, saddened to the core? Smile, woman, smile! For friends de- part When faces shadow forth the tingling smart Of secret suffering. Smile, woman, smile! Expected ’tis of thee To set thy griefs aside. Know, friends do flee From saddened faces such as thine, nor care To linger but to have thee share—nay bear Their sorrows.

Smile, woman, smile! For Jesus knows; and in a little while Love, rest, and home—where lonely wand’ rings cease— Where friendship deepens, and where joys increase— Where pain and sadness are fore’er un- known— Where no tears fall, before God’s great, white throne— Heaven’s bliss shall amply make amends to thee For all the ills and grief which now must be! —Helen A. Steinhauer, in The Pathfinder.