The Power of a Cheerful Temper

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 11, 1876

The Power of a Cheerful Temper

knows how to administer the government.

Lord Clarendon wrote of anger, that it is the most impotent passion that occupies the mind of man; it effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the man who is possessed by it more than any against whom it is directed. He knew the human heart. The worst of anger is, if you give the reins to it for once, it is still more difficult for you to keep them yourself the next time. But a cheerful temper is like the genial sun, in whose warm rays all men like to bask. The possessor of such may not, perhaps, make as many stare and tremble at his barbed phrases of satire or scorn, but he will certainly make more devoted and loving friends, and, what is more, be sure to keep them.