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GOING DOWNHILL

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 2, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 14.

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GOING DOWNHILL.

I HAPPENED to overhear two men talking about a third man the other day, and one of them said, sympathetically, “Poor George! he seems to be going downhill all the time.”
“Yes,” was the reply, “he does. It is a pity that some one can not turn him around, and start him up the hill of life again.”
The conversation set me to thinking of something that that noble American woman, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, wrote recently. It was this:—
Some years ago I resolved to cultivate habitual cheerfulness under all circumstances. It has not been an easy task, but I have succeeded; and now, drifting on to my eightieth birthday, burdened with heavy cares, stripped of those nearest and dearest to me by death, I am not sorrowful. I am not going “downhill,” as people say of the old, but “uphill” all the way, and I am sure that life is better farther on.
The fixed habit of cheerfulness is a great help in climbing the hill of life. You will find that the people who are “going downhill” are almost invariably morbid, and that they are steadily looking down instead of up. One always goes downhill much faster than one goes up; and when you see a man who is going downhill, you may be sure he will reach the bottom very soon if he does not turn right-about face, and start uphill again. It is never “better farther on” to those who are going downhill. It is never well with them at all. The lowlands of life are unhealthful for both body and soul. It is better to keep looking and climbing upward.—Selected.