p. 11 | A SUNSHINY SAINT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 15, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 20.

A SUNSHINY SAINT.

“Yes, she's just sunshine in any community she is in.” One woman was talking to another behind us as the car sped over the Arizona desert, with its cactus and sage brush.

“I knew her first when they lived in New Mexico, in a forlorn little settlement, where they had a very hard time, but where everybody loved her; and now they are in California. But it doesn’t matter where she is, she is always just the same. Her husband is a man who struggles with a very bad temper, and invariably looks on the dark side of things, so she has always had a heavy handicap at home. But it would surprise you to see how much she has changed her husband for the better in all these years, and how she smoothes over the quarrels he feels it necessary to have with his neighbors wherever he goes.”

“How about her children?” asked the other woman. “I hope they take after her.”

“There were two, but they are both dead. It was a life-sorrow that went deep, but she is so victoriously sunny that, except for the tender way in which she mothers all the young people that come in her way, you would never think how lonely she is for those who have gone. She turns everything into sweetness, you see. She is the best Christian I know, and the ‘joy of the Lord’ isn’t a figure of speech with her, as it is with most of us.”

That was all we heard, but it was something to be remembered long after the journey was ended. The brave soul that is like sunshine—we all have known such a one. The pity of it is that, while admiring such victorious cheerfulness, we feel no responsibility to cultivate it ourselves. We, too, can be “just sunshine” if we choose.—Forward.