p. 108 | Cheerfulness by Jos. Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 16, 1873

Cheerfulness.

By Jos. Clarke

KIT is a clerk in a country store, and you would think, to see his pleasant face, that he had only sunshine in his experience. There is no cloud ever visible in his countenance, no thunder, no lightning, no low mutterings of distant or impending storms; yet there is another side, and it is this.

Kit thus soliloquizes: It won’t do. If I notice little insults, given by thoughtless persons who trade with us, it will disgust people, and they will go over to the other store to trade. I must keep cool, and never mind what is said by people who are given to complaining. Of course we can’t suit all; and if we do all we can to please people, and they refuse to be pleased, it is not our fault. I have been schooling myself in this store for five years, and no one has ever seen me off my guard. My experience is worth to me five thousand in a business way; and I would not take that sum for it. The fact is, people must be made to feel happy and contented in our store, so that they will stay long enough to do their trading, else we lose their custom: it won’t do to get cross and crabbed, and go sulking around. You must be good-natured; this causes others to forget their grudges, and spend their cash over our counter. I ask if Kit’s policy is not wise; and if Christians would not be more likely to win souls, if they would always cultivate a happy, cheerful, kind manner. Jos. Clarke.