Smiles | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 2, 1879

Smiles.

Like the tired wayfarer, who looks gratefully at the sun peeping through a break in the clouds, a steady husband greets the smile of his wife's face after a hard day's work. Having added, honestly and manfully, his “mite” to the industry of the land, and earned enough to meet the wants of himself, his helpmate and his children, he hurries home to rest his weary limbs, and spend a peaceful hour with the mother and little ones he loves so well. But how many women meet their partners with black looks and short words! How many, indeed, by forgetting the power of smiles, put into a bad humor the man whom it should be their study, as it is their interest, to cheer and gladden! During the day something may have happened to sadden the spirit or sour the temper of a thoughtful wife; but matters can never be mended by brooding over what is past. Nay, the very effort to welcome with a smile him on whose hands the welfare of her family depends will do a woman good.

Look, then, on the sunny side of life’s way, and try to meet your love with smiles. If your furniture is plain and your fare scanty, all the more reason is there why you should cultivate the queenly charm of smiles. To be able to look cheerfully and hopefully through clouds of poverty and distress is an accomplishment bestowed by nature upon every true and brave woman; and no matter however poor or humble her home may be, the magic power of smiles can brighten its shadows and lighten its cares. Upon the troubled mind of a feeling husband, a wife’s smile falls like a sunbeam on a flower. And oh! how much more beautiful it makes the face that wears it than a frown! When a wife and mother, forgetting sorrows and hardships, smiles away her tears, there is a loveliness in the act that speaks to a man’s heart more eloquent than words.