A Cheerful Face | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1882

A Cheerful Face.

THERE is no greater every-day virtue than cheerfulness. This quality in man among men is like sunshine to the day or gentle renewing moisture to parched herbs. The light of a cheerful face diffuses itself and communicates the happy spirit that inspires it. The sourest temper must sweeten in the atmosphere of continuous good humor. As well might fog and cloud and vapor hope to cling to the sun-illumined landscape as the "blues" and moroseness to combat jovial speech. Be cheerful always. There is no path but will be easier traveled, no load but will be lighter, no shadow on heart or brain but will lift sooner in presence of a determined cheerfulness. It may at times seem difficult for the happiest tempered to keep the countenance of peace and content, but the difficulty will vanish when we truly consider that sullen gloom and passionate despair do nothing but multiply thorns and thicken sorrows. Ill comes to us providentially as good—and is as good, if we rightly apply its lessons. Why not, then, cheerfully accept the ill, and thus blunt its apparent sting?—Anon.