CHAPTER IX.

CHEERFULNESS AND LONGEVITY.

I have gout, asthma, and seven other maladies, but am otherwise very well.-SYDNEY SMITH.

I feel and grieve, but, by the grace of God, I fret at nothing.-JOHN WESLEY.

This one sits shivering in Fortune's smile,
Taking his joy with bated, doubtful breath ;

This other, gnawed by hunger, all the while
Laughs in the teeth of death.

T. B. ALDRICH.

Anxiety never yet successfully bridged over any chasm.—RUFFINI.

The cheerful live longest in years, and afterward in our regards. — BOYEE.

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous, -8 spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.-CARLYLE.

There's a good time coming, boys, a good time coming :
Let us aid it all we can, every woman, every man.

MACRAY.

GOLDSMITH says that one of the happiest persons he ever saw was a slave in the fortifications at Flanders, a man with but one leg, deformed, and chained. He was condemned to slavery for life, and had to work

from dawn till dark, yet he seemed to see only the bright side of everything. He laughed and sang, and appeared the happiest man in the garrison.

"It is from these enthusiastic fellows," says an ad mirer, "that you hear what they fully believe, bless them! — that all countries are beautiful, all dinners grand, all pictures superb, all mountains high, all women beautiful. When such a one has come back from his country trip, after a hard year's work, he has always found the cosiest of nooks, the cheapest houses, the best of landladies, the finest views, and the best dinners. But with the other the case is indeed altered. He has always been robbed; he has positively seen nothing; his landlady was a harpy, his bedroom was unhealthy, and the mutton was so tough that he could not get his teeth through it."

A gentleman in Minneapolis owned a business block which was completely gutted by fire. The misfortune produced a melancholy that boded ill for his mind. In vain his friends tried to cheer him. Nothing could dispel the impenetrable gloom. He was almost on the point of suicide. He was away from home when the disaster occurred, and received the following letter from his little seven-year-old daughter:

"DEAR PAPA, -I went down to see your store that was burned, and it looks very pretty all covered with ice. Love and kisses from LILIAN."

The father smiled as he read; and the man who had contemplated jumping from the train laughed aloud. The spell that had overshadowed him was at last broken by this ray of sunshine.

A cheerful man is preeminently a useful man. He does not cramp his mind, nor take half-views of men and things. He knows that there is much misery, but that misery need not be the rule of life. He sees that

in every state people may be cheerful; the lambs skip, birds sing and fly joyously, puppies play, kittens are full of joyance, the whole air full of careering and rejoicing insects; that everywhere the good outbalances the bad, and that every evil has its compensating balm. "You are on the shady side of seventy, I expect?" was asked of an old man. "No," was the reply, "I am on the sunny side; for I am on the side nearest to glory."

Travelers are told by the Icelanders, who live amid the cold and desolation of almost perpetual winter, that "Iceland is the best land the sun shines upon."

When Pandora out of curiosity removed the lid from the great box in which Hesiod says the gods had inclosed all human miseries, they flew abroad through the earth, but Hope remained at the bottom, the antidote for all.

Doctor Marshall Hall frequently prescribed "cheerfulness" for his patients, saying that it was better than anything they could get at the apothecary's. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." Health is the condition of wisdom, and the sign is cheerfulness. Half the people we meet think they have something about them which will ultimately kill them, and live in chronic dread of death. What is even worse, they seem anxious that other people should share with them the "enjoy ment of bad health," and are ready to tell them at the slightest provocation.

You must take joy with you, or you will not find it, even in heaven. He who hoards his joys to make them › more is like the man who said: "I will keep my grain from mice and birds, and neither the ground nor the mill shall have it. What fools are they who throw away upon the earth whole handfuls."

"Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches," said Emerson, "and to make knowledge valuable, you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom." In answer to the question, "How shall we overcome temp

tation," a noted writer said, "Cheerfulness is the first thing, cheerfulness is the second, and cheerfulness is the third." A habit of cheerfulness, enabling one to transmute apparent misfortunes into real blessings, is a fortune to a young man or young woman just crossing the threshold of active life. He who has formed a habit of looking at the bright, happy side of things, who sees the glory in the grass, the sunshine in the flowers, sermons in stones, and good in everything, has a great advantage over the chronic dyspeptic, who sees no good in anything. His habitual thought sculptures his face into beauty and touches his manner with grace.

"Of all virtues," says S. C. Goodrich, "cheerfulness is the most profitable. While other virtues defer the day of recompense, cheerfulness pays down. It is a cosmetic which makes homeliness graceful and winning. It promotes health and gives clearness and vigor to the mind; it is the bright weather of the heart in contrast with the clouds and gloom of melancholy."

"The spirit that could conjure up a Hamlet or a Lear would have broken had it not possessed, as well, the humor which could produce a Falstaff, and the 'Merry Wives of Windsor.'" The London "Lancet, the most eminent medical journal in the world, gives the follow ing scientific testimony of the value of good spirits :

"This power of 'good spirits' is a matter of high moment to the sick and weakly. To the former it may mean the ability to survive; to the latter, the possibil ity of outliving, or living in spite of, a disease. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance to cultivate the highest and most buoyant frame of mind which the conditions will admit. The same energy which takes the form of mental activity is vital to the work of the organism. Mental influences affect the system, and a joyous spirit not only relieves pain, but increases the momen tum of life in the body."

"I find nonsense singularly refreshing," said Talley