Chapter 70—Cheerfulness
The True Christian Will Be Cheerful—Do not allow the per-
plexities and worries of everyday life to fret your mind and cloud your
brow. If you do, you will always have something to vex and annoy.
Life is what we make it, and we shall find what we look for. If we
look for sadness and trouble, if we are in a frame of mind to magnify
little difficulties, we shall find plenty of them to engross our thoughts
and our conversation. But if we look on the bright side of things, we
shall find enough to make us cheerful and happy. If we give smiles,
they will be returned to us; if we speak pleasant, cheerful words, they
will be spoken to us again.
When Christians appear as gloomy and depressed as though they
thought themselves friendless, they give a wrong impression of reli-
gion. In some cases the idea has been entertained that cheerfulness
is inconsistent with the dignity of the Christian character, but this is
a mistake. Heaven is all joy; and if we gather to our souls the joys
of heaven and, as far as possible, express them in our words and de-
portment, we shall be more pleasing to our heavenly Father than if we
were gloomy and sad.
It is the duty of everyone to cultivate cheerfulness instead of
brooding over sorrow and troubles. Many not only make themselves
wretched in this way, but they sacrifice health and happiness to a mor-
bid imagination. There are things in their surroundings that are not
agreeable, and their countenances wear a continual frown that, more
plainly than words, expresses discontent. These depressing emotions
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are a great injury to them healthwise; for by hindering the process of
digestion, they interfere with nutrition. While grief and anxiety cannot
remedy a single evil, they can do great harm; but cheerfulness and
hope, while they brighten the pathway of others, “are life unto those
that find them, and health to all their flesh.
Mrs. White Was Cheerful in Adversity [
Note: in 1867 Elder
James White, who was in a critical condition following a paralytic
1
The Signs of the Times, February 12, 1885
.
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