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200 IDEAL HOME LIFE
The World is Full of Joys
Somebody has written a little verse in praise of the fellow who is pleasant when "everything goes dead wrong." We deserve little credit for being cheerful at home when there is no provocation to be otherwise. That patient and manly type of character that is cheerful on the doleful day, and declines to note the dolefulness, is the one that I admire. A little while ago I stood looking down on the quiet face of a man who had lived ninety years. His daughter said, "The sunshine will not be so bright without him, father always saw the funny side of things." It was a great gift. To see the funny side! It is usually there, but some of us lack vision.
Here, in this mortal sphere, the pessimist tells his audience that we are in a vale of tears. It is not so. This is a world full of joys. The possibilities of happiness are inexhaustible. We carry with us provision for our journey, and though we pass this way but once, we may feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, and make every desert place blossom as the rose, if only we take each day as it comes, fill it with love to God and one another, and brim its measure with invincible cheerfulness.
The garden has many roses,
But only one is there Whose leaves as well as its petals
Exhale a fragrance rare. The hero is like the rose bloom,
But, beside him, lowlier strives The life with the everyday fragrance;
Such are the sweetbriar lives.
Some of the garden's roses
Die with the dying year, But the sweetbriar keeps on growing
And is here when the spring is here. And some lives, thank God, perennial,
Close to the house-door grow And spring would be winter without them,
For their hearts bring the spring, you know. |
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