Said a clergyman to one of his depressed and downcast parishioners: 

“My friend, your religion does not seem to agree with you.”

Only a few chapters back I quoted from the Apostle of Cheerfulness—­Dr. Holmes—­that most quotable of men.  But he expresses what I would say so much more clearly than I can, that once more I refer my readers to him.  I do not apologize for doing so.  This last one of the noble company of America’s great writers, who have passed away during the last ten years, cannot be read too much or loved too dearly.  Let us see, what he, as Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, has to say on this subject.

“Oh, indeed, no!  I am not ashamed to make you laugh occasionally.  I think I could read you something which I have in my desk which would probably make you smile.  Perhaps I will read it one of these days if you are patient with me when I am sentimental and reflective; not just now.  The ludicrous has its place in the universe; it is not a human invention, but one of the divine ideas, illustrated in the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare.  How curious it is that we always consider solemnity and the absence of all gay surprises and encounter of wits as essential to the idea of the future life of those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties, and then call blessed.  There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to be preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which they look forward by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all joyousness from their countenances.  I meet one such in the street not infrequently—­a person of intelligence and education, but who gives me (and all that he passes), such a rayless and chilling look of recognition—­something as if he were one of Heaven’s assessors, come down to ‘doom’ every acquaintance he met—­that, I have sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent cold dating from that instant.  I don’t doubt he would cut his kitten’s tail off if he caught her playing with it.  Please tell me who taught her to play with it?”

It is one of the unexplained mysteries of human nature that people receive their griefs as direct from the hand of God, but not their joys.  Why does not a kind Father mean for us to profit by the one as much as by the other?  And since into nearly every life falls more sunshine than shadow, why leave the sunny places and go out of our way to sit and mope in the darkest, dreariest shade we can find?  I believe in the Gospel of Cheerfulness.  It is your duty and mine to get every drop of cream off of our own especial pan of milk.  And if we do have to drink skim milk, shall we throw away the cream on that account?  If it were not to be used it would not be there.  God does not make things to have them wasted.

All of us have our worries—­some small, some great—­and the strength and depth of our characters are proved by the way in which we meet the trials.  Cheerfulness is God’s own messenger to lighten our burdens and to make our times of joy even more bright and beautiful.  Have you noticed how, as soon as you can laugh over a vexation, the sting of it is gone?  And the best of it all is that you cannot be happy yourself without casting a little light, even though it be but reflected sunshine, into some other life.