I made my first trip to California thirty-five years ago.  One morning I stood on the eastern edge of the plains with a sleeping car berth at my service and a through ticket to San Francisco in my pocket, while the iron horse stood there all harnessed and ready for the journey.  Wasn’t I in good condition for the trip?  Yes, but I saw trouble before me.  One can always see trouble who looks for it.  I had never been across the plains and before the time for the train to start I walked to the front of the engine and looking along the track as it reached out across the prairie I saw trouble.  What was it?  Why, six miles ahead the track wasn’t wide enough.  Yes, I saw it.  Then on six miles more the rails came together, with my destination nineteen hundred miles away.  Soon the train moved and as we neared the difficulty, the track opened to welcome us.  Not a pin was torn up nor a rail displaced.  Again I looked ahead and a mountain was on the track, but before I had time to get off the mountain got off.  Next came a precipice and the engine making directly for it, but we dodged that and I concluded our train had right of way, so I stuck to the Pullman car and went through all right.

Ever since God made the world principle has had right of way.  Get you a through ticket, get on the train, battle for the right and you’ll come out victorious in the end.

Napoleon said:  “God is on the side of the strongest battalions.”  He entered Moscow with one hundred and twenty thousand men.  Snow began to fall several weeks earlier than usual, the highways were blocked, frost fiends ruled the air, the great French army was broken into pieces and Napoleon had to fly for his life.  God taught Napoleon as well as the commander of the great Spanish Armada, that victory is in the hands of Him who rules weather and waves.

The next trait I would mention is contentment.  Many persons make themselves miserable by contrasting the little they have with the much that others have, when if they would compare their blessings with the miseries of others it would add to their contentment.  Let me give you an old but a good motto:  “Never anything so bad, but it might have been worse!”

It is told of a happy hearted old man that no matter what would happen he would say:  “It might have been worse.”  A friend, who wanted to see if the old man would say the same under all circumstances, went into a grocery store where he was seated by a big fire and said: 

“Uncle Jim, last night I dreamt I died and was sent to perdition.”

Prompt the reply came:  “Well, it might have been worse.”

When some one asked, “How could it have been worse,” he answered:  “It might have been true.”

Doctor A.A.  Willetts, “the Apostle of Sunshine,” used to say:  “There are two things I never worry over; one is the thing I can help, the other is the thing I can’t help.”  “Count your blessings,” was a favorite expression of the same beloved old man.