Surely we who stay at home may learn something of that virtue too. For it is worth learning. Ordinary people who only know what they like, without knowing why they like it, have a very warm side towards the person who, when things are grey and gloomy, can keep cheerful. They would much rather see him come in on a dull day than a wiser man whose wisdom was a burden to him, or even than a pious person whose piety ran to solemnity and gloom. It is high time, indeed, that the tradition was broken for good and all which associates moral excellence with a funereal heaviness of manner and denies the favour of the Lord to one who, as Goldsmith has it, "carols as he goes." For the blessing of God is written visibly upon the results of cheerfulness wherever you find it. God rewards the gallant souls who keep their colours flying through every battle, even though they have to nail them up over a sorely damaged ship. If you want a proof that the hopeful and cheery way of facing the rebuffs of life and tholing its aches and disappointments is more in the line of what God expects from His children than the doleful whining temper, you have it shown unmistakably in the fact that the gallant unconquerable soul solves problems, overcomes difficulties, endures pains, and wins successes where the solemn and easily depressed would simply have given in and lain down. You can safely prophesy that the man whom you hear singing as he goes through the valley, like the pilgrim that Bunyan’s Christian heard, is going to get out of it safely and honourably in the end. The Lord Himself will deliver him, as He delights to deliver all those who face life smiling and unafraid, and meet His Fatherly discipline with a stout heart. Cheerfulness, in other words, pays for oneself. But it is also a great blessing to others. One very safe and sure way to help our fellows up their hills is to breast our own as bravely and gaily as we can. And the cheerfulness which heals and blesses like the breath of morning is that which shows up against a background of cloud and trouble. Let us all in this year of war and clean courage, register a vow that we shall take a leaf out of our soldiers’ book, and think less about our own troubles, teach our lips to smile when things are wrong, and keep our eyes wider open for trouble’s danger signals among our friends. It’s a simple way of doing good, but a very effective one. For cheerfulness, like mercy, is twice blessed. It blesseth him that has, and him that sees! "It was only a glad Good Morning As she passed along the way, But it spread the morning’s glory Over the livelong day."