This attitude soon becomes fixed. Unconsciously it is cultivated. Then friends and members of the family turn with loathing from the atmosphere of chronic pessimism; the habitue has become a cuttlefish among his fellows, only emanating floods of inky misery. He wonders why things do not come his way; why business associates desert him and troubles assail him more and more. The truth is that imaginary troubles tend to become real, and fortune never smiles on a man who turns a sour face towards her. Character is contagious. Even if we had the right to enjoy our own misery we have no right to infect our neighbours with it. You are bound by social obligations as well as by selfish reasons to cure the blues every time you have them. And there is a remedy. Asaph began to cure himself when, instead of saying, "All things are against me," he said, "This is my infirmity," my fault; I am enough to turn a beehive sour. His cure was almost perfect when he said, "I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High." The cure for the blues is simple, then. First, own up to it that the largest part of your miseries comes out of your own mind, out of your distorted views of things. Then begin to thank God for His goodness, call to mind the many things for which you should be grateful. To remember our mercies is to bury our miseries. There is a lot of good in this old world and they get it who go for it. There is something good in every man; the best people find the best in people. After all, our lives are determined not by the things about us but by the things we invite into us. It is impossible to keep that man blue who persistently looks for the bright side of things, or to keep him poor or sad who is affording a welcome to every good thing, every happy, cheering thought. Soon the man who lives like that gets so busy keeping track of his own and other people's happiness that he forgets to think whether he is happy or not, just as a healthy man forgets to count his pulse or his respirations. So, if you are tempted to feel blue, remember it is a sin to nurse your sadness; it is a duty to cultivate happiness. THE GOSPEL OF SONG Singing cures sighing. Lift up a note of praise and you can raise the heaviest off and roll it clean off the heart. Christianity is a religion of song. Its forerunner, Judaism, left the ages the rich legacy of the Psalms. Its founder, when he knew that death was imminent, sang one of those ancient songs with his friends. His followers early gathered for worship in song. Peter beguiled prison hours with hymns. Meeting in the catacombs, the early Christians made the galleries echo with their praise.