"Self-pity takes the backbone out of one. It robs one of his manhood, his courage, his daring to go on and face all the difficulties before him. It is self-pity that makes the suicide. He looks at his woes, his difficulties, until he cannot bear them, and so goes and takes the big plunge into the dark. "Brother, sister, quit your self-pitying. There is another side to the darkness. Look up, not down. Remember that, in the words of Robert Browning, 'God's in His heaven, all's right with the world.' So I have long resolved to radiate cheerfulness as much when I am _down_, as when I am _up_--when misfortune glowers upon me, as when fortune smiles. It is so easy to interpret our material good as a proof of God's favor, and our material ill as a sign that He is displeased with us. Those who went to Jesus and asked, when the tower of Siloam fell and killed eighteen: 'Were they not sinners above all others because this thing happened to them?' are not without their myriads of counterparts in the world to-day. When a man strikes a new gusher in an oil region, or a good flow of water in a desert country, or his grainfield gives him seventy bushels to the acre, it is easy enough to believe that Providence is smiling upon him, and, therefore, his faith is strong and unquenchable. I have enough of that kind of faith. I can radiate that without an effort or thought. But I desire above all things to radiate a like sure and definite faith when my neighbor strikes a gusher and I do not; when my _enemy_ finds a fine flow of water and _my_ crops are being parched--I want as strong a sense of contentment when Fortune _smiles upon the other fellow_, as when it smiles upon me." This leads to another practical radiance. It is that of absolute certainty that things do not _happen_. There is no such thing as a "happenstance" in the world. "Nothing happens," is a word often on my inner lips. There is no evil, no wrong, no misfortune to the man who consciously lives with power ever surrounding him. In our short-sightedness, we dream, we think of evil, or ill, or wrong, or misfortune, but if our faith's eyes were always open, we should see nothing but good--and that all circumstances are good in their ultimate results upon us. Some years ago I met a lady who possessed this spirit of radiant cheerfulness, and yet she was in a sanitarium and had undergone several severe surgical operations.