Life is serious--alas, too serious--and full enough of pathos. We cannot joke about its troubles; they are real. But, at least, we need not magnify them. Why should we act as though everything depended upon our efforts, even the changing seasons and the blowing winds? No doubt we are responsible for our own acts and thoughts and for the welfare of those who depend upon us. The trouble is we take unnecessary responsibilities so seriously that we overreach ourselves and defeat our own good ends. I would make my little world more blessedly careless--with an _abandon_ that loves life too much to spoil it with worry. I would cherish so great a desire for my child's good that I could not scold and bear down upon him for every little fault, making him a worrier too, but, instead, I would guide him along the right path with pleasant words and brave encouragement. The condemnation of faults is rarely constructive. We had better say to the worriers, "Here is life; no matter what unfortunate things you may have said or done, you must put all evil behind you and live--simply, bravely, well." The greater the evil, the greater the need of forgetting. Not flippantly, but reverently, leave your misdeeds in a limbo where they may not rise to haunt you. This great thing you may do, not with the idea of evading or escaping consequences, but so that past evil may be turned into present and future good. The criminal himself is coming to be treated this way. He is no longer eternally reminded of his crime. He is taken out into the sunshine and air and is given a shovel to dig with. A wonderful thing is that shovel. With it he may bury the past and raise up a happier, better future. We must care so much to expiate our sins that we are willing to neglect them and live righteously. That is true repentance, constructive repentance. We cannot suddenly change our mental outlook and become happy when grief has borne us down. "For the broken heart silence and shade,"--that is fair and right. I would say to those who are unhappy, "Do not try to be happy, you cannot force it; but let peace come to you out of the great world of beauty that calmly surrounds our human suffering, and that speaks to us quietly of God." Genuine laughter is not forced, but we may let it come back into our lives if we know that it is right for it to come.