To say that there is no virtue in melancholy and no harm in cheerfulness
only half states the case. Melancholy is positively wrong, and good cheer
is a Christian grace. Whoever has a cheerful disposition has that much of
a start toward positive and complete goodness.
From every viewpoint, both of the life to come and the life that now is,
cheerfulness is a thing to be cultivated. It makes for happiness, it
constitutes a guard against the danger of misjudgment and censoriousness,
and it makes for success in the affairs of life. Everybody seeks out and
likes the cheerful person. The world has no time—nor ought it to have—for
the complainer and the grumbler.
Happiness is not a thing to be bought nor to be obtained from any external
source. The only happiness which has lasting quality comes from within. No
one can be happy long who is not happy in soul. Toys lose their gay color,
baubles fade, treasures vanish, but a merry heart is glad forever.
Happiness is not exclusive in its choice of where to go. It will go
anywhere that anyone is willing to receive it. It graces the hovel as well
as the mansion, and it is perfectly willing to pulsate in a breast covered
with the rags of poverty. Anyone, anywhere, can be happy.
Melancholy is harmful to the individual. It not only spoils life for him,
but it breaks down his health as well. No unhappy person can remain
healthy long. On the other hand, no unhealthy person can cultivate the
grace of joy without receiving substantial physical benefits therefrom.
The reasons for this are natural and plain. The unhappy person is never
relaxed. He lives between a high tension of discontent and the lifeless
reaction which follows. Today he is writhing in his self-inflicted misery.
Tomorrow he is drowsy and languid as the inevitable result.
No one can feel well or go efficiently about his duties with his nerves on
a strain. Every muscle must be free and loose. Each organ must be at ease
and liberty to proceed in the performance of its function. The physical
life cannot move by fits and starts without harm to itself. We cannot go
in jerks without soon feeling the harmful results of so doing.
There is a still deeper reason than this for the harmful effect of
discontent on the health. Unhappy emotions promptly set up processes which
form poisons and pour them out into the system. These poisons have a
paralyzing effect upon muscle and nerve. This accounts for the fact that
indigestion or other organic inactivity will often follow a fit of violent
anger or deep grief.
The Japanese are said to cultivate the habit of forcing themselves to
smile. They do this, it is said, for the general benefit it renders both
to disposition and health. It is a fact that a relaxed and smiling
countenance has a tendency to put the rest of the body at its ease.
The conclusion is that every cheerful moment contributes to long life and
physical well-being, and that it is not possible to give way to an
uncontrolled torrent of unpleasant feelings or to the chilling hold of
gloom without by so much shortening the days one has to live.
Melancholy is anti-social. It would scarcely be too much to say that it is
criminal. If it is a crime to trespass upon the rights or the happiness of
others, then gloom is a crime, for the reason that it does increase the
burden and detract from the happiness of every person who ever comes into
its chilling and blighting presence.
It does not dispose of the responsibility to say that other people need
not be affected by our feelings. As a matter of fact, other people cannot
help being affected by our feelings. Nothing is more contagious than
feeling. The warm and genial spirit sheds light and joy wherever it
goes—as a matter of course. The chilled and crabbed soul makes its
presence a place of arctic coldness—and equally without effort. Where
there is cheer, there we find spontaneity and freedom. Where there is
gloom, there are weakness and constraint.
It is a serious question whether anyone ought to be allowed so to add to
the world’s burden. Having been near someone who was constitutionally
unhappy has more than once unfitted someone else for his daily task. No
one cares how long his day or how hard his work so long as he can keep a
courageous spirit, but when he is robbed of that, he is shorn of
practically all his power.
Men are not looking for more troubles. They already have more than enough.
They are looking for genial souls who know the value of a smile and can
teach it to men. The world really owes a large debt to the men who have
made it their business to coax a laugh occasionally to its weary and
hardened face. The man who has made the way a little more sunny for some
far stranger whose face he will never see in this world shall in no wise
lose his reward.
It may often happen that one could render no other service quite so great
as to just keep happy. The other man may not need a lift with his load.
He may only need a fresh supply of gladness in his heart to make him feel
that it is a little lighter. The world treasures its little supply of
hearty good cheer as it might treasure gold and precious gems.
Furthermore, it loves none so much as it loves those who try to pluck some
of its thorns and plant flowers in their places.
Melancholy is not only unhealthful and anti-social, it is also sinful. The
person who treasures an unhappy spirit sins not only against himself and
his fellow men, but he also sins against the Almighty.
Of course, it should be understood that in order to be happy there is no
need of questionable and dangerous diversions. Let it be said once more
that happiness does not come from without but from within. The whole
outside world takes on the color of the spectacles we wear. It is just as
unpleasing as the person who sees it is unpleasant. It is just as rosy and
beautiful as the eye that looks upon it is bright and hopeful. We are
speaking here not of diversions but of the inner spirit of our lives.
Happiness, if it is anything, is a quality of character.
In his story of “The Laughing Man,” Victor Hugo has sketched a remarkable
character. Gwynplaine is a traveling showman, who as a baby was stolen
from noble parents, and so disfigured by surgical means that his face
always bore the appearance of a laugh. All through his life, however heavy
might be his heart, Gwynplaine had no choice but to wear a laugh upon his
face. The tears might flow from his eyes, but his features never lost
their look of merriment. He laughed in sun and shadow, joy and woe.
After all, there is something wonderfully suggestive in this supposedly
unfortunate character. He at least helped others too to be merry. He at
least did not impose the chill of a downcast countenance upon any
companion while he lived. This is worth while. It would be infinitely
better if more could bury their sorrows beneath their cheer. Not only
would others about them fare better, but the sorrows themselves would the
sooner disappear. We cannot banish sorrow, but we can learn to bear
it well.
If one will look to the Bible for a vindication of the statement that
cheerfulness is Christian and gloom sinful, he will find abundant evidence
to that effect. Everything there goes to indicate the gladness that clings
about that One in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand
there are pleasures forevermore. The person who thinks religion must be
sombre has misread his Bible and misinterpreted his Master. It may be
serious and earnest, but never morose and gloomy.
The Man of Galilee was indeed a man of sorrows, but He was too much of a
man of joy to burden the world with His sorrows. He did not dwell upon
them in the presence of others. He was content to endure them manfully,
and to give the world an example of courage to the last.
A despondent person is no ornament to religion. It is the joy-lighted face
which inspires and wins. It is the light of joy about the altar that makes
it an impressive place. It is the glad service which lifts the world a
little farther in its long, hard climb.