We are proud to believe that, in the article of courage, our men are
second to none in the world. They have glorious traditions to live up
to, and they are adding to these pages--nay, a whole volume, as splendid
as any in our annals. Yet it is not of our soldiers' courage I wish to
speak.
For we are told on all hands that there is another quality shining
brighter still these days in the trenches in France and Belgium, in
ambulance waggons and field hospitals, and in the camps at home, namely,
cheerfulness. Again and again the same tale is repeated from one
quarter or another--"our men are simply wonderful," "they treat
discomfort as a joke." They label the very instruments that deal death
among them with names that raise a smile. Nurses, doctors, and
correspondents tell us that the light-hearted way in which our soldiers
face pain and suffering and force twisted lips to smile has created a
new record for the British Army. When the story of this war is written,
and the world gets a nearer glimpse into those awful trenches, I venture
to prophesy that the quality in our countrymen which will most capture
the imagination and fill us with the greatest pride will be the gay,
undaunted cheerfulness with which they faced it all.
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."
But cheerfulness needs its explanation. It implies something. A man is
not cheerful without some underlying philosophy of life to sustain him,
some pillar of faith or hope at his back. When a man faces life
dauntless and smiling, he does so because some inward and, it may even
be, unconscious faith or hope thus finds its expression. What that
faith is, different men will describe in different ways.
But however much the descriptions vary, it all comes back to this in the
end, that the man who is living bravely and cheerfully is expressing by
his conduct at any rate his faith in the Fatherhood and good Providence
of God. He knows that "God's in His Heaven"; at any rate he believes
so. He believes that things do not just fall out by chance, but that a
Father Hand controls all, and a Father Heart cares even for the
sparrow's unheeded fall. The God who rules all makes no mistakes.
And is not that a cardinal part of the faith which Jesus brings near to
all who are learning of Him? There are various adjectives used to
qualify the title Christian. One hears, for example, of "earnest
Christians," and earnestness is a very necessary quality, even though
one does occasionally happen upon "earnest Christians" who are rather
unlovable and irritating people. But there's another adjective, not
nearly so common--and yet it denotes a quality just as essential in
those who have taken Christ's gospel of God's Love and Fatherhood to
their hearts--namely, cheerful. A "cheerful Christian." Let us all try
to be that kind of Christian at least.