The Franklin Times PUBLISHED EVERY MONDAY, WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOON. WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 1932. "BE OF GOOD CHEER."

Franklin Times, Volume XXII, Issue 57, 18 May 1932, Page 4

The Franklin Times PUBLISHED EVERY MONDAY, WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOON.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 1932. "BE OF GOOD CHEER."

Office and Works: HOb'LSTON STREET., PUKEKOHE. "Phone No. 2. P.O. Box 14. "We notning extenuate nor augln set down in malice."

. ONE marked feature of our time is the blind mass ol' discontent, side by side | with the craze for excitement, thrills

and sensations. With all our convulsive efforts after happiness, life to many is slill drab, dull, monotonous. Are these correlated; and would it be easy lo say which is cause, and which is effect.' The air of sadness and depression is so apparent that a London

newspaper not long ago sent out a representative with instructions to give a five pound note lo the first person ho saw smiling. And this at a time when places of amusement an; on the increase, and more hours than ever de-

voted to the pursuit of pleasure. Still the undertone is one of dissatisfaction, of outcry and protest against life. In spite of the enormous sums expended that we may be amused, nothing satisfies. In a society journal the other day a lady writer announced that the next season was going to be unbearably dull unless some one invented a new dance. It would seem that genuine joyousness, gladsomeness and the sunny laughter that banishes gloom and dullness, are far to seek. And in our recoil from boredom, we fly to pleasures that are poisoned, and to laughter that is hollow; only to discover how futile our quest, and to return at length deluded and jaded with life.

j Would anyone contend to-day that we are a happier people because we have sought to make a holiday of life and a business of pleasure ? That we should still be disgruntled, notwithstanding all the amenities of modern life, is clear proof that we have missed the way to true happiness, and that the fault must lie largely with ourselves. And the more we grumble, the more discontented we shall become; on the same principle that.the more we give way to angry feelings, the more we intensify them. We thought to find happiness without, and, 10, we have the making of our own heaven or hell. And what is j now of greatest moment is that we re- | capture our resilency and buoyancy, j for cheerfulness is of the greatest value in these times of depression. It is true that we cannot always be happy, but we owe it to others to be cheerful. What an absence there is of this sweet quality in some men Boorish in manner, and ever ready to snarl; while others depress you like ai, autumn fog. And yet it is half the battle if we keep cheerful under disappointment, and can sing at our work. Time must go slowly to the man who is morose; and how friendless he must be! And how weary and irksome the tasks of life become i" we perform them in sullen silence. We are scarcely sensible to fatigue i when we march to music. The patient j will recover much quicker if he is in j good spirits. It is cheerfulness that i takes the sting out of our commoner j struggles. j

We have known individuals who have been the incarnation of bright-

ness. What a wonderful world this would be if we could have a few more of them. It is better to be a. sun-

beam than a rainbow. We have seen how the sunshine will try to get into a darkened room through a tiny chink in the shutter. It reveals the dust, but what glory it brings with it! A sunbeam knows nothing of snobbish-

ness. It is the same to everybody,

and kind to all. It will stream through a poor widows' window pane as graciously and generously as through the chambers of a palace. And it cannot be polluted. We can pollute water, and vitiate the aid, but a sunbeam can penetrate the foulest den reeking with filth, and return with its garments unsullied. It's like a little bit of heaven coming straight down to us, as if to make a shining way for our feet along which to travel thither.

Possibly George Herbert meant something like this when he said:—

"Then by a sunbeam I will climb to Thee.'

And some lives have been like golden ladders of light reaching right up to heaven. A sunbeam, very much like love, makes everything else to shine with its own beauty, and transfigures

the commonest things of life, and the dullest duties !

And what the world wants is more human sunbeams. What a fretting and frettedslife many of us live. There are things to make us sad and serious, but they need not make us sour. We can have heaven's sunshine within, under cloudy skies and in misty days. And the sight of a bright smile, even though we may know nothing about it, will help and cheer and encourage the. weary and sad and unhappy as perhaps nothing else can. These are the days when we need to put music into our voices, and to let the morning shine in our faces. People cannot be angry if we are persistently good tempered with them. The last thing we should think of doing is giving someone a piece of our mind when it is in a highly inflamed and diseased condition. Instead of uttering the cutting word and the stinging retort it is better to meet the little irritations of everyday life with laughter and kind faces. The Man of Sorrows was also The Bright and Morning Star. His own cheerfulness was constant and invincible. He maintained His sweetness of spirit to the end. His cheerfulness shone from His countenance, thrilled in His voice, coloured all His teaching. And the challenge He flings out to us is, "Be of good cheer." As the sunshine transfigures the landscape, &o let our cheerfulness brighten the lives of men.