SOME one has very well said that cheerfulness is a moral tonic. It is invigorating to know a sunny, joyous disposition, and the happy man or woman is welcome everywhere. The smile that will not come off is an advertisement of the sweetness of Christian character. It has often been remarked by observers that the real badge of the Christian Scientist is a happy face. Christian Science is indeed notable for giving its students an understanding which enables them to know why it is that they can always be cheerful. Joy is a fine art, to be cultivated as assiduously as any of the moral virtues, and the art of being glad consists in part of the ability to be happy at all times, even when there seems to be no occasion for rejoicing.
"What trouble is there in this life," asks Cicero, "that can appear great to him who has acquainted himself with eternity, and the extent of the universe?" Those who are beginning to grasp the simplest truths of creation, are gaining every day the power to minimize the so-called troubles of life, and this they do by letting their thought reach out to take in the infinity of real existence, the allness of good, the presence of Love. Joy that is based on a comprehension of the perfection of being, is unassailable. The stability of such a state of mind cannot be moved by the evidence of human affairs, which so often seems to afford sufficient excuse for misery and even despair.
To know God, though only in a degree, and to know something of the nature of infinite goodness, and the character of that which reflects Him, is already making a more joyous race of men. God's people are beginning to see that it is a duty to be joyful; that it is their business to be happy and grateful. Dante saw prophetically what this understanding of God would bestow on mankind when he wrote,—
