Some years ago a popular magazine offered a prize for the best recipe for making a happy home. The woman who won the prize gave her excellent advice in two words; but oh, how full of meaning were those two short words, "Keep sweet"! The memory of this recipe has often been a help to at least one who read it,— especially in these days of world-wide upheaval and strife. The sense of cruelty in the world, if one permits it to linger in thought, robs life of all its sunshine and sweetness, taints our concept of human relationships, and causes the fruits of self-sacrifice to seem bitter and hard.
Sweetness and warmth keep perpetually aglow the lamp of inspiration. Inspiration describes that state of consciousness which is positive and practical, as well as beautiful, buoyant, and true. The heaviness of heart which comes like a cloud to overcast the sunshine of inspiration, cannot be too quickly recognized for the thief it is, and cast out. At best it is a negative state of mind, and all that a hypnotist asks of his subject is a negative state. Fear, discouragement, evil forebodings, doubt, indifference, mental weariness, sorrow, regret, are all negative beliefs, and ready channels for depression and every evil illusion. Warmth, spontaneity, hope, confidence, joy, spiritual energy, are all positive conditions of thought, and hence are transparencies for Life, Truth, and Love.
Even impulsiveness is preferable to stolidity, just as a running brook accomplishes more good than a frozen one; but the divine sweetness which is so beautifully described in the New Testament as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," comes of the exquisite poise of a proper sense of values,—holding always to the ideal, but never indifferent to or ignoring the human need. The grace of God is divine Love meeting the human need. In the first chapter of John's gospel we read: "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And again John describes that rich rounding out and completeness of the Son of God as manifested by Jesus, as "full of grace and truth."
