free from worldly entanglements? Would you have a
contented heart and a cheerful mind? Would you be worthy of the esteem of
the people? Would you be different from worldly people? Would you be a
sunshine-bearer for your neighborhood? There is just one way to do it. You
must do as "happy John" did--smile, praise the Lord, and mind your own
business.

TALK SEVENTEEN. WHAT THE REDBIRD TOLD ME

It was a cold winter morning. Snow covered the ground. The frost on the
trees sparkled in the bright sunlight like ten thousand diamonds. But the
brightness outside seemed to find no reflection in me. I had been confined
to my bed for more than six months. I was gloomy and despondent. It seemed
as though all the light and joy had gone out of my life and that only pain
and suffering and sorrow were left to me. I had no desire to live. Again
and again I prayed that I might die. I should have welcomed any form of
death, even the most horrible. I had grown morbid, and almost despaired. I
had been prayed for again and again, but the healing touch came not. Life
seemed to hold for me no ray of hope, no gleam of sunshine.

As I lay brooding in my melancholy state, a red grosbeak, with his bright
red plumage, alighted on a tree a few feet from my window. His eyes
sparkled as he gazed at me with interest. He turned his head now this way
and now that, apparently studying me intently, and then he gave a cheery
call and hopped as near to me as he could get and repeated his cries over
and over. Somehow his cries took the form of words in my mind. This is
what he said to me: "You, you, you, cheer up, cheer up, cheer up." He
hopped about from limb to limb, wiping his beak, picking at pieces of
bark, but ever and anon hopping back to look at me and cry again. "Cheer
up, cheer up, cheer up." This he did for a long time, then he flew away,
only to return soon and to peer at me again, crying his merry "You, you,
you, cheer up, cheer up, cheer up." For more than two hours he continued
to repeat this and then went away, and far in the distance I heard the
last echoes of his notes still saying, "Cheer up, cheer up."

It seemed as though God had sent the bird to bring a message to my soul;
and as I thought of the cold and the snow and the winter winds, of the
bird's uncertain supply of food, of his many enemies, and considered that,
in spite of all this, he could be so cheerful and gay, it made me feel
ashamed that I should be so melancholy an