xercise, or continued employment of some kind, will make a man
cheerful; but sitting at home, brooding and thinking, or doing little,
will bring gloom. The reaction of this feeling is wonderful. It arises
from a sense of duty done, and it also enables us to do our duty.
Cheerful people live long in our memory. We remember joy more readily
than sorrow, and always look back with tenderness on the brave and
cheerful. Autolycus repeats the burden of an old song with the truth
that "a merry heart goes all the day, but your sad ones tires a mile a!"
and what he says any one may notice, not only in ourselves, but in the
inferior animals also. A sulky dog, and a bad-tempered horse, wear
themselves out with half the labor that kindly creatures do. An unkindly
cow will not give down her milk, and a sour sheep will not fatten; nay,
even certain fowls and geese, to those who observe, will evidence
temper--good or bad.

We can all cultivate our tempers, and one of the employments of some
poor mortals is to cultivate, cherish, and bring to perfection, a
thoroughly bad one; but we may be certain that to do so is a very gross
error and sin, which, like all others, brings its own punishment,
though, unfortunately, it does not punish itself only. If he "to whom
God is pleasant is pleasant to God," the reverse also holds good; and
certainly the major proposition is true with regard to man. Addison says
of cheerfulness, that it lightens sickness, poverty, affliction;
converts ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and renders deformity
itself agreeable; and he says no more than the truth. "Give us,
therefore, O! give us"--let us cry with Carlyle--"the man who sings at
his work! Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who
follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the
same time; he will do it better; he will persevere longer. One is
scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars
are said to make harmony as they revolve in their appointed skies."
"Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness! altogether past calculation
the powers of its endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful must be
uniformly joyous--a spirit all sunshine--graceful from very
gladness--beautiful because bright." Such a spirit is within every
body's reach. Let us get out into the light of things. The morbid man
cries out that there is always enough wrong in the world to make a man
miserable. Conceded; but wron