ll
not a little recommend itself on each of these accounts. The man who is
possessed of this excellent frame of mind, is not only easy in his
thoughts, but a perfect master of all the powers and faculties of the
soul; his imagination is always clear, and his judgment undisturbed; his
temper is even and unruffled, whether in action or solitude. He comes
with a relish to all those goods which nature has provided for him,
tastes all the pleasures of the creation which are poured about him, and
does not feel the full weight of those accidental evils which may befall
him.

If we consider him in relation to the persons whom he converses with, it
naturally produces love and good-will towards him. A cheerful mind is
not only disposed to be affable and obliging, but raises the same
good-humour in those who come within its influence. A man finds himself
pleased, he does not know why, with the cheerfulness of his companion:
it is like a sudden sunshine, that awakens a secret delight in the mind,
without her attending to it. The heart rejoices of its own accord, and
naturally flows out into friendship and benevolence towards the person
who has so kindly an effect upon it.

When I consider this cheerful state of mind in its third relation, I
cannot but look upon it as a constant, habitual gratitude to the great
Author of nature.

There are but two things which, in my opinion, can reasonably deprive us
of this cheerfulness of heart. The first of these is the sense of guilt.
A man who lives in a state of vice and impenitence, can have no title to
that evenness and tranquillity of mind which is the health of the soul,
and the natural effect of virtue and innocence. Cheerfulness in an ill
man deserves a harder name than language can furnish us with, and is
many degrees beyond what we commonly call folly or madness.

Atheism, by which I mean a disbelief of a Supreme Being, and
consequently of a future state, under whatsoever title it shelters
itself, may likewise very reasonably deprive a man of this cheerfulness
of temper. There is something so particularly gloomy and offensive to
human nature in the prospect of non-existence, that I cannot but wonder,
with many excellent writers, how it is possible for a man to outlive the
expectation of it. For my own part, I think the being of a God is so
little to be doubted, that it is almost the only truth we are sure of,
and such a truth as we meet with in every object, in every occurrence,