fast Table, has
to say on this subject.

"Oh, indeed, no! I am not ashamed to make you laugh occasionally. I
think I could read you something which I have in my desk which would
probably make you smile. Perhaps I will read it one of these days if
you are patient with me when I am sentimental and reflective; not just
now. The ludicrous has its place in the universe; it is not a human
invention, but one of the divine ideas, illustrated in the practical
jokes of kittens and monkeys long before Aristophanes or Shakespeare.
How curious it is that we always consider solemnity and the absence of
all gay surprises and encounter of wits as essential to the idea of
the future life of those whom we thus deprive of half their faculties,
and then call blessed. There are not a few who, even in this life,
seem to be preparing themselves for that smileless eternity to which
they look forward by banishing all gayety from their hearts and all
joyousness from their countenances. I meet one such in the street not
infrequently--a person of intelligence and education, but who gives me
(and all that he passes), such a rayless and chilling look of
recognition--something as if he were one of Heaven's assessors, come
down to 'doom' every acquaintance he met--that, I have sometimes begun
to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent cold dating from
that instant. I don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off if he
caught her playing with it. Please tell me who taught her to play with
it?"

It is one of the unexplained mysteries of human nature that people
receive their griefs as direct from the hand of God, but not their
joys. Why does not a kind Father mean for us to profit by the one as
much as by the other? And since into nearly every life falls more
sunshine than shadow, why leave the sunny places and go out of our way
to sit and mope in the darkest, dreariest shade we can find? I believe
in the Gospel of Cheerfulness. It is your duty and mine to get every
drop of cream off of our own especial pan of milk. And if we do have
to drink skim milk, shall we throw away the cream on that account? If
it were not to be used it would not be there. God does not make things
to have them wasted.

All of us have our worries--some small, some great--and the strength
and depth of our characters are proved by the way in which we meet the
trials. Cheerfulness is God's own messenger to lighten our burdens
and to make our times of joy even more brig