Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1915 — Dr. Marden’s Uplift Talks [ARTICLE]

Dr. Marden’s Uplift Talks

OepyrisM by MoCiara Jmm>« Byndloato CULTIVATE THE HABIT OP CHEERFULNESS. A woman In California, who, because of crushing sorrow, had fallen a victim to despondency, Insomnia and kindred ills, determined to throw off the gloom which was making life so heavy a burden to her, and established a rule that she would laugh at least three times a day, whether occasion presented or not Accordingly, she trained herself to laugh heartily at the least provocation, and would retire "to her room and make merry by herself. She was soon in excellent health and buoyant spirits, and her home became a sunny, cheerful abode.

To people who have lost the laughing habit I would say: Lock yourself in your room and practice smiling. Smile at your pictures, furniture, look-ing-glass, anything, just so the stiff muscles are brought into play again. In order to become normal, the natural fun-loving forces within us must be released. Laughter is one form of exercise which sets them free, rescues men from the “blues.” Somewhere I have read of a man whose "laughing muscles” were so paralyzed that his laughter sounded like a voice from the tombs. American life is so serious that many men lose their power to laugh. They can force a little sepulchral chuckle, but the genuine side-shaking laughter is almost a stranger to their experience. They are in such a serious chase after *the dollar, their life is so strenuous, so given to scheming and planning, that they do ’not have much time to laugh. They do not know the medicinal value there is in the habit of laughter, how it clears the cobwebs out of the brain, disposes of the pangs of worry and anxiety and business pressure, takes the mind off the grind of things, removes friction, and helps to make life worth while.

You jpay not be able to cultivate the optimistic temperament to any great extent, if you lack it, but cheerfulness can be cultivated. We all know that if we brood over our sorrows, and dwell upon our misfortunes, our physical being very quickly sympathizes with our moods. "Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.”

A woman who has had great affliction says: “I have had nothing I could give but myself, and*so I made the resolution that I would never sadden anyone with my troubles. I have laughed and told jokes when I could have wept I have smiled in the face of every misfortune. I have tried to let everyone go away from my presence with a happy word and bright thought to carry with them. Happiness makes happiness, and I myself am happier than I would have been had I sat down and bemoaned my fate."

“Encourage your child to be merry and laugh aloud,” says a great French surgeon. “A good hearty laugh expands the eldest and makes the blood bound merrily along.” We realize that it is very necessary to train the mind in business principles; to train certain faculties to do special things, but do not seem to think it necessary to cultivate the habit of cheerfulness. Yet not even an education is as necessary to the child as the formation of the cheerful habit This ought to be regarded as the first essential of the preparation for life—the training of the mind toward sunshine; the developing of every possibility of the cheerful faculties. Cheerfulness is one of the great miracle-workers of the world. It reenforces the whole man, doubles and trebles his power, and gives new meaning to his life.

A SMILING FACE IS A GREAT HERITAGE. *1 jlst loike to let her in at the dure," said an Irish servant of a lady caller. “The very face of her does one good, shure.” How glad we all are to welcome sunny souls! We are never too busy to see them. There is nothing we welcome so much as ’’sunshine Someone has said, .“A happy human sac is the gift that may be made by poor or rich, by old or young. It is the gift to which all are entitled, with which all are pleased." Oh, what riches live in a sunny soul; what a heritage is a smiling face—to be able to fling out sunshine everywhere one goes, to scatter the shadows and to lighten sorrowing hearts; to have the power to send cheer into despairing souls through a sunny and radiant disposition! And yet all about us we see people going through life peddling vinegar, radiating bitterness, finding fault, and seeing only the ugly; worrying, fretting, cynical and pessimistic! Some people have a genius for seeing only the crooked, the evil and disagreeable. Pessimism is always a destroyer, never a producer. We need more Joy peddlers, and sunshine makers, more people who refuse to see the ugly, the bitter and the crooked; who see the world of beauty apd perfection which God has made, and not the world which sin and discord and disease have made. people who see the man and woman

■ whom God has made—pare, clean, sane, healthy—and not the ugly, diseased, discordant dwarf, the burlesque of man, which wrong thinking, wrong living and sin have made. A cheerful, optimistic mind is a sort of a prism which brings the rainbow colors out of things which are invisible to the pessimist The prism does not make the colors in the spectrum. They are everywhere in the light before our eyes. Our light la made up of all the different colors of the rainbow. The prism merely separates them and makes them visible to the eye. The ability to radiate sunshine is a greater power than beauty or wealth. If you would do the maximum of which you are capable, keep the mind filled with sunshine, with beauty and truth, with cheerful, uplifting thoughts. Bury everything that makes you unhappy and discordant, everything that cramps your freedom, that worries you, before it buries you. Take joy with you; clink to IL no matter where you go or what you do. It is your lubricating oil which would prevent the jars, the discords, and shut out the sorrows of life. True religion is fall of hope, sunshine, optimism and cheerfulness. It Is joyous and glad and beautiful. There Is no Christianity in the ugly, the discordant, the sad. The religion which Christ taught was bright, cheerful and beautiful. The sunshine, the "lilies of the field,” the “birds of the air,” the hills, the valleys, the trees, the mountains, the brooks —all things beautiful —were in his teaching. There was no cold, dry theology In IL It was just happy Christianity! Refuse to be gloomy. Cheer up! Get your mind off your troubles. Do not think about them. Think of the bright things in life. Think gratefully of the good things you have. Wake up, and be cheerful.