| J. R. Miller | Page 10 |
Another secret of cheerfulness is found in the way we relate ourselves to the people about us. There are many persons who are made miserable by what others do or do not do. Their neighbors’ faults worry them a great deal — far more than their own. The things they hear about others vex them. The peculiarities of their friends and their shortcomings cause them great annoyance. The way other people treat them — their bad manners, their lack of respect, their want of refinement, the slights and discourtesies they detect in their bearing, their thoughtless ways — these disagreeable things in their neighbors give them much distress.
Of course we cannot be indifferent to what we see in the lives about us. A sensitive spirit is affected by whatever passes before it. In a home the life of each child continually gives either comfort or pain to a parent’s heart. Those in whom we are interested in our community or among our acquaintances add either to our pleasure or our sorrow by the way they live. A sympathetic heart carries the burdens and griefs of many lives. There is a way in wlich all this makes misery, and there is a way in which it may be made to add to life’s cheerfulness. If we look upon others critically, censoriously, to mark their faults, to judge them, to think and say severe things of them, we only make ourselves wretched, while we do them no good, only harm instead. But if we look at others through Christ-eyes, then even the things in them which cause us pain and sorrow become new chances of joy and blessing for us.
Charles Kingsley said: “Each man can learn something from his neighbor; at least he can learn this — to have patience with his neighbor, to live and let live.” No doubt this is one of the lessons. People are meant to be means of grace to us. We are to be helped by our contacts with them. From some we are to learn, through the beautiful things in them, their excellences of character. From these we get inspiration. Others help us through our sympathies. They appeal to our thought and care. They need help. We must carry burdens for them. They have sorrows, and it becomes ours to give them comfort. They are in need or distress, and we must deny ourselves for them. The blessing that may come to us through these is incalculable. Every human sorrow or infirmity that makes its appeal to us is a new chance for us to do a beautiful thing, to grow in Christlikeness. Every new burden of care rol1ed upon us, demanding self-denial, sacrifice, or service, caries in it a new blessing for us, if only we will accept it.
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