CHEERFULNESS.

THAT moderate and habitual joy which is so peculiar to Christians, is not so much an independent grace, as it is the result of the exercise of all the graces. The satisfaction of holy submission and trust, the pleasures of eternal hope, the gratification of benevolence, the joys of gratitude, and the delights of fatherly and brotherly love, all seem to swell the perennial stream of cheerfulness. Even disappointment, perplexity, and grief, those fatal disturbers of unbelieving minds, bring peace to the trusting soul and prepare it for unusual joy.

But if there be one gracious feeling which contributes to cheerfulness more than any other, it is the exercise of that charity which "hopeth all things." This hope is a reasonable expectation that the Holy Ghost will either regenerate, or continue to sanctify our hearts and those of others, whose sins give us disquiet and pain. It is such a hope that keeps us from those painful forebodings with respect to the everlasting condition of the wicked, which we would otherwise too much indulge. The expectation that the faults of our brethren, which now mar the beauty of Zion and disturb our devotions, will at length vanish before the power of subduing grace, enables us to continue happy in fellowship with them. This it is that makes Christians so cheerful in their intercourse with the people of the world. For although they cannot entirely approve their conduct and example, they hope by preserving friendly relations with them, to recommend to them the beneficence of their religion. To keep at a sullen distance from the children of this world; to treat them as if we thought them utterly destitute of conscience and beyond the reach of hope; preserving a scornful silence towards them, as though we despised the sinner rather than pitied him, is not to reflect the amiability, condescension, and compassion of our adorable Masteris not to set off religion with those attractions which belong to it. It is the smile of cheerfulness which saves the heavenly from being hateful; and but for it the descent of holy angels must have been terrible to the guilty mortals of olden time.

A cheerful deportment casts a gladdening radiance over the piety of some men, and magnifies their obscure duties into brilliant exploits. It disarms the petty vexations, and sports with the awkward accidents of life. But for it even courtesy itself would be cold and repulsive, and the disclosures of piety in promiscuous assemblies would be marked as hypocrisy and cant. To discharge each duty of social life with the solemnity of one engaged in divine worship; to perform every delicate office of courtesy with a rueful countenance, or to ask for daily bread with as much fervor as one would pray for the conversion of a soul, is to degrade Christianity into Quixotism, and to render it ridiculous to every worldly mind. But shaded with the golden veil of Cheerfulneess, the oracles of conscience may be obeyed without transgressing the laws of propriety, and the sacred fire be kept perpetually blazing upon the altar of the heart without revealing a needless parade of ceremonials.

Cheerfulness is not, as some seem to suppose, inconsistent with our being sorry for our sins, downcast in view of our defects, and desirous of

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higher spiritual attainments. During the severer exercises of repentance there is indeed little cheerfulness in the soul. Still, godly sorrow, more than any other religious feeling, prepares the mind for sunny days of joy. He who is the frequent subject of such exercises should retire from the gaze of men as soon as he finds himself unable to suppress his grief, else he may be thought a hypocrite, or his religion one of penances and austerities. It is his duty to avoid all such appearances: be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance." In his moments of sacred privacy, the Christian may and should be the victim of bitter self-accusation. Yet, if he employs these moments aright, he will, in general, be prepared to go forth from his closet with a calm spirit and return to the business of life with a serene and joyful countenance. His intercourse with the King of kings will impart to his conduct a gravity, cheerfulness, and gentleness which will more than realize in him the union of the three graces of mythic story.

Unchristian men are at a loss how to understand how a religion, which is associated in their minds with painful emotions, can make its votaries serene and happy. They fail to perceive that they and the Christian respectively view the Gospel from opposite points. As the Venus de Medicis expresses different passions according to the points from which it is contemplated, even thus Christianity shows diverse aspects to these two classes of beholders, and makes differnet impressions on their minds. The sinner, feeling guilt, and dreading the divine wrath, sees in the Gospel death, judgment, and perdition; the saint, on the contrary, accounting it his salvation, sees in it hope, triumph, and everlasting bliss. The sinner has cause for viewing the Gospel with the most painful feelings, but he is wrong in supposing it to be the cause of them. The Gospel, properly so called, namely, the glad tidings of salvation through a Redeemer, has nothing that, in itself, is calculated to make men miserable. It does, indeed, pre-suppose the existence of sin, death, the judgment, and endless misery, but it has not created them; they are as old as the fallen world, and the fear and self-accusation they excite have always and everywhere been the inalienable heritage of sinners. It is true some corrupters of Christianity have conspired to make it the cheerless system that multitudes have been used to regard it. By the help of their crucifixes they crucify the Son of God afresh; and they carry his lifeless body back again to the sepulchre by embalming the inanimate form of religion in gloomy cathedrals and cold convents. Their penances, austerities, and purgatories have filled the way of life with reeking and sinking graves, and hung the portals of heaven with death's heads and cross-bones. But these things are no part of the religion of Christ. The Gospel was designed to save the believer from unending woe, and from the guilt and foreboding which must ever follow sin. He who truly believes and heartily obeys such a Gospel, ought to be the most cheerful of human beings.

Yet the unregenerate will ever persist in believing that the Gospel can have no better effect on its followers than to fill their minds with gloomy and painful thoughts. They judge of its influence on the truly pious, by its effects on themselves. As they are annoyed by its threatenings, while they are not, like believers, cheered by its promises, they conclude that it awakens in all other minds nothing but fears and alarms. Some

have also been led to take this dark view of the glorious Gospel by the opinion of many pious persons, who suppose the highest style of Christian to be one whose deportment is severe and sober amidst every variety of circumstances-one who rarely or never smiles, and is incapable of laughing. How comely soever such behavior may appear on some occasions, if it be habitual, it is incompatible with a tender sensibility, a lively faith and a bright hope. That is doubtless the most mature piety which enables one to bear his personal vexations and ills with mild resignation, to practice self-denials with unaffected delight, and to suffer persecution, for Christ's sake, with meekness and joy.

Cheerfulness should not be mistaken for levity and simpering. The former is an excess, the latter an affectation of it. Both are different from the cheerfulness of the Christian. This is a habitual temper of the mind, indicated, not by a smile, a grin, or a laugh, but by the whole. tenor of the conduct. The Cheerful Christian seems always at peace with himself, and with all the world. A gentle animation is constantly welling up in his soul, and diffusing its cheering influence over all his faculties. Such is not the levity of the votary of pleasure. Good health and high spirits will occasionally give him the appearance of cheerfulness; but even the appearance is transient, soon rising to levity, or sinking to despondency. For one hour of giddiness and merriment, he has whole days of languor, restlessness, and disgust. His cheerfulness is the excitement of a convivial night, not the temper of the mind which abides through all nights and all days.

The gayety which pervades the various ranks of fashionable society, arises more from their circumstances than from natural disposition. Surrounded by all the conveniences and luxuries which wealth can procure, and passing their lives in the company of those whose only employment it is to please, they meet with little to sour their humors or to darken their prospects. But, when these gay creatures come down from the flowery heights of ease, as they are sometimes compelled to do, and endure the trials of lowly life, they take leave of their former hilarity, and commune only with melancholy and discontent.

In order to keep the course of cheerfulness, two shoals are to be shunned: a troubled spirit on the one hand, and a merry one on the other. The former prevails when affliction has not the support of a vigorous faith; the latter is indulged by those who allow cheerfulness to degenerate into mirth. For each of these excesses the apostle has appointed a distinct and effectual remedy. For the one prayers, and for the other psalmody. "Is any afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms."

INFLUENCES.

LET all thine influences, e'en the least,
Improve thy fellows, and take heed at home.
How eloquent are looks! From them we draw
Always our first impressions-oft our last.
The child had marked its mother's loving smile
Long ere it learned its father's lesson grave.
"Twas from its mother's fond, approving look
The boy became a painter.

THE GUARDIAN:

A Magazine Devoted to the Interests of Young Men and Ladies.

VOL. VIII.

OCTOBER, 1857.

MY SPELLING BOOK.

BY THE EDITOR.

No. 10.

Here first I entered, though with toil and pain,
Into the vestibule of learning's fane;

Entered with pain, yet soon I found the way,

Though sometimes toilsome, many a sweet display.

EVEN now some dreams of early life pass like gilded clouds over my spirit. Strange and full of mystery are dreams; and equally beyond all power of explanation are those pictures from our childhood which through life follow us as guardian angels, or go before us as "our life's star." As the heathen had a golden age behind them as well as before them, so have we. The bright heaven we look forward to is the blessed place where we become again "as little children." Our true Father and our true Mother will there receive us again; we shall love them again as erst we did on earth, and we shall go from their presenc no more. But we must not now go on to dream anew, seeing that our present object only is to record some dreams that are past.

To "finish the Primer," and "get into the Spelling Book," is an event which, as it inspired joy at the time, is also never to be forgotten afterwards. We have just been sitting and thinking over it till the whole fact with its feelings comes up before us almost as fresh as the long gone actuality. Even while thinking have we hurriedly passed our comb-formed hand through our hair, as authors are said to do in their perplexity, and behold! a gray hair has fallen on our paper. This trifling circumstance has not a little stimulated our feeling and our fancy. Were we not committed to our present heading, we would feel inclined to go on and write the history of this gray hair. But that would be a long story; and especially the younger class of our readers would be tempted to say in their answer of the incredulous Indians to the story of Iago, in the song of Hiawatha

"Oh what stories these you tell us,
Do not think that we believe them."

But let us keep to our subject; and that is the spelling book that now lies before our eyes. As it is customary in noticing books to give first of all the title page, we see no reason for departing from this natural and useful custom in this case. So please read here the titlepage in full:

"THE AMERICAN SPELLING-Book; containing Rudiments of

the English Language, for the use of Schools in the United States.
By Noah Webster, Esq. Thirteenth Revised Edition. Philadelphia:
Published by Johnson & Warner, No. 147 Market Street. Also sold
by Peter Brynberg, Wilmington, Delaware. 1816."

If that does not sound familiar to you, ask your parents, and if they know nothing of it, ask your grand-parents; see whether they know any thing of "Webster's Spelling Book." If they also plead ignorance, ask some of "the rest of mankind;" for some of the people of the United States, who can think as far back as 1816, must remember it; for we are assured that "the sales of the American Spelling-Book, since its first publication, amount to more than THREE MILLIONS of copies, and they are annually increasing."

It was some few years later than 1816 when we "got into the Spelling-Book;" but as well as we do the things of yesterday do we remember when "the master" told us on Friday evening that we might "bring one next week." The joy was, however, the greater in our heart, inasmuch as it was certain some one would "go to town on Saturday," and thus, without delay the book would appear. "What! a new book again," said my father; "how you boys do tear your books." "O no, father, I am through with the Primer, and the master says I must have a Spelling-Book!" "So-well."

The reader may smile at us if he pleases, but to us it was an earnest business, and full of joy and hope to look almost every minute for a whole hour to see father coming round the bend of the road from town. However slowly that comes, or seems to come, for which children wait, yet it comes at last-and so did father and the Spelling-Book. What a glorious fact for there father actually drew it forth from his saddlebags, the veritable volume! How natural it appeared. The yellow sheep-skin back perfectly new and clean, and the grass green cover had never been soiled by the hands of any boy; nor yet had the publisher inartistically covered the outside, as is done in these corrupt and mercenary times, with printed advertisements of "First, Second, Third, and Fourth Series," or a host of other spelling-books "to be had of the same publisher." The noble publisher would not spoil the cover of the Spelling-Book with advertisements of others. Why should he? From the point where heaven was highest, right above the place where the school was, to the farthest bounds of the circle, "where the sky went down to the earth," there was no Spelling-Book in use but Noah Webster's! Nor was any "series" needed, because this magnificent book "had it all in," from the A B C's on to "the grammar." It was in itself complete, and the only one that was so.

True, "the master" knew of "Perry's Scheme;" but "the multitude of characters in it rendered it far too complex and perplexing to be useful to children, confusing the eye without enlightening the understanding." It was also known to the learned in our neighborhood that