In endeavoring to entertain you in this chapter I wish I might have the wit of a Nasby or come Nye the Mark; but not having the brilliant talents of either of these illustrious wits who cracked the ribs of so many people I hope you will bear with me patiently as I proceed to give to you some rays of sunshine I have been picking up for the last twenty years from all classes of people.

A fellow said to me one time I’ll tell you a panacea for every ailment. I have taken it for years and you don’t need a skilled Pharmacist to compound it. This was the simple remedy: Trust in providence and keep your bowels open. I thought it was a pretty good prescription and if applied carefully you would never have appendicitis or a good many other complaints. Of course, he said, some people ask too much of providence. I hardly think it fair to ask the Lord to furnish you the land, the patch of potatoes, a pail to put them in, a spade to dig them with, and then get down on your knees and in funeral tones tell him you are out of spuds and would like a mess for dinner with the jackets off. Don’t ask too much.

It is better to whistle than to groan. It will make some heart lighter to hear you whistle than to groan. If you can’t whistle a tune sizzle something through your teeth, there’s cheer in it for some one. No matter how worrisome, difficult or perplexing the problem is, don’t worry or brood over it. Whistle if you can, sizzle if you can’t. It will keep you from getting meloncolic; colic that comes from something besides eating too many Colorado watermelons with the accent strong on the water.

I’ve known people whom you’d think from all appearances they hadn’t a care in the world, the sunny side was always exposed and unconsciously they would be dropping encouraging words, doing kind deeds, lending acts of assistance, and doing everything to lessen the other fellow’s burden. They didn’t tell any one that they didn’t know where their breakfast was coming from, but somehow or other they would get hold of some patent breakfast food and eat it in its native state if no cow was at hand and then they were all right until the next meal, luncheon, I believe is the proper society word.

It never pays to be stingy with eulogies or encomiums. A little praise has caused many a breast to heave with gladness and chase away gloom. The cost is small, thank God it’s outside of the trusts. So don’t be backward in using it at every opportunity you meet. If the sermon is good, go up and tell the semi-paid man behind the pulpit, it won’t kill him. He may be surprised, but keep at it until he gets used to it. If brother or sister so and so has made a misstep and you are an unbeliever or not, don’t break your neck in rushing to your neighbor and ah, ahing it all over town. Let two thoughts get into your head at once and let the better thought prevail, and instead of helping stain the character of a poor unfortunate, make it your business to use your good advice, if you haven’t any then keep still.

When a church member steps from the narrow path, why has everybody such a sudden interest? Why does it cause such a loosening of tongues? The Bible says, “he that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone.” If any one but Jesus was without sin why not advertise it. Give it to the Post and use the red letters on the front page. The way I look at the parable quoted by Jesus is that if a stone is thrown some one has to throw it, it may be thrown with intent or carelessness, but in either event the stone has been thrown and some one will be struck, so the best way is not to throw the stone, if you have to throw something, go into one of the leagues and then don’t throw a stone. Throw a baseball, but don’t hit the umpire.

Wherever you can place a rose where a thorn has been, do it. There is both fragrance and class to a rose, something sweet, cheerful and pretty; but the fellow that can find any redeeming qualities in a thorn is not the person that can stand inspection. Where could you put him where he would be an improvement? You can’t progress unless you make use of the things progress is found in. Pluck the rose every time, leave the other alone.

Don’t wait ’till it’s time to erect the tombstone before you pay tribute to your dear friend. One small flower is worth more to the living than tons piled on their caskets. Some poor fellows never get tomb stones, head stones or anything to mark their graves. How much better you feel if you have never put a pebble in any one’s path as an obstruction to their progress than if you had been rolling boulders and now see your mistake. You can’t afford to do it. Pay your little tributes all along the journey of life. Be as careful dropping pains or sorrows as you would dropping pearls.

Don’t wait ’till your father, mother or wife dies, then lie about them on their tombstones. You only have one father and one mother; be careful and think some before you pour out any derogatory statements or cheap invectives concerning them. Your wife is entitled to a great many compliments you never gave her. The reverential words on the slab in the cemetery isn’t going to fool any one, and have them to believe, as you would wish, that you did the fine thing, when really you are to blame for stealing from her about twenty years of her life time. You’ve caused hollow cheeks where roses should have been and you stole many pleasures from her and enjoyed them all by yourself. Too much swine in your nature to make people think you were sincere in your profuse epigram on the tombstone.

So many people think they are endowed with a peculiar and special sort of wisdom and are able to fool their fellow men so successfully that they try it on the Lord. Here is where they make a fatal mistake, for the Lord certainly knew what he was doing when he made countenances. The newspaper’s most clever ads are no comparison to the clean, open ads the Lord puts on faces and the clear unfrosted windows where you can look far into the soul.

You can’t break man’s laws without being detected. If you are a sneak criminal, inebriate, crook, lascivious, immoral or any other of the degrading types in the category of a false man, the warning is openly and clearly displayed on your countenance. You can’t fly false colors and succeed, for sooner or later you pay the penalty to the last farthing. When you hear the remark “I don’t like his looks,” there is something shown in the countenance to verify the statement or no accusation would have been made. Be a man and your face will do the advertising.

Don’t be afraid of censure or criticism or let it keep you from helping the fellow that is down. God gave us religion for that purpose. It’s something to use every day in the week and not a specialty for the Sabbath; the more you use it the brighter it gets. Anything you don’t use and keep polished loses its usefulness and becomes rusty. Use it whenever you can and you’ll be surprised the confidence you gain in people’s hearts. It’s the greatest purifier in the world, that’s why God gave it to us. He knew what he was doing. It’s the only thing in the world that will lift up the fallen woman, the drunken man, the horse thief, the blasphemer and all others when every hand is turned against them. It’s a panacea for every evil. It’s the only thing that will take humanity with all their sins after they are entirely forsaken and down at the threshhold of hell and make them better. It will take them in the eleventh hour when they come sneaking in at the back door with characters stained as black as night and every law has been transgressed, but as they plead piteously for forgiveness, their petition is heard and all their sins are blotted out and the Lord gives them another chance. He stoops down in his great mercy and love and gives them that peace beyond all understanding. He raises them up and helps them reach for the cross when no hand is extended to help them.

At every opportune chance laugh long and heartily, nothing is better to cheer and comfort, and while it is doing the other fellow good you are getting the cheapest medicine on the market for your digestive organs. Try it after you eat some boarding house pancakes an inch think. You have lots of things to smile for. There is always some one else worse off than yourself. You see them everywhere. If you have a large family your neighbor has a larger one. If you have none at all pity your neighbor who can’t figure out some way to get rid of his mother-in-law without losing his wife. If you are able to hobble around, have a heart for the fellow in the wheel chair and the fellow that has to stay flat on his back and never sees the sun rise.

There are two kinds of sunshine; one is entirely dependent upon the individual and the other was inaugurated shortly after creation. Each is necessary to fill the divine plan. While one kind is periodical in some people, the other is always at hand unless clouds intervene. God’s sunshine is unexcelled and is a marvel in itself for warmth, beauty, cheerfulness and grandeur. The rising and falling of this wonderful orbit body is said to start and finish the work of man, as he was supposed to labor and scheme from sun to sun.

This plan may have been popular and proper before the day of the multi-millionaire, but the time is too short for the present day man, and in order to pay the necessary obligations to exist the twilight at both ends must be consumed and then reach in and grab several hours of darkness. The housewife may have to sew and rock the baby and prove her contention that her work is never done, but it’s up to the Governor, the old man, Dad, or any other name you may call him, to keep the flour in the bin, coal in the bucket, shoes on the children, and an endless number of other things. He’s the lad that must fix it up with the banker when the note is renewed. He must through some devised method dress the kids in schools as good as his more prosperous neighbor, or there’s snobs and tears. He must provide something besides the proverbial soup bone that one neighbor could borrow from another through the winter months. He must buy the latest books, procure lyceum and chautauqua tickets, pay the preacher, the ice man, the milk man, the water man, light man, and dig continually for charity, and thus you see the sun to sun theory has the bottom torn out of it.

Dad is never still long enough for the birds to build nests in his goatee and set three weeks. If he slackens up you notice a visible reduction in your pancake pile. The Lord didn’t make the suns far enough apart for dad or some other people. I worked for a farmer one time that used to start out with a handmade sun about two-thirty A. M. and never ceased till ten P. M. The meals always bothered me; I couldn’t tell if it was breakfast the next morning or two suppers. If God’s sunshine meets man’s sunshine and the two mix properly, you’ve got an individual that is a continual pleasure, one whose existence is exhilarating. He whistles and sings and smiles and laughs and gets out of life everything that is good, and everybody likes and knows him.

I was never so ashamed in my life as I was one time when I had encased in my left cheek a quid of tobacco the size of a hen’s egg. I was carrying on nonchalantly a conversation with a depot master, and the saliva was gathering so rapidly, it wasn’t long before I could only grunt. I always disliked to ruin a floor with expectoration and was also embarrassed by the presence of the agent’s boy, a little fellow of four years, but my mouth was so full and my cheeks so inflated that leakage was starting and I was forced to eject it or swallow it. I chose the former and let it go. It sounded like the distant booming of guns and the space required to contain it on the floor was unbelievable. If its dimensions didn’t cover a foot square outside of the innumerable rivulets in every direction, I’ll buy my wife a twelve dollar Easter bonnet for a Christmas present. The little boy looked at it and said, “My, that’s a big one!” I sneaked out crestfallen, abashed and ashamed, but didn’t have the sense to quit for some years afterwards, when the preacher said something about the ashes to ashes and dust to dust.