Be a Sunbeam

102 IMPROVEMENT ERA

Christ himself said: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul (spirit) but rather fear Him which is able :

to destroy both soul (spirit) and body in hell." James says: "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." Yes; when we speak of death, it is the death of the body, not the spirit —a separation, a shuffling off this mortal coil. The Prophet Joseph was told by revelation that the spirit when separated from the body cannot receive a fulness of joy, but the spirit and body, when joined in the glorious resurrection, may re- ceive a fulness. So, no matter what mystery may envelop man's existence, both in this life and in the life to come —no matter how feeble his efforts in defining the characteristics of the spirit, yet we feel confident in

saying with Martineau: "Yes! God and immortality —a sufficient basis for religion." And with Longfellow: "Life is real, life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art to dust returnest Was not spoken of the soul" (spirit).

BE A .SUNBEAM.

Taking life too seriously is said to be an especially American failing. This may be true, but judging from appearances, it would seem to be world-wide, for, go where one may, he will find the pro- portion of serious, not to say anxious, faces ten to one as compared with the merry or happy ones. If "the outer is always the form or shadow of the inner," how many sad histories may be read in the faces of those we meet every day! The pity of it is, too, that the sadness is a self -woven garment, even as is the joy with which it might be replaced. Ruskin says, "Girls should be sunbeams, not only to members of their own circle, but to everybody with whom they come in contact. Every room they enter should be brighter for their presence." Why shouldn't all of us be sunbeams, boys as well as girls, all along the way from twenty-five years and under to eighty-five yea* s and over?