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became so strong that there was danger they might gain the ascendancy; therefore new measures had to be
taken to counteract these feelings, and everywhere all the good forces were marshaled into line to help restore
the balance and keep the baser emotions down.
One of the ways in which most people contributed to the trouble and helped to prolong the war which they
were praying might end, was by dwelling on the AWFUL side of it and forgetting to look at the bright side.
"The bright side of that cruel war?" is probably the question which arises in the mind of the reader. "Why,
what can you mean?" To some it may perhaps even seem sacrilegious to speak of a bright side in connection
with such a calamity, as they would put it. But let us see if there is not a silver lining to even this blackest of
clouds, and if there is not a method by which the silver lining could be made wider and wider so that the
cloud would become altogether luminous.
Some time ago our attention was called to a book entitled "Pollyanna." Pollyanna was the little daughter of a
missionary, whose salary was so meager that he could scarcely obtain the bare necessities of life. From time
to time barrels filled with old clothes and odds and ends arrived at the mission for distribution. Pollyanna
hoped that some day a barrel might come containing a little doll. Her father had even written to ask if the next
barrel might not contain a discarded doll for his child. The barrel came, but instead of the doll it contained a
pair of small crutches. Noticing the child's disappointment her father said: "There is one thing we can be glad
of and grateful for, that we have no need of the crutches." It was then they began "playing the game," as they
called it, of looking for and finding something for which to be glad and thankful, no matter what happened,
and they always found it. For example, when they were forced to eat a very scant meal at a restaurant, not
being able to afford the dainties on the menu, they would say: "Well, we are glad we like beans," even though
their eyes would rest on the roast turkey and its prohibitive price. Then they started to teach the game to
others, making many a life the happier for learning it, among them some in whom the belief had become
fixed that they could never again be happy.
At last they were really starving, and Pollyanna's mother had to go to heaven to save the expense of living.
Soon her father followed, leaving Pollyanna dependent upon the bounty of a rich but crabbed and
inhospitable old maiden aunt in Vermont. Despite the unwelcome reception and undesirable quarters assigned
her at first, the little girl saw nothing but reasons for gladness; she literally radiated joy, drawing under its
spell maid and gardener and in time even the loveless aunt. The child's roseate mind soon filled the bare walls
and floor of her dingy attic room with all manner of beauty. If there were no pictures, she was glad that he
little window opened upon a landscape scene more beautiful than any artist could paint, a carpet of green and
gold the like of which not even the cleverest of human weavers had ever woven. If her crude washstand were
without a mirror, she was glad that the lack of it spared her seeing her freckles; and what if they were
freckles, had she not reason to be glad they were not warts? If her trunk were small and her clothes few, was
there not reason for gladness that the unpacking was soon done and over? If her parents could not be with her,
could she not be glad that they were with God in heaven? Since they could not talk to her, ought she not to
rejoice that she could talk to them?
Flitting birdlike over field and moor she forgot the supper hour, and being ordered upon her return to the
CHAPTER XII. MYSTIC LIGHT ON THE WORLD WAR PART IV THE GOSPEL OF GLADNESS
28
 Teachings of an Initiate
kitchen to make her meal there of bread and milk, she said to her aunt who expected tears and pouting, "Oh, I
am so glad you did it, because I am so fond of bread and milk." Not a harsh treatment, and there were many
of them at first, but that she imagined some kindly motive back of it and gave it a grateful thought.
Her first convert was the housemaid, who used to look forward with dread to the weekly wash day and face
Monday in a surly mood. It was not long before our little glad girl and Nancy feeling gladder on Monday
morning than on any other morning, because there was not another wash day for a whole week; and soon she
had her glad that her name was not Hepsibah, but Nancy, at which name the latter had been disgruntled. One
day when Nancy remonstratingly said to her, "Sure, there is nothing in a funeral to be glad about," Pollyanna
promptly answered, "Well, we can be glad it isn't ours." To the gardener, who complained to her that he was
bent half over with rheumatism, she also taught the glad game by telling him that being bent half over he
ought to be glad that he saved one-half the stooping when he did his weeding.
Near her home in a palatial mansion lived an elderly bachelor, a sullen recluse. The more he rebuffed her, the
cheerier she was and the oftener she went to see him because no one else did. In her innocence and pity she
attributed his lack of courtesy to some secret sorrow, and therefore she longed all the more to teach him the
glad game. She did teach it to him, and he learned it, thought it was hard work at first. When he broke his leg,
it was not easy to get him to be glad that but one leg was broken, and admit it would have been far worse if
this legs had been as numerous as those of a centipede and he had fractured all of them. Her sunshiny
disposition succeeded at last in getting him to love the sunshine, open the blinds, pull up the curtains, and
open his heart to the world. He wanted to adopt her, but failing in this, he adopted a little orphan boy whom
she hand chanced to meet by the wayside.
She made one lady wear bright colors, who had before worn only black. Another lady, rich and miserable
because her mind was centered upon past troubles, had her attention directed by Pollyanna to the miseries of
others, and being taught through the glad game how to bring gladness into their lives, this lady brought an
abundance of it also into her own. All unknown to the little girl she reunited in happy home life a couple
about to separate, by kindling within their hearts that had grown cold a strong love for their little ones. By
and by the whole town began to play the glad game and teach it to others. Under its influence men and
women became different beings: the unhappy became happy, the sick became well, those about to go wrong
found again the right path, and the discouraged took heart again.
Soon the leading physician in town found it necessary to prescribe her as he would some medicine. "That
little girl," he said, "is better than a six-quart bottle of tonic. If anyone can take a grouch out of a person it is
she; a dose of Pollyanna is more curative than a store full of drugs." But the greatest miracle which the glad
game worked was the transformation effected in the character of her prim, puritanical aunt. She who had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]