Proverbs 17:22

A Good Medicine

A merry heart is a good medicine. Proverbs 17:22.

I'm afraid you won't find today's text unless you are lucky enough to have a Revised Version of the Bible, because our text is given in another way in the Authorized Version. However, the boys and girls who have a Revised Version can look it up they will find it in Proverbs 17:22 and the boys and girls who haven't a Revised Version can easily remember it without reading it, for it is only seven words. “A merry heart is a good medicine.”

Now I think I hear some of you saying, “Well, that's too bad to speak to us about medicine from the pulpit! We know enough about medicine already. We know all the different kinds, and most of them are horrid. There's the powdery kind that is always worst when you get to the bottom of the glass; and there's the fizzy kind that seems to go up your nose; and there's the brown kind out of a bottle, and it looks nasty and tastes nastier; and there's the clear kind also out of a bottle, and it doesn't look so bad, but just try it! it makes your face screw up, it's so bitter; and there are the pills, and the little browny-black things, like the bits of sea-weed that you crack on the rocks, and they simply won ' t swallow; and there are heaps of other kinds, and we hate them all, and, please, we'd rather do without.” Ah! but the medicine we are going to speak about today, the medicine of the merry heart, is a really truly nice medicine, and easy to take. And the best thing about it is that it is not only good for yourself, it is good for other people.

1. The medicine of the merry heart is good for yourself. It is like a sunshiny day, it makes things easier. You know how it sometimes seems easy to be good on a fine day, when the sun is shining and everything else is shining too. Why, the very flowers are brighter and sweeter when the sky is blue, and somehow, going to school, you can't help jumping and skipping because everything is so lovely and it is good to be alive. And all day it is the same. Things go right without trying. It's the other way round on a grey wet day, when the sky is cloudy, and everything is dripping, and the rain gets down the back of your neck or under your umbrella, and everything is uncomfortable, and things go wrong, you can't tell how. Well, this medicine of the merry heart makes every day a sunshiny day. It helps you to get through your lessons quickly and it helps you not to stick at difficulties. It knows that difficulties are things specially made to be got rid of. It always makes the best of even a bad job. It whistles or sings at its work, and it sees fun in everything.

Have you ever heard the story of the six flies?

Three of them were on the inside of the window-pane, and the room was warm and cozy just as a fly likes it best and they were buzzing around very pleased with themselves; but on the outside of the window were other three flies, and the day was cold and wet, and the raindrops were chasing each other down the pane, and these flies looked as if they ought to be thoroughly miserable. Said the three inside flies, in a, superior sort of way, “Poor things! We art sorry for you being outside in such a day.” “Don't you worry!” replied the outside flies. “We're having the time of our lives dodging these raindrops.” You see the outside flies had taken a good dose of the medicine of the merry heart.

2. This wonderful medicine is good not only for yourself hut for other people. That's a strange thing, isn't it? Suppose you are ill, and so is the little boy next door. You take a dose of medicine and it makes you better, but you don't expect it to make little Master Next-Door well too. Now, the extraordinary thing about the bottle labeled “merry heart” is that if you take it, it makes you well, and ever so many other people besides. It's a sort of infectious medicine. If you have it other people can't help catching it from you. And that is what makes a merry heart so valuable, for a merry heart means happiness, and happiness is one of the most precious things in the world more precious than silver or gold, or diamonds, or rubies. The whole world is seeking it, but money can't buy it. There are rich people who are very, very poor because they haven't got it, and there are poor people who are very, very rich because it is theirs.

Isn't it rather fine to think that you can give other people one of the most precious things in the world? Yes, you can; for the merry heart is always a kind heart and a generous heart. It forgets about itself and thinks of others. It tries to share its happiness, and, strangely enough, the more happiness it tries to give away, the more it seems to have for itself. Just try the experiment, and see if that is not true.

3. I said that we could not buy a merry heart. Where then shall we get it? For of course we all want it now that we know how tremendously nice it is. What do we do if we want ordinary medicine? We mix up something for ourselves, or we ask the doctor to give us a special dose. Well, that is just how we must set about getting a merry heart. We can either make it for ourselves or we can ask the Good Physician to give it to us. The first kind of merry heart isn't at all a bad kind, but the second is far and away better. The first we can make by mixing together cheerfulness and determination. If we drink that mixture daily, we shall not do badly; for there is no doubt that if we make up our minds to be cheerful we can be cheerful. Just pull up the corners of your mouth, and make up your mind to smile whatever happens, and you will be astonished at the result.

Ah! but the second kind is even better and surer,

for it is given us by Christ Himself; and because it is His it can never fail. The drawback of the first kind is that it is apt to fail just when we want it most. But the merry heart which Christ gives us for the asking will never fail, for it is made up of love, and hope, and trust in Him. If we have that kind of merry heart nothing can harm us. We shall keep it safe through all life's sorrows and dangers, till we lay it at last at the feet of Him who gave it to us.