Satan leading on!
Some of us shrieked with laughter. One man near me nearly had a fit of hysterics. They say Englishmen can't see a joke. I never saw an American audience "catch on" any quicker than did that Manchester one. In a moment the singing stopped and the place was in an uproar of wildest laughter. The good president at first seemed nonplused and confused, but some one must have explained it to him, for before the ministers had scarce taken their seats, he advanced to the edge of the platform, secured silence, and began to the effect: "Beloved friends! If we seem like the hosts of evil, marching with Satan at their head, we belie our looks. The Evil One has blinded your eyes. We are the army of the other side. We are Christian soldiers, engaged in a never-to-cease conflict with that army of evil that we shall assuredly conquer," and so on, giving one of the most pertinent, direct, spontaneous, and truly eloquent of addresses.
He rose to the occasion—joined in the laugh upon himself, won his audience, and then used the sympathy he had gained, to strike home some deep and important truths.
This is what I want to live, to radiate: love of humor, readiness to laugh at it even though it be laughing at myself, ready to make it when I can for others, ready to join in other people's appreciation of it.
CHAPTER XX
RADIANCIES OF THE "ETERNAL NOW"
Is there any past, any future, in our lives? If I look back upon the past, or anticipate the future, whether with joy or pleasure, do I not do it in the now? To-morrow never comes, for when it arrives it is no longer to-morrow,—it is now. Life is one eternal now. The great trouble, however, with most people, is that they have not learned that fact. They do not live in the now, they sit down and lament over the past; weep that its joys are gone, its glories faded, altogether oblivious of the resplendent beauties that now surround them, the radiant joyousnesses that environ them, NOW. Or, they sit in fond anticipation, in expectation, with impatient waiting for to-morrow, for next week, for next year, ignoring the immediate and present sweet singing of the birds, the exquisite daintiness of the flowers, their delicate fragrance, the majesty and sublimity of the snowy mountain peaks, the upright stateliness of the trees, the supernal clarity of the sky, the pellucidness of the atmosphere, the champagne-like quality of the air, NOW.
What time we lose, waste, pervert, by forgetting the duty, the joy, the delight of living in the Eternal Now. Take your joys as they come along. It is the Divine plan that every moment shall be filled with His joy—the joy of living, of being.