Worth While

A little boy whom his mother had rebuked for not turning a deaf ear to temptation protested,with tears, that he had no deaf ear. But temptation, even when heard, must somehow be resisted. Yea, especially when heard! We deserve no credit for resisting it unless it comes to our ears like the voice of the siren.

  
 It is easy enough to be pleasant

      When life flows by like a song,

   But the man worth while is the one who will smile

      When everything goes dead wrong.

   For the test of the heart is trouble,

      And it always comes with the years,

   And the smile that is worth the praises of earth

      Is the smile that shines through tears.

   It is easy enough to be prudent

      When nothing tempts you to stray,

   When without or within no voice of sin

      Is luring your soul away;

   But it’s only a negative virtue

      Until it is tried by fire,

   And the life that is worth the honour on earth

      Is the one that resists desire.

   By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,

      Who had no strength for the strife,

   The world’s highway is cumbered to-day—

      They make up the sum of life;

   But the virtue that conquers passion,

      And the sorrow that hides in a smile—

   It is these that are worth the homage on earth,

      For we find them but once in a while.

                                                    by Ella Wheeler Wilcox