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to look cheerfully up & thank God for the blessings still left & ask him to help us manfully & cheerfully do the best we can, & do all in our power to prepare ourselves for something better if an opportunity presents itself. There is nothing that so tries ones manhood as misfortune. If it only makes us fretful, discouraged, & inactive it is a terrible thing for it has struck a blow at our manhood. It has prostrated us & we have not stamina enough about us to try to rise again. But if it only serves to make us cheerfully & energetically put forth our efforts we gain strength from our fall. I have known those who were eternally annoying themselves & every one else by rehering their misfortunes instead of profiting by the lessons of the past & pressing manfully on towards the future. When we see misfortune approaching we ought to use every means in our power to protect ourselves & those whom God has made dependent upon us from its terrible blasts that it may pass harmlessly by us & ours but when we have done all in our power & still it wrecks us the best we can do is to cheerfully gather up what fragments are left & make the best of it. It will not change the fact however miserable we may make ourselves, but it will only inflict a greater injury upon us! We have lived together a long time. I have at times lost heavily. Would you have respected & loved me more, if I had sat supinely down & tried to be miserable & to have made you so over my losses, I think not. When I had my severe hemorrhage more than two years ago, would you have thought more of me if I had worried & fretted myself out of existence rather than accept as I did the fact cheerfully & try & do all in my power to rise again. You did not hear any whining from me but I was as cheerful then as now. Dct. Higday tells me that it would have been very easy to have been frightened to death at that time.