Dispositions
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“Christians should be grave and serious, though cheerful and pleasant.
They should feel that they have great interests at stake, and that the
world has too. They are redeemed—not to make sport; purchased with
precious blood—for other purposes than to make men laugh. They are soon
to be in heaven—and a man who has any impressive sense of that will
habitually feel he has much else to do than to make
men laugh. The true course of life is midway between moroseness and
levity; sourness and lightness; harshness and jesting. Be benevolent,
kind, cheerful, bland, courteous—but serious. Be solemn, thoughtful,
deeply impressed with the presence of God and with eternal things—but
pleasant affable and benignant. Think not a smile sinful; but think not
levity and jesting harmless. “ ~ Albert Barnes