Article January 16, 1909 Issue

HAPPINESS

VIOLET KER SEYMER.

It is not conceivable that a God who is at once goodness and Love, should not have provided happiness for His creation, since every idea must be a reflection of the creator's own pure joy. "The fruit of the Spirit is ... joy," says St. Paul. This being so, why is not happiness apparent on every side? Because "happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love" (Science and Health, p. 57), whereas mortals seek happiness in matter. Genuine happiness does not depend upon youth or environment, for where there is spirituality there is a happiness which increases as the spirituality increases, and as surely diminishes if the spiritual activity diminishes. Spirituality produces a mental and kindly activity, while materialism is slothful and selfish.

Properly speaking, spirituality itself cannot change, but the human being who, in seeking to demonstrate it, has yielded to the perpetual suggestions of apathy, laxity, indifference, procrastination, or false pleasure, for the time being, foregoes true progressive happiness and gives up something in exchange for nothing. Happiness comes as a result of obedience to Principle, and it indicates a degree of at-one-ment with Life, Truth, and Love. Our text-book gives the recipe for it in these words: "For true happiness, man must harmonize with his Principle, divine Love" (Science and Health, p. 337). Such accord entails literal obedience to the constant behests of God, good. It involves, in moments of fear or other temptation, complete loyalty to the acknowledged fact that God is all-powerful and ever-present; it means prompt thought and action, and as prompt a rejection of false thought before it can be expressed in speech or action. This harmonizing means the seeking of happiness in goodness, and the bestowal of it upon others in all the little every-day human expressions of divine good will toward men, whoever they may be. Pure happiness of this kind is safe in God's keeping, for it is the precursor of spiritual joy, just as disinterested human kindness is our link with and our sure proof of divine Love. Thus the reason of any lack of happiness is not far to seek; and the way to its possession is even closer at hand for all who are willing to seek it in "the straight and narrow way" of spirituality.

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