Article July 21, 1928 Issue

True Happiness

WILLIS R. GLICK

It is natural for mankind to seek happiness. Some may seem to find it, while many more fail in their search because they are looking for that which does not satisfy. The struggle for material wealth is often animated by the desire to buy happiness in the form of luxury and idleness. Such seeking always results in disappointment, for happiness cannot be bought with money.

Material things, being temporal, limited, and often discordant, cannot satisfy. Even a material sense of health, which many consider the greatest blessing on earth, hence the greatest source of happiness, is so subject to so-called material laws, change, and circumstance, that it is uncertain, and believed to be possible for only a few years at most.

Then, where must we look for that which truly satisfies, and which will bring to us happiness that is permanent? That which produces permanent good, peace, true health, all that constitutes real happiness, must be substantial, eternal—not fleeting, temporal, and uncertain. That which is substantial must reflect substance. But what is substance? The answer to this question means much, for it results in happiness or sorrow, success or failure. To those of us who look to the fruits of the world for substance, as did the rich man who tore down his barns to build greater, in which to store his goods, and whose highest concept of happiness was in ease, feasting, and entertainment, there may come the merited rebuke which the Master's parable represents God as giving: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?" This may apply to all who lay not up spiritual riches, for sooner or later all such seekers learn how foolish and unsatisfying are material desires and accumulations.

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