Article August 12, 1939 Issue

Delighting in the Lord

ELOISE PATTILLO HENDRICK

A Pleasant incident in the life of the composer Haydn is related. Asked by a friend if it did not seem irreverent that even his religious compositions were almost gay in character, he replied, "When I think of God, my heart is so filled with gratitude, I can't help writing joyful music."

How far-reaching is the example of one who is imbued with a joyously affirmative outlook, when this mental attitude is founded on an enlightened faith in God's omnipotence! Indeed, joy which is sincere and constant may well be considered an indispensable characteristic of the true Christian. True joy, based on an understanding of God's eternal goodness and allness, connotes unselfishness, serenity, and spontaneity; but emotionalism, which is subject to ebb and flow, has no part in true joy.

Today countless numbers, including those who formerly believed themselves to be either by nature, circumstance, or heredity melancholy and morbidly introspective, have found in their understanding of Christian Science that joy is divinely inherent in man, and that, scientifically, the ability to manifest it belongs no less to one than to another. Spiritual joy, which "no man taketh from you," as Jesus declared, is the constant experience of one who understands that outward distressing happenings are illusory and do not affect man's inseparable relationship to God, good.

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