Article January 17, 1942 Issue

Signs of the Times

Topic: Pursuit of True Happiness

with contributions from James Reid, Thomas Hastwell, Earle V. Pierce, Eugene Rosenberg, J. L. Newland

[Rev. James Reid, D. D., in the British Weekly, London, England]

The Beatitudes, as they are called, are part of the Sermon on the Mount. A good many people forget this and leave them out when they speak of it. They are not easy to understand, and they do not appeal to the practical mind of the man of today. He is interested in doing something, not in feeling something or even in being something. None of us finds it easy to think of being poor in spirit, or meek, or sorrowful as a desirable condition of mind. They are virtues we might admire in a saint whom we have no wish to imitate. Nothing shows the difference between the spirit of the world and that of Christ as does the way in which we tend to push these particular sayings of Christ [Jesus] into the background. Yet there is no part of his teaching that should be studied more closely today.

If nothing else did, the word "blessed" ought to attract us. For "blessed" means happy. Christ [Jesus] was really saying, as someone puts it, "I will tell you the secret of happiness." We ought to be interested in that; for many people are secretly unhappy.... There has always been some fly in the ointment, some lurking shadow on the landscape of life. Jesus says, I will tell you the secret of happiness.

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