Article December 29, 1945 Issue

"The oil of gladness"

GEORGIA LA FOLLETTE SCHAD

The world is learning that true happiness and joy have their source in spiritual understanding and right living, and not in any material condition or circumstance. As we learn to give thanks to God for all good and make gratitude a part of our daily experience, we find our life filled with gladness and joy. The Bible relates the joyousness of our beloved Master, of the prophets and the apostles, and their habitual gratitude to God.

We read in Psalms (136:1), "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever." This is just one of the many glorious expressions of a grateful heart to be found in the Bible. In fact, the Scriptures imply that joyousness and gladness are man's inalienable rights. In counseling the Philippians, the Apostle Paul wrote (4:4), "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice."

Our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 250), "Science reveals Life as not being at the mercy of death, nor will Science admit that happiness is ever the sport of circumstance." True happiness is spiritual, and the Christian Scientist learns to claim and demonstrate this quality of Mind. Happiness is achieved by accepting the real and rejecting the unreal. It would be difficult indeed to live up to Paul's admonition to rejoice alway if untoward conditions were real. But since anxiety, fear, sin, sickness, and death are falsities, and since God, good, is the only cause, we can and should rejoice continuously.

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