Article March 7, 1953 Issue

"HAPPINESS IS SPIRITUAL"

MABEL B. BURNHAM

"Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love." To many of us this statement by Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 57) seems at first abstract; for as long as we think of ourselves as mortals, separated from God, we are prone to search for our happiness in material conditions or possessions. How often someone says, "I'd be so happy if I could live in a warmer climate," or, "It would make me so happy if I just had a new house," or, "Now, all I need for happiness is to find a different position," and so on.

But after futile attempts to find happiness in matter we may begin to look to a higher source for it. Here is where the study of Christian Science comes to the rescue. It gives us the understanding of our true identity as God's spiritual, immortal idea, and we learn that happiness is nothing we have to seek or find, since it already belongs to real being. By knowing this truth we can bring happiness into our human experience.

Christ Jesus' counsel (Matt. 6: 33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you," emphasizes the need of putting aside material self and sense and seeking to understand God and man's relationship to Him. To put aside material self and sense we must strive to rule out of thought any suggestion that man is mortal and endeavor to see ourselves and others as spiritual ideas. In this way we give up our belief in temporal life and happiness and realize that life derives from God, eternal, all-joyous, divine Life.

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