Everyone loves to see happiness expressed and to experience the charm and spontaneity of this lovely quality. It is obvious that happiness cannot keep company with depression. It would be as reasonable for us to take a light into a dark room and expect to continue to see the darkness as for us to believe that we can entertain in thought at the same time such opposites as the darkness of depressive, mortal thinking and the joyous unfoldment of true happiness.

From a human standpoint it is often felt that happiness is illusive and is something which only outside circumstances can give. This reasoning is accompanied by uncertainty and doubt. It is a false, depressing sense of mortal existence, but it has in reality no power to rob us or to cheat us out of the joy of our true birthright. There is no reason for us to accept unwholesome or gloomy thoughts, for they are not of God, good.

Mary Baker Eddy's words in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 470), "Man is the expression of God's being," give us the true basis whereby we can reason and utilize the understanding of man's unity with God. As the expression of God's being, man must include only good, because God is good.

The Bible tells us that man is made in God's image and likeness; therefore man expresses all the qualities of God. For instance, since God is Soul, man expresses the qualities of spiritual joy and beauty, and these are permanent because God, their source, is eternal. Since God is Love, man is the expression of Love, and one who understands and utilizes this fact manifests the qualities of kindness, tenderness, contentment, and loving courtesy.

There can be no depression in true graciousness. Neither is depression to be found in the radiance of spiritual expression. God, Spirit, is the source of infinite substance; so man expresses all that is durable, continuous, and infinite. Boundless good, unfolding without limit, should not be thought intangible, but should be accepted as practical and effective in our human experience.

Our Leader tells us how to achieve the continuous unfoldment of happiness in our lives and shows us how we must turn thought from a material standpoint to the divine. She says (Science and Health; pp. 260, 261): "If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find-error; for Spirit, we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."

This practical statement shows us how to meet the suggestions which seem to limit good and the natural expression of happiness. The belief of a mind separate from God would make us put off present good with the arguments of limitation which claim that happiness is to us a past experience and is beyond recall. Or this belief would have us accept the other false suggestion that good and joyous experiences are to be had only in the future.

Infinite Mind includes all good now, and man is the expression of this all-inclusive Mind. Knowing these spiritual truths, we can refuse to entertain beliefs of limitation and claim good as ever present.

We must also refuse to be mesmerized by thoughts that start out with, "If only": "If only this problem would work out," or, "If only I had' some more money, friends, better opportunities," and so on. This negative reasoning is not true expression, but is that which seems to limit opportunity and the grandeur of gratitude and happiness, the very, qualities which dispel the depressive darkness of mortal thinking.

When we are tempted to accept the false beliefs of mortal mind, it is well to recall that God is our heavenly Father-Mother, who tenderly cares for all His ideas and gives His children infinite blessings. We should never doubt His loving care, but go forward expecting guidance in every detail of our lives. Christ Jesus said (Matt. 6:8), "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

In the Bible there are many accounts of God's constant, loving care and of its being made evident in human lives when the prayers of joy and gratitude were uppermost in thought. Paul and Silas were wonderful examples of this, for during their imprisonment they "sang praises unto God" (Acts 16: 25). It is recorded that "the foundations of the prison were shaken: and ... every one's bands were loosed." These men overcame what appeared to be insurmountable obstacles when they sang praises. Their expressions of gratitude and joy opened wide the prison doors, and they were free!

It is clear from this narrative that Paul and Silas never for a moment accepted the suggestion that they were helpless victims, bound with unbreakable bonds. This example shows us that we too can resist the depressing and imprisoning beliefs of mortal mind through the power of joy and gratitude. We can rejoice that man is not a helpless victim, but an idea of God, divine Mind.

No condition of either sin or disease is able to depress a true sense of good. Divine Love gives us all power to meet every physical condition fearlessly and to express only good, thus proving the supremacy of good over evil.

The natural unfoldment of good and the freedom of spiritual living are not found through human ways and means, but by one's reversing the false suggestions of limited thinking with the positive assurance of Mind's direction.

In her early experience of Christian Science the writer was healed of a despondent disposition. Life for her was a very dull, unhappy experience, and her morbid attitude towards everything and towards life in general was considered natural and unalterable. It became evident to her as she glimpsed the truths of Christian Science that she could not progress and at the same time cling to negative thinking.

It was then she began to magnify good and to look for a blessing in every experience. Every thought was corrected. As moods of depression presented themselves, they were replaced with the acknowledgment that man is the expression of God; good. A pessimistic outlook was replaced with an expectancy of good, and the tendency to anticipate failure was wiped out by progressive right thinking. Constant good unfolded from this correct reasoning, and a fuller and happier life developed.

How wonderful and natural it is to start our day with the joyous expectation of good! Every effort in the right direction is blessed. Outside circumstances do not affect true expression, neither is the happiness that comes from God something to be used on special occasions only. Spiritual happiness is permanent, forever flowing from its divine source. Thus we may daily draw on the wells of divinity for happiness and the inspiration of spiritual unfoldment; these are the heritage of man.