Editorial July 12, 1969 Issue

Happiness and Health

Alan A. Aylwin

Experienced students of Christian Science know that happiness is an essential ingredient of good health. This Science shows how the mental state of an individual can influence the harmony of his body. It points to the health-producing effect of joy, gladness, gratitude, and love.

These remarks may bring the rejoinder, "Obviously it is nice to be happy, but happiness is not something one can turn on or off at will. What is the recipe?"

The recipe is to start looking in the right direction. It is to forsake the fruitless search for good in material interests, motives, and aims and strive to find the truth of God and of man's real identity as His beloved child. The practical expression of this higher understanding in loving service to others, in a conscious effort to be pure and true, imparts the solid satisfaction that is the basis of a buoyant disposition and outlook. Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can."^{Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 17;}

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