The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-10-21

Christ's Secret OF Happiness
WHY ARE YOU NOT HAPPY?

u NOT HAPPY :?
By Lyman Abbot

heen cheated. misrepresented, SANDER
ed cruelty wronged. Then you can
gIOriously forgive. You can be full or
mercy as your Father is full of mercy
and, in the immortal spirit of loving
| kindness and tender mercy which no
evil inflicted upon you IS able to de
stroy, you can find a joy ike that o.
Him of whom it was said, He shall
see of the travail of his soul, and be
satisfied"
You have scholarly instincts and
scholarly aspirations, but you nave
never enjoyed any opportunity for
scholarship. The daily duty which has
sometimes been also a daily drudgery
has consumed all your time. You are
a wage-earner finding it difficult to
earn more than the daily bread for
vour family; a mother, all your time
and thought and energy absorbed by
YOUR children; a business man with
means to purchase books but with no
leisure to use them. You sometimes
say to yourself, L would exchange all
the joys of life 1 possess for the joy
of knowledge. But the joy of the high
est of all knowledge is within your
reach What is it to know science but
to know the God who is in nature?
What is it to know history but to
know the God who is shaping the des-
tiny of mankind and working out the
kingdom of heaven on the earth? What
is it to know literature but to know
the life of humanity and of God who
dwells in humanity? But it is not to
the scholars that life brings the prom,
Use, they shall see God 1t is to the
pure in heart. Working in your shop,
carrying the burdens of your children
in the nursery, driven by the neces-
stiles of a business which your neigh
bors think you are driving, you can
still cultivate that purity of heart
which sees God. Piety is not the pre-
negative of leisure. Abraham was
busy farmer, David a soldier and
statesman absorbed in affairs of state.
Paul a missionary on whom came the
cares of all the churches daily. The
experiences of God which were theirs
you may also possess.
You have a strenuous life. No out
cry of the past appeals to you more
than this: 80 that I had wings like
dove for then I would fly away and be
at rest" But this is not permitted to
you. You are surrounded by clamor-
Gus children and by perpetually re-
curing household cares, or you are in
the competitions of a business which
in it's incessant demands upon you,
resembles a battlefield, or you are en-
gagged in political life fighting enemies
of your country, and required to be
always wary and generally belllgerent.
But it is not necessary to fly away
in order to rest. A man may possess
the spirit of peace while he is environ
ed by war; he may dwell in peace
though the clamor of arms is outside
of his tent or though the whirl of a
thousand SpindleS is in his factory.
A woman may be at peace though
children are clinging to her skirts and
clamoring their beseechings in her ears
1t was just as Jesus Christ had come
from the vituperous mob in the Tenn
ple,and was going to the more violent
outcries of the mob before Pilates
judgment seat, that he said, MY peace
I give unto you: let not your heart
be troubled, neither let it be afraid"
You suffer from fragrant injustice.
your words are misrepresented, your
actions misunderstood your motives
malgned. Others who have done lit
tie and dared less step in before you
and take life's prizes. Perhaps even
your best friends misunderstood, if
they do not misinterpret, you. What
then? Have you never read, 1.-The dis
ciple is not above bis master, nor the
servant above his Lord?' Blessed are
they that are prosecuted for righteous
ness sake For it is only by the res
oution that triumphs over obstacles
and the courage that faces danger and
endures injustice that the kingdom of
God is won.
Are you happy? If not, why not?
Blessedness belongs to character.
Whatever your circumstances, if you
have the right character you will have
blessedness.