And yet, curiously enough, this old
Puritan theology invented and held up before men, as a lure to lead
them to virtue, the most tremendous bribe that ever entered into the
imaginations of men, eternal felicity on the one hand, and eternal woe
on the other. So that it conceded the very thing that it seemed to
deny, that men naturally and necessarily sought happiness, and could
not possibly do otherwise.
And so we learn to live, to think, to serve others. We are beginning to
learn also that this desire for happiness is natural, is necessary, is
right. If a man is not happy, you may be sure there is something wrong.
If there is pain in the body, it means disease, difficulty,
obstruction, something out of the way. It means that God's laws are not
perfectly kept. If there is pain up in the mental realm, pain in the
moral realm, pain in the spiritual realm, it means always something
wrong. Man ought to be happy. He ought to seek happiness as the great
end and outcome of human life.
And we are learning, as the natural and necessary result of our
experiences in knowing and in serving, that just in so far as we know
the laws of God, just in so far as we obey the laws of God, just in so
far as we help others to know and obey, just in so far there comes into
our lives the blessedness of the blessed God.
The end of life, then, the object of life here on earth, is to develop
ourselves to the utmost. It is to learn to know, take possession of our
inheritance, this earth, control all its forces for the service of
civilization.
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