Come next and stand with me in the most fashionable part of
London, in the height of the season. Let us visit Regent Street
or Pall Mall, Hyde Park or May Fair. How many beautiful faces
and splendid clothes we will see! How many we will count in an
hour’s time who seem to possess the choicest gifts of this world-
-beauty, wealth, position, fashion, and a throng of friends. But
how few we will see who appear happy! In how many faces we will
read weariness, dissatisfaction, discontent, sorrow, or
unhappiness, as clearly as if it was written with a pen! Yes: it
is a humbling lesson to learn, but a very wholesome one. It
needs something more than position, and fashion, and beauty, to
make people happy.
Come next and walk with me through some quiet country village in
merry England. Let us visit some secluded corner, far away from
the great cities, and fashionable indulgence and political
strife. There are many such villages to be found in the land.
There are even rural places where there is neither street, nor
shop, nor bar–where there is work for all the laborers, and a
church for all the population, and a school for all the children,
and a minister of the gospel to look after the people. Surely,
you will say, we will find happiness here! Surely such places
must be the very abodes of peace and joy! Go into these quiet-
looking cottages, one by one, and you will soon be shocked.
Learn the inner history of each family, and you will soon alter
your mind. You will soon discover that backbiting, and lying,
and slandering, and envy, and jealousy, and pride, and laziness,
and drinking, and extravagance, and lust, and petty quarrels, can
murder happiness in the country quite as much as in the town. No
doubt a rural village sounds pretty in poetry, and looks
beautiful in pictures; but in sober reality human nature is the
same evil thing everywhere. Yes, it needs something more than a
residence in a quiet country village to make any child of Adam a
happy man!
I know these are ancient things. They have been said a thousand
times before without effect, and I suppose they will be said
without effect again. I want no greater proof of the corruption
of human nature than the determination with which we seek
happiness where happiness cannot be found. Century after century
wise men have left on record their experience about the way to be
happy. Century after century the children of men will declare
that they know the way to happiness perfectly well, and need no
teaching. They cast to the winds our warnings; they rush, every
one, on his own favorite path; they walk in a worthless shadow,
and trouble themselves in vain, and wake up when it is too late
to find that their whole life has been a great mistake. Their
eyes are blinded: they will not see that their visions are as
baseless and disappointing as the mirage of the African desert.
Like the tired traveler in those deserts, they think they are
approaching a lake of cooling waters; like the same traveler,
they find to their dismay that this imaginary lake was a splendid
optical delusion, and that they are still helpless in the midst
of burning sands.
Are you a young person? I implore you to accept the tender
warning of a minister of the Gospel, and not to seek happiness
where happiness cannot be found. Don’t seek it in riches; don’t
seek it in power and position; don’t seek it in pleasure; don’t
seek it in learning. All these are bright and splendid
fountains: their waters taste sweet. A crowd is standing around
them, which will not leave the, but oh, remember that God has
written over each of these fountains, “Everyone who drinks this
water will be thirsty again” (John 4:13). Remember this and you
will be wise.
Are you poor? Are you tempted to daydream that if you had the
rich man’s place you would be quite happy? Resist the
temptation, and cast it behind you. Do not envy your wealthy
neighbors: be content with such things as you have. Happiness
does not depend on houses or land; silk and fine clothes cannot
shut out sorrow from the heart; mansions and villas cannot
prevent anxiety and care coming in through their doors. There is
as much misery riding and driving about in cars as there is
walking about on foot: there is as much unhappiness in elegant
houses as in humble cottages. Oh, remember the mistakes which
are common about happiness and be wise!
III. Let me now, in the last place, “point out the way to be
really happy.”
There is a sure path which leads to happiness, if men will only
take it. There never lived a person who traveled in that path,
and missed the object that he sought to attain.
It is a path open to all. It needs neither wealth, nor position,
nor learning in order to walk in it. It is for the servant as
well as for the master: it is for the poor as well as for the
rich. None are excluded but those who exclude themselves.
Where is this path? Where is this road? Listen, and you will
hear.
The way to be happy is “to be a real, thorough-going true-hearted
Christian.” Scripture declares it; experience proves it. The
converted man, the believer in Christ, the child of God–he, and
he alone, is the happy man.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
