How to be Happy | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1866

How to be Happy.

"Some time since," says Dr. Payson, in a letter to a young clergyman, "I took up a little work purporting to be the lives of sundry characters as related by themselves. Two of these characters agreed in remarking that they were never happy until they ceased striving to be great men. This remark struck me, as you know the most simple remarks will strike us when Heaven pleases. It occurred to me at once that the most of my sufferings and sorrows were occasioned by an unwillingness to be nothing, which I am, and by consequent struggles to be something. I saw if I would but cease struggling, and consent to be anything or nothing, just as God pleases, I might be happy. You will think it strange that I mention this as a new discovery. In one sense it was not new; I had known it for years. But I now saw it in a new light. My heart saw it, and consented to it; I am comparatively happy. My dear brother, if you can give up all desire to be great, and feel heartily willing to be nothing, you will be happy too."