HAPPINESS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 11.

Most of the wrong-doing in the world comes from an uneasy craving for pleasure of some sort. The desire for revenge produces all kinds of malicious and hateful conduct; the yearning for gain suggests dishonesty, fraud, oppression, injustice; the appetite for sensual gratification leads to gluttony, intemperance and vice. A state of true happiness would render these cravings impossible; were the higher gratifications once thoroughly enjoyed, no room would be left for the lower. The great happiness of love annihilates revenge and malice; sympathetic pleasures extinguish selfish ones; pure and innocent recreations, cheerful society, and wholesome habits preclude the temptations to vicious courses. In a word, happiness, in its truest meaning and best forms, is the foe to wrong-doing, and in this sense it may be said that those who are happy are good.