True Happiness by Henry Budd

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 29, 1856

True Happiness.

By Henry Budd

ALAS! my dear friend, we forget that we are strangers and pilgrims upon earth. When a stranger arrives at his inn at night, if his room be comfortable, he does not dwell much upon its comforts, because he intends to pass on when morning arrives; and if his room be dirty and disagreeable, he does not send for painters and upholsters to furnish and decorate it. No, he says it is but for a night; to-morrow I shall leave it on my journey. O could we but view all around us as really pilgrims passing from one stage to another; i. e., did we but live by faith, how little would any earthly circumstances affect us! I am more convinced, daily, that faith alone can procure equanimity; and happiness on earth consists in

high and intense delights. On earth happiness is hardly a positive thing: it consists more in the absence of cares and afflictions, than in the positive enjoyment of any sublunary good. No man can be happy who does not look towards eternity, and long for a change from a scene of embarrassment and woe for that of complete blessedness, in the enjoyment of what is infinitely and uninterruptedly perfect. It is my aim to grow in faith; and I grow in faith as I get nearer to the cross of Christ. But O my wretched infidelity!—I might be always happy had I but this blessed object before me; because there "the world is crucified to me, and I to the world." But I am happy nowhere else. And God, of his kind mercy, grant that I may find no rest for the sole of my foot but under the Saviour's cross! With that in view I can bear all, forgive all, resign all, trust for all, pray for all, praise for all; but shut that out from the eye of faith, and I sink down into the meanest and worst worm of earth.—Memoir Henry Budd.