p. 163 | How to be Happy

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 19, 1864

How to be Happy.

I will give you two or three good rules which may help you to become happier than you would be without knowing them.

The first is, "Try your best to make others happy." "I never was happy," said a certain king, "till I began to take pleasure in the welfare of my people; but ever since then, in the darkest day, I have had sunshine in my heart."

My second rule is, "Be content with little." There are many good reasons for this rule. We deserve but little, we require but little, and "better is little, with the fear of God, than great treasures and trouble therewith." Two men were determined to be rich, and they set about it in different ways; for the one strove to raise up his means to his desires, while the other did his best to bring down his desires to his means. The result was, the one who coveted much was always repining, while he who desired but little was always contented.

My third rule is, "Look on the sunny side of things."

Look up with hopeful eyes, Though all things seem forlorn; The sun that sets to-night will rise Again to-morrow morn.

The skipping lamb, the singing lark, and the leaping fish, tell us that happiness is not confined to one place. God in his goodness has spread it abroad on the earth, in the air, and in the waters. Two aged women lived in the same cottage; one was always fearing a storm, and the other was always looking for sunshine. Hardly need I say which it was wore a forbidding frown, or which it was whose face was lighted up with joy.