ell-equipped, strong and clean life. We cannot all give gold or
lands, or even learning to men, but we can all give lives, and that
which heaven and earth both have a right to expect is that we shall
give the best lives we can.

IV

The Right to Happiness

_The Power of Happiness_
_The Secret of Happiness_
_The Folly of Anxiety_

_Happy is that happy makes._

_Heaven leaves the heart when hatred enters._

_The man who is so wise that he never laughs is the greatest of fools._

_When your face spells failure it's no use talking of the glory of your
faith._

_To set a child towards gladness is to incline him towards God._

_The graces do not grow in gloom._

_There's no argument equal to a happy smile._

_Stealing sorrow is as much a sin as acquiring stolen joys._

_Life's music is never perfect without the chord of pain._

_Happiness is never found by dodging my neighbour's sorrows._

IV

THE POWER OF HAPPINESS

Instead of the strength of your faith being marked by the length of
your sighs, the genuineness of your religion is to be known by its
joyfulness. The same God who gives the sunlight and the smiling
fields, who makes the brooks to laugh through the meadows and the stars
to sing at night, would rather see smiles than frowns on the faces of
His children. His glory is not in gloom but in gladness. He designed
this world for happiness, and religion is but the pursuing of His plans
for the good of His children.

That which is holy must be happy. Artificial sadness is always sinful.
A church is not sacred because it looks like a sepulchre; music is not
sacred because all the spring is taken out of it. You do not keep a
day sacred to divine ends by making it dismal. It is a religious duty
resting on all to cultivate happiness, to make this world less sad.

No matter how sincere a man may be, if his sanctity results only in
sorrow to others its satisfaction to him must count for nothing. There
is a great deal of piety that needs an operation to cut the bands that
bind its heart and reduce the inflammation of its spleen. Happiness is
the very health of religion. If religion does not give right relations
to those things that determine the tone and colour of life it is a
failure.

But true happiness can never be selfish. It grows only by giving. No
one can eat a feast by himself. Happiness is not found on lonely
mounts of vision. It is a fair, refreshing stream that fl