The Way to be Happy.

My Friends:

Before concluding this little book, I will attempt to make one thing plain to you, which often puzzles many minds. From the pulpit, and in many other ways, you are often urged to become religious. And this duty is spoken of in a great variety of ways, so that there is a perplexity and difficulty in knowing exactly what it is that you are urged to do. You are sometimes urged “to become religious,” to “become pious,” to “become Christians;” at other times you are told, that you must “repent;” that you must “be converted;” must “submit to God;” must be “born again;” must have “a new heart;” must “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ;” must have “faith in Christ.” I have no doubt but that you sometimes feel, that you do not exactly understand what you are required to do, and that if any one would explain[229] the matter so that you knew exactly what to do, you should be willing to do it. Now this is what I am going to attempt, and I think I can make it clear by a simple illustration.

Suppose a long and lingering sickness should suddenly appear in the place where you live, and the nurses and physicians could find no cure for it. At length a man appears who claims, that all who will come to him and obey his prescriptions, will be cured. Some say they believe in him, and some say they do not.—Some say they have faith in him, and some say they have not. Some come to him and get his directions, and obey them exactly; some do not even ask his advice; others ask for it, and when it is written out, lay it up in a drawer and never use it. Now, in this case, who are the persons who really believe in him, and really have faith in him? Surely it is not those who say they believe in him, it is only those who go to him, take his advice, and to the best of their understanding, obey it.

Now, suppose all who really obeyed his advice were healed, and then others who had neglected and despised him, should come to them, [230]and ask what they should do, to be cured of that sickness. A variety of answers would be given. It would be said, you must “turn and repent” of your past neglect—you must “submit” to this physician—you must “believe” in this physician—you must “have faith” in this physician.

All these directions mean the same thing, that is, you must come to the physician for his directions, and then you must obey them. Merely believing that his prescriptions are good, or going to get them, without obeying them, is “faith without works, which is dead, being alone.”

Now this illustrates exactly the state of things in this world. God has created us to be happy, and this is the great aim of all his dealings with us. But the only way for us to be happy is, to form that holy, benevolent, self-denying character which Christ came to exhibit on earth. Such a character as this, none of us have, when we are born. On the contrary, we all form habits of living merely to seek our own selfish enjoyments. Young children find it hard to practise any self-denial, even for [231]their own good, and we all find it hard to practise self-denial for the good of others. And yet, submission of the will to God, and self-denial in securing our own good, and in doing good to others, are habits that are indispensable to our present and eternal happiness.

Now, Jesus Christ came into the world to save it from that long, lingering disease, which will certainly end in eternal death, if not remedied before we leave this world. And he comes to creatures, who have long been living in entire neglect of his advice and requirements, and in his holy word, he teaches them how to be healed.

You now can understand that all the directions given, mean one and the same thing. We become Christians when we submit to Christ as our Lord, and set out to obey his commands. And the terms “to become pious” and “to become religious,” mean the same thing. We “repent” when we are sorry for past neglect, and show that we are sorry by our future obedience. To be “converted” means to be “turned about,” and this is done when we cease to neglect the directions of Christ and [232]begin to obey them. To be “born again” means, to come into a new state of being, and this is t............