No wonder it sometimes seems to us that we have forgotten to smile;
that our faces are so drawn with the tense struggle of life that we
have lost sight of the meaning of happiness. How can we be happy
unless we shall set our whole lives in harmony with the things that are
fundamental and eternal?

We must learn to order our lives, not as machines to be driven at the
top of their efficiency in the money mill, but as part of the great
life of the spiritual world, as inheritors of things divine, sublime,
and glorious, as possessors of the joy that made the morning stars sing
together and the beauty that paints the evening red.



THE PURPOSE OF THE COURSE

The early question of the old creeds, "What is the chief end of man?"
was conceived in a spirit more practical than academic. It was the
voice of the constant inquiry as to the purpose of living. But the
answer given by the creed lacks the assurance of a moral conviction; it
fails to find any response in us. "To glorify God and to enjoy Him
forever" may be the portion of angels, but honest men have to confess
that they have no great desire to be angels, yet.

The emphasis of the creed with that as its basis practically was on
dying rather than on living; it owed whatever grip it had on men to the
promise it held, to those who were in the midst of the sordid round of
tasks or the dull, heavy grind of poverty, of a felicitude that knew
neither hunger, fear, nor pain; it offered a heaven forever to those