LETTER XVIII.

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 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, 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 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 begin to obey them. To be “born again” means, to come into a new state of being, and this is true of us, when we cease to live for ourselves and begin to live for Christ. We “submit to God” when we take Jesus Christ as our Lord and Master, and submit our will in all things to his. When we are much engaged in any thing, we say we “give our _whole heart_ to it,” and when we cease to give the feelings of our hearts to our own pleasures, and become most interested in pleasing Christ, then we have “a new heart,” that is, our chief interest is entirely changed. We were most interested in pleasing ourselves, but now we are most interested in doing the will of Christ. So we “believe in Christ,” and “have faith” in him, when we not only seek to know his will, but earnestly endeavor _to do it_.

So you perceive, my friends, there is no real confusion or difficulty in this matter. You can all of you begin, _this very day_, to be the followers of Jesus Christ, and thus to walk in that path, which secures true peace in this life, and eternal happiness beyond the grave. I hope, therefore, if you have not done it before, that you will, this very day, take the Bible, which contains the directions of Christ, and go to your room and resolve to _begin immediately_ to serve Christ, and pray to him to help you to persevere. And then every day, go alone and read in this blessed book, and pray for help in trying to conform all your conduct to it. This is the way to _begin_ to be a Christian, and keeping on thus, and improving every day more and more, is the way “to grow in grace.”

But you will ask, perhaps, Can I convert myself? Is it not the Holy Spirit that changes the heart? To this I reply: No, you cannot convert yourselves, and it is the Spirit of God that changes the heart. All your determinations, and good resolutions, and continued efforts would be of no avail, without the help of God’s Spirit. But _you_ have got one part to do, and the Bible teaches us thus, on this point: “_Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God_ that worketh in you _to will and to do_, of his own good pleasure.”

This then is our great encouragement to begin to do _our_ part, and to keep on in our efforts to obey Christ. We are not left to our own unaided efforts.—While we are working out our own salvation, God is working in us “to will and to do,” and this is our grand hope for success in our efforts. But perhaps you will think, that you must wait till you feel some great distress of mind, and have convictions of sin, and such other feelings as you do not find in your own mind. But, my friends, there is no need of waiting for _any thing_. Many persons begin to be Christians, without any such previous anxiety and distress. Begin, then, this very day to serve Christ by “denying all ungodliness.” If you are inclined to be careless, or to be fretful, or to be indolent, or to be heedless and forgetful, these are the points where you are to begin to “take up your cross” and follow after Christ. It costs us a good deal of self-denial, when we have careless habits, to cure them, or when we are irritable and fretful, to become meek and patient, or when we are indolent, to become industrious, or when we are negligent and forgetful, to become thoughtful and attentive. And it is in all such matters that Jesus Christ prescribes to us, “Deny thyself _daily_, and take up thy cross and follow me.”

And we are very apt to undervalue our opportunities of doing good to others, and to forget that we can imitate Christ by “going about _doing good_.” The domestic who sets a good example to young children, and by words and acts helps to form their character aright, or who by her labours in the kitchen is contributing to the daily comfort of a household, and aiding the wife and mother to make a happy home to her husband, and to train up her children aright, she surely has a right to feel that she can imitate Christ by “going about doing good.”

Let us then, my friends, set about the duties of the lot our Saviour has appointed us, daily “looking unto him” as our pattern, our guide, and our Lord; daily praying to him for his help and protection, and then when he, who is Master of all the families of earth, shall appear, each of us shall hear his voice saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

Transcriber’s Notes

Variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original.

The following corrections have been made to the original text.

Page 11: soon reached the[original has “t e”] ears

Page 16: on them by the benevolent[original has “enevolent”] king

Page 37: become lazy,[comma missing in original] ignorant[original has “gnorant”] and vicious

Page 62: twelve or fourteen[original has “orf ourteen”] hours of hard labour

Page 63: and it is[original has “it s”] becoming more and more

Page 73: become a neat[original has “eat”], industrious

Page 83: always secured for her[original has “he”] if possible

Page 85: way of raising the respectability[original has “respectablity”] of your employment

Page 85: never will be withheld[original has “witheld”]

Page 93: Eccles. 5:[original has a period] 19

Page 93: and setteth up kings.”[quotation mark missing in original] Dan. 4:[original has a period] 32

Page 134: shoot them and put an[original has “and”] end

Page 138: when this occurs a[original has extraneous comma] warning

Page 175: good plan to have a particular[original has “particalar”] evening

Page 185: you should try not to[original has “to to”] forget next time

Page 185: Always encourage[original has “enconrage”] them to try again

Page 189: would come down the[“the” missing in original] chimney

Page 190: labouring, and wearing out its[original has “ts”] strength

Page 196: all he has to feed the[original has “the the”] poor

Page 207: cut the slices three quarters of an[original has “and”] inch

Page 208: too small for his care and attention.[period missing in original]

Page 221: Where the mistress[original has misress] of the family does not arrange your work, always try[original has “alwaystry”] to have

Page 225: not the value of[original has “o”] the thing