Holiness of life is not in innocence of evil but in positive forcefulness for good; not in doing as little harm as we can, but in filling the whole life with worthy, helpful, uplifting deeds. The good life not only has no debts—it has large assets, deep and lasting value; it enriches all life. It offers to the world not barren land claiming the virtue of freedom from the thorn and the brier, it crowns all with the abundance and glory of fir and myrtle.
THE SECRET OF ALL
The words hold a large place in every alert life: Happiness, Health and Heart; some may put them Success, Strength and the Soul. It is easy to recognize the importance of the first two; that of the third is more remote. Some have imagined that religion emphasizes the last alone and ignores the other two.
Evidently it is a legitimate thing for the Christian to pray for prosperity; and it is right for him to try to answer his own prayers. Poverty is no proof of piety. Nothing about God is or can be poverty-stricken. He gives us a rich and glorious world, prolific in its resources; its life is rich and prosperous. Nature is running over, fairly rioting in splendour and wealth. The Creator has given man this garden of glory that he might enjoy it. It is a sin not to enter into its possession; he is dead already who does not desire prosperity, who no longer seeks success in life. It is an easy matter for the man who has made an all around failure to talk about the dispensations of Providence and the compensations of the future. Prosperity is always a sin to the man who lacks the pluck to secure it.
Yet many who seem to have failed may have succeeded best of all. Prosperity often comes in strange packages; it may even be labelled Adversity. Not all will succeed according to popular standards. Many will be more fortunate; they will win the riches of influence, friendship, family, thought, knowledge, love, character. It is not the things we have that make us rich; it is the amount of life we are capable of enjoying. The soul determines prosperity. It is the energizing spirit of man, stirring him out of the ignoble dust, creating the desire for more of the things of life and then for more of life itself. It determines values. It has a way of reversing things so that one man gets more out of a dollar book than another gets out of a million dollar bond. It alone gives appetite and appreciation, and, without these, though there may be many possessions, there is no prosperity.
What is true of prosperity is true also of health. Happily the days are gone when sickness passed for saintliness. No longer is red blood counted a foe of righteousness. We are getting back to the simpler, earlier thinking. It is not only right to seek health; it is wrong not to. The haggard face no longer indicates the holy heart; it is likely to evidence the opposite. We are getting over the notion that God is glorified by ruining the fair temple He has given us. Men no longer count on being beautiful angels in the skies because they have looked like walking sepulchres on our streets. It is an imperfect holiness that does not have health. Health, that is physical prosperity, is a duty.
And here, also, the soul is central. The clean heart, pure thoughts, controlled appetites, aspiring hopes, these make health. Evil temper, lust, worry, care, envy, these are the soul processes that disturb the life and destroy health. Happiness is health, and happiness is wholly of the heart. The soul is but the sum of all the things within, the force that moves all things in life; if within the man looks up, then he lives up; if the soul droops, he decays. What you are within determines what you are without; he who is poor in heart, in this inner life, will be poor in prosperity and weak in health, no matter how much he possesses. But he who with his soul takes in the world of beauty, of love, of joy, who reaches out to heaven and God, all these things are his and he is rich and strong indeed.
XII
Divine Service
The Ideal Service The Orthodox Service The Heavenly Service