The following paragraphs are taken from the newspaper reports of a most excellent sermon preached by Rev. Henry Van Dyke at the recent meeting of the Presbyterian General Assembly at Los Angeles:—
"I want to speak to you to-day about the religion of Christ in its relation to happiness. The desire of happiness is natural. Now what does Christ say in regard to this natural human wish? Does he say that it is an illusion? Does he condemn and deny it? Would he have accepted Goethe's definition: 'Religion is renunciation'? Surely such a notion is far from the spirit of Jesus. There is nothing of the hardness of Stoicism, the coldness of Buddhism, in Christ's gospel. It is humane, sympathetic, consoling. If we accept his teaching we must believe that men are not wrong in wishing for joy, but wrong in their ways of seeking it. Earthly happiness, pleasure that belongs to the senses and perishes with them, is a dream and a delusion. But happiness on earth, blossoming in spiritual joy, fruiting in spiritual power, is a reality.
