"Happiness consists in being and in doing good; only what God gives, and what we give ourselves and others through His tenure, confers happiness: conscious worth satisfies the hungry heart, and nothing else can." This statement is found on page 17 of Mary Baker Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1902.
To be able to do good has been the noble desire of numberless people, but it has not always brought happiness. Often it has brought disappointment and frustration, sometimes even deep sorrow and regret, because it has not been "through His tenure." To hold something through tenure is to utilize and enjoy that which is given or entrusted to one.
The search of the hungry heart has always been for satisfaction. Although this search has often sprung from a desire for satisfaction in material living, a deeper human desire, shared by almost every individual, is his longing to be satisfied with himself. How often the strutting egotist is covering up a deep sense of inferiority with a mantle of bombastic self-advertisement. On the other hand, there are those with an inferior sense of themselves, who constantly compare themselves with others. There is also the self-righteous martyr, with his sense of personal good, ever nursing his wounded spirit. The majority of mortals probably fall into the category of the general run of mankind—those who are up today and down tomorrow, riding the seesaw of personal sense, satisfied with themselves one day, dissatisfied the next. Who has not known the depression that often follows close on the heels of elation?
