greatest hour in his life, for he learned that a youth was to be like a husbandman who planted seeds and then waited a long time for the harvest. So Comfortas looked about him to see how he should plant his talents and how he should grow his gifts. And knitting his brow to the daily task, he grew strong through labor and struggle and self-reliance. But all this time Comfortas knew not that his elder brother was growing weak and effeminate, dwelling in the palace and doing easy duty at home. TH life. HE quests of life are many and varied. The quests of Among them are the quest of gold, the quest of love, the quest of truth and usefulness; and above all, and crowning all, the quest of goodness and of God. To each of these high pursuits there is always and inevitably joined the quest of happiness. Man is no mere pleasure mongerer; duty is always higher than delight. Nevertheless, the quest of happiness has a certain divine sanction, in that whoever in his pursuit of gold, offices, and honors moves along a divinely appointed path, of necessity achieves another quest, and finds himself in possession of happiness. The universality of the quest, also; the fact that this instinct for happiness is as deeply embedded in man's nature as the instinct of life itself; the inner glow that accompanies all right conduct; the restlessness that follows all The master quest. wrong doing, are other proofs that the soul was made for joy and good cheer. God has ordained that every act of obedience to His laws lends strength and resonance to those chords that vibrate joy. Life is a school; labor and sorrow, victory and defeat, toil together as teachers, but happiness is the graduating point. Even of Him whose name is above every name, it is said, that for "the joy" that was set before Him He endured His cross. If righteousness, therefore, is the supreme end and aim of life, happiness is the reward thereof. Homer's Helen gives Literature is the story of life. What the great books give us, therefore, is the story of the quests of man. Jason's fleece is the story of the quest of gold. us the quest of love. on his quest of goodness. Job's quest and Paul's is the quest of God. But the Bible opens with the story of a man who is out upon the quest of happiness, and closes with an outlook upon the noble spirits who have succeeded in that quest. Moving along a wrong path in pursuit of his happiness, our father, man, lost his first paradise; in the vision of a new Eden, that he is to enter, John beholds man moving along a path that leads to a happiness that is perfect, to peace and prosperity all undisturbed. After the long life journey, even the martyrs and reformers have achieved their quest, and, forgetting their fagot fires, they enter upon the long-looked-for happiness, in the presence of One who knows neither suffering nor sin; God, who gives joy after sorrow, calm after storm, after restlessness, His rest. But God's world is one world. If happiness is the reward of righteousness there, it should bless the children of rectitude here. The life is of more importance than the life work. Therefore happiness is a pursuit to be followed as tirelessly as the pursuit of wisdom or of wealth. He who seeks to do God's will first, who puts duty before pleasure, and ranks others before himself, cannot escape the glow of happiness that comes from the sense of God's approval. The art of living justly and kindly with one's fellows, then, is not more important than the art of maintaining for oneself the sense of joy and victory over life's troubles. The duty of self-denial is not more imperative than the duty of delight. What ripeness is to the orange, what sweet song is to the lark, what culture and refinement are to the intellect, that happiness is to man. As vulgarity and ignorance proclaim the neglected mind, so fear, unhappiness, and misery publish the neglected heart. The intimate relation between happiness and all strong work implies the duty of happiness. Experience shows that unhappiness invents no tool, doubt and fear win no battles, discontent Unhappiness as an enemy. and wretchedness write no song or poetry. As the gloom of his dungeon steals the color from the hero's cheek, steals the light from his eyes, and lends a pale and sickly hue to the one plant that may spring up amidst the shadows, so depression takes the nerve out of man's arm, takes the edge from his intellect, robs the heart of its hope and the life of its victory. For that reason earth's greatest achievements in art, in industry, in literature, and in religion represent the achievements of those in whose heart happiness has bubbled like a little spring. It is often said that one of the characteristics of great work is the ease with which that work is done, as when some author writes his chapter before breakfast, as when some artist finishes his landscape before luncheon, or completes his study of saint or angel between sunrise and sunset; but another sign of good work is the happiness the worker experiences in fulfilling his task. Ask the author which is his best paragraph, and he will always mention the one into which he poured the most of passionate delight. Ask the poet to read his favorite lines, and he will always select the verses that were written in hours when happiness and the joy of the work swept through the heart with all the brightness of warm sunshine. That his work may be the stronger and the more enduring, man is commanded to prac |