The Quest of Happiness

TROUBLE AND SUFFERING

Foreword: The Story of the Angel of Sorrow who

crowned Comfortas King

1. The problem stated from the view-point of optimism.

2. That happiness is latent in every form of suffering.

3. The universality of trouble argues its higher uses.

4. The capacity for pain in a creature ranks it in the

scale of life.

5. Sufferings are rounds in the ladder upon which

society has climbed.

6. In retrospect, good men are chiefly grateful for

what once seemed misfortune.

7. Springs of suffering.

(a) Physical sources, through heredity, accident,

and ill health. (b) The affections as avenues of
pain. (c) Sufferings that come through sympa-
thy with one's kind. (d) Suffering through mis-
fortune, failure, and defeat. (e) Sufferings that
follow mistakes in judgment. (f) Sufferings that
are the results of sin.
(g) Suffering through in-
gratitude and the mistakes of others. (h) Suf-
fering and the forecast of death.

8. The intellectual and moral uses of suffering.

(a) The cautionary uses of suffering for the in-
dividual. (b) The educatory uses for society.
(c) Socrates's idea of trouble as a mid-wife.
(d) That sensitiveness is the test of manhood.
(e) That suffering is a cause of which sensi-
tiveness is a result. (f) How trouble devel-
oped sympathy in the self-made men who have
become the world's heroes. (g) He who has
overlooked the uses of suffering has lost the re-
finement that comes from one of life's wisest

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teachers. () That as Christ goes toward suffer-
ing, He goes toward universal influence. (i) The
poet's vision of those who are unique in their
happiness because they were first unique in their
victory over pain and trouble.

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CHAPTER III

THAT INEQUALITIES OF HAPPINESS BY REASON OF THE
INEQUALITIES OF TALENT ARE MORE SEEMING
THAN REAL: WITH AN OUTLOOK UPON THE
TRAGEDY OF THE TEN-TALENT MEN.

Foreword: The Story of the Dwarf and the Crossbow

1. The inequalities of life a striking fact and a great

problem.

2. That the original birth gifts explain differences in

gold, land, and offices.

3. That these inequalities can be explained only by

the law of compensation.

4. That the two-talent man gains on one side what he

loses on the other.

5. Many can rise above untoward circumstances who

cannot conquer the inequality of gifts.

6. That the unique rewards of the ten-talent men in-

volve great suffering and responsibility.

7. That the history of the ten-talent men is full of

tragedy as well as victory.

(a) Responsibility of the great man as a religious
and Paul. (b) The sorrows of
the great man as a scholar-Solomon. (c) The
responsibility of the hero as moral teacher
Socrates. (d) The tragedy of the great man as
reformer - Savonarola. (e) The tragedy of men
of imagination like Dante and Milton. (f) The
sorrows of the inventors, from Palissy to Elisha
Gray. (g) The troubles of the great man as

artist, exemplified in Turner. (h) What the lyric
genius must bear, in Mozart and Burns and Keats.
(i) The sorrows of the statesman, in Lincoln.
(j) The tragedy of the spiritual leaders, from
Robertson to Beecher.

8. That Providence equalizes rewards and also the

gifts, and in choosing, chooses well.

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CHAPTER IV

THAT THERE ARE NO CIRCUMSTANCES NOR CONDITIONS

PROHIBITIVE OF HAPPINESS: A STUDY OF

SOULS HAVING THE NOTE OF DISTINCTION

Foreword: The Story of the Beautiful Girl who wept

over that at which Others rejoiced

1. Browning's "Distinguished Souls."

2. What literature owes to the prison and the dungeon.

3. The prison of Socrates gives the argument for

immortality.

4. The exile of Dante gives the Inferno and Paradiso.

5. What Epictetus wrought as a slave.

6. Cervantes's years in his dungeon and the "Don

Quixote."

7. Bunyan's twelve years in Bedford jail and his "Pil-

grim's Progress."

8. The physical prison of John Milton and his “ Para-
dise Lost."

9. The statesmen who have risen above ingratitude
and defeat.

10. Reformers who have risen above life's troubles.

II. The heart-broken and the loveless who have found

victory,

12. Men and women sick with hope deferred, and

their final peace.

13. Good men who have survived unjust accusation

and obloquy.

14. The secret of tranquillity.

15. For all there is a realm of silence and a refuge
from every form of trouble.

CHAPTER V

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115

HAPPINESS AND THE PROBLEM OF WORK AND OCCU-

Foreword: The Story of the King who wanted to learn
a Trade

1. Happiness and work often dissociated in men's

minds.

2. Work a schoolmaster that educes greatness.

3. That the worker repeats God's thoughts after Him.

4. The workless man a parasite, whether rich or poor.

5. How a false conception of work is now disturbing

society.

6. The reward of work not wages, but the conscious.

ness that work is well done.

7. The functions of work.

(a) It acquaints man with nature. (b) Gives

the knowledge of one's self, strength and weak-

safeguard against temptation. (e) The basis of

health and happiness.

ness.

8. Kinds of work, and the accompanying rewards.

(a) Happiness of the home builder. (6) Hand

work: its advantages and disadvantages. (c) The
planners and captains of industry. (d) The
happiness of inventors. (e) The happiness of
teachers who increase knowledge. (ƒ) The
happiness of those who diffuse the beautiful.
(g) The happiness of promoting justice. (h) The
happiness of the moral teacher. (i) The re-

ward of those that feed and clothe the state.

9. Importance of associating work with the higher

ideals.

10. Relation of work and religion.

CHAPTER VIII

HAPPINESS AND THE HOME AS THE SPRING OF ALL