, I am rather inclined to the opinion, that if we were all--in
and out of the Church--disposed to live up to, or carry out what we
professedly know to be right, it would be almost as difficult to find
real trouble, as it is now to find real happiness.

The sources of contentment and discontentment are discoverable,
therefore, without going into a metaphysical examination of the subject.
Just in proportion as we happen to discharge, or neglect known duties,
are we, according to my view, happy or miserable on earth. Philosophy
tells us that our happiness and well-being depends upon a conformity to
certain unalterable laws--moral, physical, and organic--which act upon
the intellectual, moral, and material universe, of which man is a part,
and which determine, or regulate the growth, happiness, and well-being
of all organic beings. These views, when reduced to their simple
meaning, amount to the same thing, call it by what name we will. Duties,
of course, imply legal or moral obligations, which we are certainly
legally or morally bound to pay, perform, or discharge. And certain it
is, there is no getting over them--they are as irresistible as
Divine power, as universal as Divine presence, as permanent as Divine
existence, and no art nor cunning of man can disconnect unhappiness from
transgressing them. How necessary to our happiness, then, is it, not
only to know, but to perform our whole duty?

One of the great duties of man in this life, and, perhaps, the most
neglected, is that of doing good, or benefiting one another. That doing
good is clearly a duty devolving upon man, there can be no question. The
benevolent Creator, in placing man in the world, endowed him with mental
and physical energies, which clearly denote that he is to be active in
his day and generation.

Active in what? Certainly not in mischief, for that would not be
consistent with Divine goodness. Neither should we suppose that we are
here for our own sakes simply. Such an idea would be presumptuous. For
what purpose, then, was man endowed with all these facilities of mind
and body, but to do good and glorify his Maker? True philosophy teaches
that benevolence was not only the design of the Creator in all His
works, but the fruits to be expected from them. The whole infinite
contrivances of everything above, around, and within us, are directed
to certain benevolent issues, and all the laws of nature are in perfect
harmony with this idea.

That such is