until they are extinguished. Virtuous
affections are invariably the great sources of human happiness. They are
fountains of living waters, which purify the mind and make their
possessors happy. They are as rivers of water in a thirsty land.

In the teachings of Christ we learn all that pertains to true happiness,
in what it consists and how to obtain it. There we are admonished of
mere worldly blessings, because the desire for them is generally so
intense that it becomes a source of corruption, and in our successes we
often forget our highest interests. The Savior left in the background
the commonly received notions of men touching the sources of true
happiness. He said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit," referring not to
those who are temporally poor. The wicked are poor as well as the
righteous. O, how dreadfully miserable are the wicked poor! a miserable
life here, followed by a miserable hereafter. Many poor persons are
haughty, ungodly, dishonest, profligate and unhappy. Neither does it
mean voluntary poverty, or to turn mendicant monks and friars. It means
the humble, those who are deeply sensible of their spiritual or mental
and moral wants; in other words, those who feel that there is a place in
their spiritual nature for the blessings of the Gospel of Christ. It is
opposed to self-righteousness. The poor in spirit come to God through
Christ, and, putting all their trust in him, submit to the divine will
under all the trying dispensations of his providence.

The poor in spirit are always sensible of their need of salvation, but
the proud in spirit are "clean in their own eyes." Their goodness is
like the morning cloud and the early dew, yet they say, Stand by
thyself; I am holier than thou. "Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed
are the meek. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after
righteousness. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
What a sublime rebuke to the spirit of this world! It is a grand
contrast to the uneasy desires of greedy covetousness; to the
disposition of the gay; to the degradation of the impure; to the
senseless pleasures of the ambitious, when new fires ignite their hopes
only to plunge them into deeper darkness. The Bible's happiest soul is
he who has most of its peculiar mind and character. Not on account of
earthly riches, for he may be one of the Lord's poor, who, like his
blessed Master, has "no place to lay his head." Not because he has
sought and obtained hono