Very bosom, unless it has been purified by the influence of the gospel
of Jesus the Christ. The great idols of this world are fame, pleasure
and wealth, and the love of these is the strong passion of the heart.
But it is the most prolific source of individual, social and public
misfortune, the most mischievous, contentious and demoralizing passion.
The ambitious, the voluptuous, the rich and the great are not
necessarily happy. Alexander wept upon the throne of the world because
there was not another world for him to conquer. In the midst of seminal
pleasures and corrupt passions men are always miserable. The influence
of the Gospel of Christ is the only remedy for such diseases. It saves
men from aggravating selfishness and holds in check their fierce
passions 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