Pleasure is Not Happiness, by D.R. Thomason, 1831

“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind!” Ecclesiastes 1:14

Happiness is the primary object of human pursuit. The desire for happiness urges our weary steps in the pilgrimage of life.

Have all the scenes of gaiety and mirth, of beauty and splendor, by which the gaze has been fixed and fascinated, supplied enjoyment–either equal to the expectations or worthy of the wishes of a rational and immortal being?

Pleasure is Not Happiness

Both observation and experience abundantly confirm the truth of the paradox–that pleasure is not happiness! Every votary of pleasure knows it.

• The varied forms of fascination by which he has been wooed have successively, in their very embrace, surprised him by the concession: “Happiness is not in me!”
• The thousand images that imagination creates have not satisfied him–but have left a painful vacuum and a distressing sense of longing in his soul.
• The moral constitution of his mind precludes any other result of these worldly pursuits. He was designed for a higher destiny and nobler joys. He possesses a principle whose kindred elements are not found in worldly objects, neither in honor nor splendor, refinement nor luxury, revelry nor mirth, beauty nor fine taste.

He seeks, with restless desire, the unseen and spiritual felicities of the eternal world and aspires to the happiness that immortality alone can give. He will know neither rest nor joy until he shall have Heaven for his home and sit forever beneath the smiles of that gracious God, who is at once the author of his existence and the source of his felicity.

Escaping

To escape from wearying toils, painful afflictions, withering disappointments, and disquieting apprehensions, we must quit the mirthful, delusive scene! The giddy mazes of pleasure’s enchantment have long perplexed. Its empty pageants have already disgusted. Its sickly joys have nauseated and cloyed the heart, while the soul seeks an introduction to holier and happier joys.

What though the siren’s song has long ravished its victim and led him so widely astray. Yet may he not pause, reflect, and return? Yes, true religion will secure peace, safety, and hope. Thousands have proved it. Many a hapless voyager on life’s vast ocean, who had long pursued vain and perilous wanderings, borne onward by the fluctuating tide of fashion or sported with by the fickle winds of worldliness, living a mad and fearful lifestyle in the wild storm of passion; or floating, thoughtless and mirthful, with the current of pleasure to the distant vortex of damnation–has been rescued from peril and misery, and has pursued a prosperous course to the distant land of his heavenly home, repose and felicity.

Finding Repose

From the blandishments of ruinous dissipation, therefore, the votaries of pleasure are invited to the genuine enjoyments of piety. Here alone will be found repose, satisfaction, and enduring pleasure! Let the sublime doctrines and virtuous precepts that the oracles of truth inculcate engage their attentive study and practical regard. The sentiments here exhibited will present a striking contrast to the spirit, maxims, and pursuits of the mirthful world.

Contact with sacred truths must be close and constant–that the mind may receive its complexion and frame its habits of thought and feeling on the sacred model. The Word of God must be believed; it must, moreover, be reverenced and loved. In the same proportion, will the influence of worldly maxims and examples become weakened, a taste for mirthful pleasures destroyed, and the bias of the mind rendered serious and devout.

The pleasures of a pious life are indescribably exquisite.

The elevated duties of piety, its dignified motives, its purifying influence, the holy restraint which it imposes on the passions, the tranquility which it imparts to the conscience, the bright and enduring prospects which it offers to hope, the sovereign antidote which it supplies to the afflictions of life –render the inspired declaration emphatically true: “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace!”