Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/340

 ed to each other, and work together in admirable harmony.

Life, then, under all its innumerable forms on earth, is forever active; and everywhere and always it has a definite mode of action corresponding to its nature or quality. Should we expect it would be less active in heaven than on earth?

But we have proof stronger than that from analogy, as well as more direct and positive. We know some of the laws that govern man's psychical nature, and some of the conditions indispensable to his happiness while in the flesh. And one is, the exercise of his mental as well as bodily powers, and their determination toward some definite object. Activity is inseparable from his mental constitution; and if his activity is not guided by the revealed laws of neighborly love, he will be active in doing Satan's work—active in seeking his own aggrandizement, and in cheating, robbing and spoiling others. And this misdirection of his powers brings sorrow and suffering both to himself and his neighbor.

Every one knows, too, that the idle man is never a happy man. The soul does not expand but collapses by idleness. It does not grow but withers under it. Man is not vivified but deadened by it. It is only by some kind of occupation requiring the exercise of our mental powers, that the mind is excited, vivified and delighted (C. L. 207). The most unhappy people in the world are those who have no regular occupation, and no clearly defined purpose in life.

But it is essential to our highest happiness here, not