“Doctor,” he said in a booming voice, “how about coming out with the gang? We are having a big party at the Smiths’ house, and we would like you to come along. It’s going to be a whale of a shindig and you ought to get in on it.” So ran his racy invitation.

Well, obviously this didn’t sound like a proper party for a preacher, and I was hesitant. I was afraid I might cramp everyone’s style, so I began to make excuses.

“Oh, forget it,” my friend told me. “Don’t worry, this is your kind of party. You will be surprised. Come on along. You will get the kick of your life out of it.”

So I yielded and went along with my buoyant and racy friend and he was certainly one of the most infectious personalities I had encountered in quite a while. Soon we came to a big house set back among trees with a wide, sweeping driveway up to the front door. From the noise issuing from the open windows there was no question but that quite a party was in progress, and I wondered what I was getting myself into. My host, with a great shout, dragged me into the room, and we had quite a handshaking time, and he introduced me to a large group of gay and exuberant people. They were a happy, joyous lot of folk.

I looked around for a bar, but there wasn’t any. All that was being served was coffee, fruit juice, ginger ale, sandwiches, and ice cream, but there was lots of those.

“These people must have stopped somewhere before coming here,” I remarked to my friend.

He was shocked, and said, “Stopped somewhere? Why, you don’t understand. These people have got the spirit all right, but not the kind of ‘spirit’ you are thinking about. I am surprised at you,” he said. “Don’t you realize what makes this crowd so happy? They have been renewed spiritually. They have got something. They have been set free from themselves. They have found God as a living, vital, honest-to-goodness reality. Yes,” he said, “they have got spirit all right, but it isn’t the kind that you get out of a bottle. They have got spirit in their hearts.”

Then I saw what he meant. This wasn’t a crowd of sad-faced, stodgy people. They were the leaders of that town—businessmen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, society people, and a lot of simpler folk besides, and they were having a wonderful time at this party—talking about God, and they were doing it in the most natural manner imaginable. They were telling one another about the changes that had occurred in their lives through revitalized spiritual power.

Those who have the naïve notion that you can’t laugh and be gay when you are religious should have been in on that party.

Well, I went away from that party with a Bible verse running through my mind, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”. (John 1:4) That was the light I saw on the faces of those happy people. An inner light was reflected outwardly on their faces, and it came from an effervescent spiritual something that they had taken into themselves. Life means vitality, and these people obviously were getting their vitality from God. They had found the power that creates happiness.

This is no isolated incident. I venture the assertion that in your own community, if you will look around for them, you will find lots of people just like those described above. If you don’t find them in your own home town, come to the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City and you will find them by the score. But you can get the same spirit by reading this book if you practice the simple principles set forth.

As you read this book believe what you read, because it is true; then start working on the practical suggestions the book contains and you, too, will have the spiritual experience that produces this quality of happiness. I know this is so, because many of those to whom I have referred and shall refer in later chapters got their vital new life in the same way. Then, having been changed inwardly, you will begin to create out of yourself not unhappiness, but a happiness of such quality and character that you will wonder if you are living in the same world. As a matter of fact it won’t be the same world because you are not the same, and what you are determines the world in which you live, so as you change, your world changes also.

If happiness is determined by our thoughts it is necessary to drive off the thoughts which make for depression and discouragement. This can be done first by simply determining to do it; second, by utilizing an easily employed technique which I suggested to a businessman. I met him at a luncheon and have seldom heard such gloom as he got off. His conversation would have been ultra-depressing had I permitted it to affect me. It reeked with pessimism. To hear him talk you would think everything was headed for ruin. Of course the man was tired. Accumulated problems had swamped his mind which was seeking release in retreat from a world which was too much for his depleted energy. His principal trouble was in his depressed thought pattern. He needed an infusion of light and faith.

So rather boldly I said, “If you want to feel better and stop being miserable, I can give you something that will fix you up.”

“What can you do?” he snorted. “Are you a miracle worker?”

“No,” I replied, “but I can put you in touch with a miracle worker who will drain off that unhappiness of yours and give you a new slant on life. I mean that,” I concluded, as we separated.

Apparently he became curious, for he got in touch with me later and I gave him a little book of mine called Thought Conditioner.1 It contains forty health and happiness producing thoughts. Inasmuch as it is a pocket-sized booklet, I suggested that he carry it for easy consultation and that he drop one of the suggested thoughts in his mind every day for forty days. I further suggested that he commit each thought to memory, thus allowing it to dissolve in consciousness, and that he visualize this healthy thought sending a quieting and healing influence through his mind. I assured him that if he would follow this plan, these healthy thoughts would drive off the diseased thoughts that were sapping his joy, energy, and creative ability.

The idea at first impressed him as being a bit queer and he had his doubts, but he followed directions. After about three weeks he called me on the telephone and shouted, “Boy, this sure works! It is wonderful. I have snapped out of it, and I wouldn’t have believed it possible.”

He remains “snapped out of it” and is a genuinely happy person. This pleasant condition resulted because he became skilled in the power to create his own happiness. He later commented that his first mental hurdle was honestly to face the fact that while his unhappiness made him miserable, yet he was at home in self-pity and self-punishment thoughts. He knew that these sick thoughts were the cause of his trouble, but he shrank from the effort required to desire change sufficiently to actually go about changing. But when he began systematically to insert healthy spiritual thoughts into his mind as directed, he began first to want new life, then to realize the thrilling fact that he could have it, then the even more amazing fact that he was getting it. The result was that after some three weeks of a self-improvement process new happiness “burst” upon him.

Everywhere in this country today are groups of people who have found the happy way. If we can have even one such group in every city, town, and hamlet in America, we can change the life of this country within a very short time. And what kind of group do we mean? Let me explain.

I was speaking in a Western city and returned to my hotel room rather late. I wanted to get a little sleep, for I was to be up at five-thirty next morning to catch a plane. As I was preparing for bed, the telephone rang, and a lady said, “There are about fifty of us at my house waiting for you.”

I explained that I could not come due to the early hour of my departure in the morning.

“Oh,” she said, “two men are on their way to get you. We have been praying for you, and we want you to come and pray with us before you leave the city.”

I am glad I went, though I had very little sleep that night.

The men who came for me were a couple of alcoholics who had been healed by the power of faith. They were two of the happiest, most lovable fellows you can imagine.

The home to which they took me was packed. People were sitting on the stairways, on the tables, on the floor. One man was even perched on the grand piano. And what were they doing? They were having a prayer meeting. They told me that sixty such prayer groups were going on in that city all the time.

I was never in such a meeting. They were anything but a stuffy group. They were a released, happy crowd of real people. I found myself strangely moved. The spirit in that room was tremendous in its lifting force. The group would burst into song, and I never heard such singing. The room was filled with a wonderful spirit of laughter.

Then a woman stood up. I saw that she had braces on her legs, and she said, “They told me I would never walk again. Do you want to see me walk?” And she walked up and down the room.

“What did it?” I asked.

“Jesus,” she replied simply.

Then another fine-looking girl said, “Did you ever see a victim of the narcotics habit? Well, I was one and I was healed.” There she sat, a beautiful, modest, charming young woman and she, too, said, “Jesus did it.”

Then a couple who had drifted apart told me that they had been brought together and they were happier than ever before.

“How did it come about?” I asked. And their reply was, “Jesus did it.”

A man said he had been a victim of alcohol, that he had dragged his family down until they were living in abject poverty and he was a complete failure. And now as he stood before me he was a strong, healthy personality. I started to ask how, but he nodded and said, “Jesus did it.”

Then they burst into another song, and then someone dimmed the lights and we all held hands around in a great circle. I had a feeling as though I had hold of an electric wire. Power was flowing around that room. Without any question I was the least spiritually developed person in that group. I knew in that moment that Jesus Christ was right there in that house and those people had found Him. They had been touched by His power. He had given them new life. This life bubbled up in an irrepressible effervescence.

This is the secret of happiness. All else is secondary. Get this experience and you’ve got real, unalloyed happiness, the best the world offers. Don’t miss it whatever you do in this life, for this is it.

1 Thought Conditioners, published by Sermon Publications, Inc., Distribution Office, Pawling, New York.