Scottish-American theologian (1868-1953)
We simply cannot get on as a society by purely individualistic methods, jealously guarding our own interests, governed by thought of self and fear of others. Progress, peace, victory--industrially, nationally, religiously, and in every sphere of life--are given to union, not to disunion.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
There are many teachers who assert positions, which logically lead to pessimism. Some declare that happiness is a will-o-the-wisp ever deluding the eager grasp, and it is better not to attempt the impossible. Others see life lived under a leaden sky and on a sodden earth. They agree that to some, and under some conditions, happiness of a kind would be possible, but it is so rare a chance that it is not worth counting on ourselves becoming the fortunate exceptions. There is not enough happiness to go round. Others assert that the sure way to lose happiness is to seek it. If you aim at it at all, it must be indirectly. You may have it at the back of your mind, but you must not have your eye on it. Still another objection to the pursuit of happiness is that it is selfish. Yet everybody would admit that a world of happy human beings is an ideal worth while. How is this even to begin to be possible, if nobody is ever to try to be happy himself?
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
The idea, so common in the ancient writers, is not all a poetic conceit, that the soul of a man is only a fragment of a larger whole, and goes out in search of other souls in which it will find its true completion. We walk among worlds unrealized, until we have learned the secret of love. We know this, and in our sincerest moments admit this, even though we are seeking to fill up our lives with other ambitions and other hopes.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
At the heart of happiness lies peace. It is the last and the highest attainment of the soul.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
The world thinks we idealize our friend, and tells us that love is proverbially blind. Not so: it is only love that sees.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
The duty of happiness becomes clearer when we see how it affects others. It is the merry heart that makes the cheerful countenance, and it is the cheerful countenance that spreads cheer to make other hearts merry. The sunny soul brings sunshine everywhere. A bright and happy temperament is a great social asset, adding to the happiness of the world.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
On the whole, however, it is not our own liability to death which oppresses us. The fear of it to a brave man, not to speak of a man of faith, can be overcome. It is the fear of it for others whom we love, which is its sting.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
If happiness is a state of the inward life, we have to look for its chief obstructions not in outward conditions but in deeper places. Happiness depends in the last issue, as we saw, on the essential view of life. It is not a matter of distractions, nor even of mere pleasurable sensations. There may be an appearance of great prosperity with incurable sadness hidden at the heart, as there is an outward peace which is only a well-masked despair. The way to happiness is indeed harder than the way to success; for its chief enemies entrench themselves within the soul.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
Friendship is not an obsolete sentiment. It is as true now as in Aristotle's time that no one would care to live without friends, though he had all other good things. It is still necessary to our life in its largest sense.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Love is the only permanent relationship among men, and the permanence is not an accident of it, but is of its very essence.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Life is more than meat, and it is also more than theory.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
Masters and men do not trust each other; they fear each other, ever thinking that each side is ready to take advantage.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
True, this golden friendship is not a common thing to be picked up in the street. It would not be worth much if it were. Like wisdom it must be sought for as for hid treasures, and to keep it demands care and thought.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Fear, which blights life and darkens death, is killed by love, as the cloud is dispersed by the sunshine.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
It may be obvious that this world has not been made merely for the ease and happiness of men, and obvious that we are not made to inhabit an earthly paradise, but the human heart can never cease to long for satisfaction of desire. This primal need has been the driving power to transform society and to improve the conditions of life. Even when men miss happiness as an experience, they feel they were made for it. The capacity for joy, which is their natural human instinct, demands fruition. To ask them to abandon the quest for happiness and to acknowledge it a phantom would be to make a mock of life.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
It is not easy to solve the problem of sorrow. Indeed there is no solution of it, unless the individual soul works out its own solution.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Christ's ideal is the ideal of a Kingdom, men banded together in a common cause, under common laws, serving the same purpose of love.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Sorrows come and will come, but faith is not made perfect till they are driven out by the strong hand of joy.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
The divine meaning of a true friendship is that it is often the first unveiling of the secret of love. It is not an end in itself, but has most of its worth in what it leads to, the priceless gift of seeing with the heart rather than with the eyes. To love one soul for its beauty and grace and truth is to open the way to appreciate all beautiful and true and gracious souls, and to recognize spiritual beauty wherever it is seen.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
A young man may get opposing advice from two equally trusted counsellors. One will advise him to cultivate the friendship of the clever, because they will afterward occupy places of power in the world: the other will advise him to cultivate the friendship of the good, because if they do not inherit the earth, they aspire to the heavens. If he knows the character of the two counsellors, he will understand why they should look upon life from such different standpoints; and later on he will find that while some of his friends were both clever and good, not one of the purely intellectual friendships remains to him. It does not afford a sufficient basis of agreement, to stand the tear and wear of life. The basis of friendship must be community of soul.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship