"We cannot, in the strict sense of the word, make any person happy. We can give others the means of happiness, together with motives to the faithful use of them, but on this faithfulness, on the free and full exercise of their own powers, their happiness depends. There is thus a fixed, impassable limit to human help and benevolence. It can only make people happy through themselves, through their own freedom and energy.
We go farther. We believe that God has set the same limit to His own benevolence. He makes no person happy in any other sense than in that of giving them means, powers, motives, and a field of exertion." William Ellery Channing.
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