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The purpose of the Gospel is to Make Us Happy (Lorenzo Snow)

When a man receives knowledge, he is prompted to impart it to others; when a man becomes happy, the Spirit that surrounds him teaches him to strive to make others happy. It is not so in the Gentile world. If a man attains to any important position, he does not strive to elevate others to participate in the same blessings. In this respect there is a great difference between the Latter-day Saints and the world of mankind. The object of the Priesthood is to make all men happy, to diffuse information, to make all partakers of the same blessings in their turn. Is there any chance of a man’s becoming happy without a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ? A man may make the thunders roll, the lightnings flash; but what has that to do with making a man happy? Nothing. Though in the world they try to make themselves happy, still they are not successful in what they strive to accomplish. They cannot be happy except upon one principle, and that is by embracing the fulness of the Gospel, which teaches us not to wait till we get into eternity before we begin to make ourselves happy; but it teaches us to strive here to make ourselves and those around us rejoice in the blessings of the Almighty.

This, then, should be our aim and object—to learn to make ourselves useful—to be saviours to our fellow-men—to learn how to save them—to communicate to them a knowledge of the principles that are necessary to raise them to the same degree of intelligence that we have ourselves.

Men may be very good, and yet they may not be very wise, nor so useful as they might be; but the Gospel is given to make us wise, and to enable us to get those things in our minds that are calculated to make us happy. The time that we have to meet together here and compare ourselves with the principles of our profession is a great blessing.

Lorenzo Snow, Journal of Discourses 9:22
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