07.03. Volume 3 cont'd
What is your life, but a voyage to eternity!
A life altogether unprepared for, must be a life of perpetual mistakes, faults, and miseries.
The chief preparation for life is the formation of a moral and spiritual character. Genuine piety, the parent of sound morality, is
True piety will preserve you from all the habits which tend to poverty and misery—and aid the formation of all habits which tend to usefulness and happiness.
Many are asking,
Man is made for happiness, and is capable of it. But what is happiness—and how is it to be obtained? To possess and enjoy it, man must be furnished with
some good—suited to his nature, adapted to his condition, and adequate to his capacity and desires.
The nature of the chief good has been, in every age, the interesting subject of most earnest philosophic inquiry. But how various and opposed, have been the conclusions at which the inquirers have arrived on this important subject. Varro, a learned Latin writer, who lived before Christ, reckoned up more than two hundred different opinions on this subject—thus plainly evincing man’s ignorance of his own nature, circumstances, and needs.
Not perceiving what it is that has made him miserable—man cannot know what will make him happy! Unacquainted with, or rather overlooking, the disease—he cannot know the remedy!
He feels an aching void within, an unsatisfied craving after something—but knows neither the nature, nor the source, of the food adapted to meet and satisfy his hungry appetite.
The vagrant spirit of man is seen wandering from God—the fountain of bliss—roaming through this "dry and thirsty land, where there is no water;" anxiously looking for happiness, but never finding it; coming often to springs that are dry, and to cisterns that are broken; until weary of the pursuit
and disappointed in its hopes, it is ready to give up all in despair, and reconcile itself to misery, under the notion that happiness is but a fiction!
In this sad and hopeless mood, the victim of grief and despondency is met by the Bible, which takes him by the hand, and leads him to the fountain of
living waters. Such is the design of Scripture—to show first of all what will not make man happy, and then what will.
Upon all the most coveted possessions of this world, it pronounces the solemn and impressive sentence, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!" It interrogates singly every coveted object of human desire, and asks, "What are you?" only to receive the melancholy answer, "Vanity!"
Nothing ’on earth’ can satisfy the soul of man, as its supreme good. Science has multiplied its discoveries, art its inventions, and literature its productions. Civilization has opened new sources of luxury, and ingenuity has added innumerable gratifications of appetite and of taste. Every domain of nature has been explored; every conceivable experiment been made, to find new means of enjoyment, and new secrets of happiness. But still the heart of man confirms, and the experience of the human race prolongs the echo—"Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!"
What is the nature and the source of happiness?
What is . . .to terminate the weary pursuits, to revive the languid hopes, to gratify the anxious desires, of destitute and sorrowing people, hungering and thirsting after bliss?
What human reason is thus proved to be too ignorant and too weak to decide, the Bible undertakes to settle; and explicitly, imperatively, and infallibly, determines for all and forever. Only Biblical Christianity . . .suits the nature, meets the needs, alleviates the sorrows, satisfies the desires, of the human soul—and is its portion forever.
Only Christianity . . .finds man depraved—and makes him holy; finds him little—and makes him great; finds him earthly—and raises him to heaven!
"You are my portion, O my God. Your favor is life, and your love is better than life. You are the center, the rest, the home of my heart!"
"Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in
him a spring of water welling up to eternal life!" John 4:13-14
One of the evils of our age, is an excessive love of pleasure, which leads to self-indulgence, and indisposes the mind for sober thought and true piety.
Love of pleasure is one of the growing tendencies of the day in which we live, and threatens infinite damage to the present and eternal welfare of mankind, by bringing on an age of frivolity, sensuality and ’practical atheism’.
Find your pleasure, young men . . .in the improvement of your mind, in attention to duties, in true piety, and in active benevolence. Is there not scope enough for enjoyment here?
Excessive worldliness is another of the dangers of this age. In our wealthy and materialistic country, there is most imminent peril of sinking into the mere worldling, and living only to get wealth. Never was there so great a danger of having . . .the conscience benumbed, moral principles prostrated, the heart rendered callous, the intellect emptied of its strength, as in the age in which we live!
Wealth is
"We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall." Proverbs 16:33
"Luck!" There is no such thing in our world, none in nature, none in human affairs.
Luck means that an event has no cause at all. It is
chance, fortune.
Never forget your dependence upon God. He can exalt you to prosperity—or sink you into the lowest depth of adversity. He can make everything to which
you set your hand to prosper—or to fail. Devoutly acknowledge this. Abhor the atheism that shuts God out of His own world!