The Chief End of Life # 4

The Chief End of Life # 4

Young men and women, we implore you to give this subject your serious consideration. You, like ourselves, are just setting out on life's eventful journey. O say, should there be no plan laid down, no purpose formed for such a course? Shall life be aimless, objectless, meaningless? What life? Shall we trust to incidents and casualties as they spring up - for our plan of action? Shall we float down the stream of existence like twigs on the river, and lie at the mercy of whatever can lay hold upon us? Shall mere chance form our character, select our objects, guide our conduct? Remember, we can have but one life. All, all, for a time and for eternity too, is staked upon that one throw of the dice, and embarked in that one adventure. Character and destiny for this world and the next are involved in this one life. A misspent life can never be spent over again! It is a mistake which will require everlasting ages to understand and deplore it.

If you hesitate about our choice of the end of existence, will you allow us respectfully and affectionately to inquire what you would propose instead of it? What have you found so immensely valuable, that it is more worthy of your pursuit than that which we have set before you? If it is indeed better than ours, more deserving the regard of a rational, moral, and immortal being than religion and eternal salvation, tell it to us, that we may rise to a higher dignity and bliss than we have yet reached.

Do you say that your object is "To succeed in business, and to obtain WEALTH?" We are not indifferent to this as a subordinate object, and we believe, as we have already said, that our religion will rather help than hinder us in the attainment of it. But as a supreme object of existence - it is too uncertain as to its attainment, too unsatisfying as regards its nature, and too precarious as to its tenure, and too short-lived as to its continuance, to be our supreme end. We have not seen much of life, but we have seen enough to learn that many fail in business, where one succeeds; and that the few who succeed seem by no means the happiest. And we have also been often sadly impressed and affected by the spectacle of the successful competitor for business and wealth, cut off by death - just when the time had arrived for enjoying his gains and luxuriating in ease upon the profits of his industry. The announcement made to the successful man, congratulating himself upon his acquisitions and his prospects, "You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared - whose will they be?" has often rung in our ears.

Is it PLEASURE your propose as the end of life? No man is less likely to enjoy pleasure than he who lives for it, who makes it a business and profession. We have not only heard and read, but have seen, that a taste for pleasure in youth is the way to poverty in manhood, and misery in old age.

We would here present you with one of the most affecting scenes ever exhibited even in the martyrology of pleasure's victims. It is taken from the death-bed of that accomplished poet, and as accomplished libertine, Lord Byron; a man in whom the darkest passions of the soul, the loftiest powers of imagination, and the grossest propensities of man's animal nature, struggled for preeminence. One who was a spectator of the scene writes:

"He felt assured that his bodily constitution had been irretrievably ruined by intemperance; that he was a worn-out man; and that his muscular power was gone. Flashes before his eyes, palpitations and anxieties, hourly afflicted him. 'Do you suppose,' he said with impatience, 'that I wish for life? I have grown heartily sick of it, and shall welcome the hour I depart from it. Why should I regret it? Can it afford me any pleasure? Have I not enjoyed it to the fullest? Few men can more pleasure-loving than I have done. I am literally speaking, a young old man. Hardly arrived at manhood, I had attained the zenith of fame. Pleasure I have known under every form in which it can present itself to mortals. I had traveled, satisfied my curiosity, and lost every illusion.  I have exhausted all the nectar of the cup of life: it is time to throw away the dregs. But the apprehension of two things now haunts my mind: I picture myself slowly expiring on a bed of torture, or terminating my days as a sad idiot! Would to heaven the day were come in which I should meet immediate, painless death - the object of my wishes.'

"It is with infinite regret," continues the writer, "I must state, that, although I seldom left Lord Byron's pillow during the latter part of his illness, I did not hear him make any, even the smallest, mention of true religion. At one moment I heard him say, "Shall I sue for mercy?" After a long pause, he added, "Come, come, no weakness. Let's be a man to the last."

Thus terminated, in a gloomy,sullen fit of infidelity and despair. All of his rank, wealth, genius had been sacrificed to skepticism - and its natural fruits, vice, and misery. He had made pleasure his deity, and now see in what a miserable condition his god leaves him. What an antidote does his death furnish to the poison of his life! Is there anything here to tempt us to infidelity and wicked pleasure?

Perhaps you propose mental cultivation and the acquisition of KNOWLEDGE as the great end of life. We say nothing against learning,science, and the arts. We profess to admire them,and to have some taste for them. We have drunk at their springs, and often bitterly regret that our circumstances forbid us to partake more largely of their delicious waters. But then what will these do for us, in supplying the deeper needs of our moral nature, healing its diseases, or in satisfying its higher aspirations? Can they obtain for us the renovation of our corrupt hearts, the pardon of our numerous sins, the forfeited favor of God, assistance in our struggles after holiness, consolation in the dark and dreary hour of human woe, guidance amidst the perplexities of life,and protection from its dangers?

Or, as may be the case, should we be cut off in life's sweet prime, will they stand by our dying bed, smooth its pillows, and comfort us in the prospect of the grave? Will they qualify us to go in and dwell with God in heaven, and partake of the glories of immortality? Shall we in looking back upon life so early brought to a close, and in looking on to eternity so near at hand, feel that in studying science and neglecting true religion, we have answered the end of life?

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 5)