The Chief End of Man

The Chief End of Man, by
George S. Merriam

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Title: The Chief End of Man
Author: George S. Merriam
Release Date: August 22, 2007 [EBook #22371]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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END OF MAN ***

Produced by Al Haines

THE CHIEF END OF MAN
BY
GEORGE S. MERRIAM

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1897

Copyright, 1897,
BY GEORGE S. MERRIAM.
All rights reserved.

The chief end of man,--to define it anew, and cite the witness of the
ages, may seem an audacious attempt, likely to issue in failure or in
commonplace. By the scholar this work must often be judged as crude,
to the churchman it will sometimes seem mischievous, and to the man
of science it may appear to lack solidity of demonstration. But its
essential purpose is to utter afresh, though it be with stammering
tongue, the message with which the universe has answered the soul of
man whenever he listened most closely and obeyed most faithfully.
It is the assurance that Fidelity, Truth-seeking, Courage, and Love are
the rightful lords of human life, and its sufficient guides and
interpreters. It is the knowledge that as man is true to his best self he
finds the universe his friend.
That message the seeing eye reads in the face of earth, and the listening
ear hears it in the song of the morning stars. The will finds it as answer
to its loyal endeavor. The heart wins it through rapture and through
anguish. It is our dearest inheritance, it is our most arduous
achievement. It is the sword with which each man must conquer his
destiny. It is the smile with which Beatrice welcomes her lover to

Paradise.

CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
I. OUR SPIRITUAL ANCESTRY
II. THE IDEAL OF TO-DAY
III. A TRAVELER'S NOTE-BOOK
IV. GLIMPSES
V. DAILY BREAD

THE CHIEF END OF MAN
PROLOGUE
It sometimes happens that a man is confronted by a perplexing crisis,
before which he is quite at a loss how to direct his course. His familiar
rules and habits seem to fail him, and his perplexity approaches dismay.
At such a time, if his previous life has been guided by purpose and
consideration, he may perhaps help himself by looking attentively back
at the steps by which he has hitherto advanced. He recalls other crises,
he sees how they were met, and light, it may be, breaks on the path
before him, or at least he takes fresh heart and hope.
Some such crisis confronts the thoughtful mind of the world to-day, in
the disappearance of the old sanctions of religion. When the idea of an
authoritative revelation of divine truth has been finally dislodged, there
are moments when moral chaos seems to impend. We are still upheld
by old habits and associations, we are borne along by forces mightier
than our creeds or negations, and the loyal spirit catches at moments
the "deeper voice across the storm," even though the voice be

inarticulate. But it is felt that we need to somehow define anew the rule
of life. By what road shall man attain his supreme desire,--how can he
be good, and how can he be happy?
As the individual seeks help in looking back over his course, so it may
help us if we look back a little over some of the significant passages in
the movement of mankind. History is to the race what memory is to the
individual. One's best treasure is the memory of his happy and heroic
hours. The best treasure of humanity is the story of its happy and heroic
souls. Let us call before us some of these, and see how they answered
the questions we ask.
Following this clew, we run back along the line of what may be called
"our spiritual ancestry." Turning naturally to our own next of kin, a
child of New England, going back from the teaching of his youth to his
fathers and to their fathers, soon finds before him the Puritan. When we
study the Puritan it appears that he was a most composite product, and
that just behind him, and essential to the understanding of him, is the
great mediaeval church. Studying the church, there is nothing for it but
to go back to its foundation, and ponder well the one from whose
person and teaching it grew. And