The Chief End of Man | Page 2

to know at all the mind of Jesus we
must know something of the mind of Judaism, of which he was the
child. Indeed, the popular religion of to-day bases itself directly on the
Old and New Testaments; so that our lineage must clearly be traced
from this as one of its origins. Another ancient line attracts us, by a
history which blends with Judaism at the birth of Christianity, and by a
literature which is rich in moral treasures. We must glance at some of
the landmarks of the Greek and Roman story.
And here our present study may define its bounds. We will not go back
to the progress from the animal up to man, nor survey the prehistoric
man; nor will we turn aside to the religions of Egypt, Arabia, and the
East; and we can but lightly glance at the early Teutonic people from
whom we are descended after the flesh. It will sufficiently serve our
purpose if we touch a few salient points among our more direct
progenitors in the life of the spirit. And, after all, our richest search will
be in the years nearest ourselves.

But no version of history simply as history gives an adequate basis for
the higher life. That life must be worked out by each for himself,
equipped as he finds himself by inheritance and circumstance, and
guided largely by the sure and simple laws of conduct which he drew in
with his mother's milk. Study and thought may help a little, and so such
essays as the present are offered for whatever they may afford. Of all
human studies, history, at its best,--the knowledge of whatever of
worthiest the past of mankind affords,--such history is of all studies
most delightful and inspiring, for it is the contact through books with
noble souls--and the touch of a great soul is a natural sacrament. Such
history has significance mainly as its events and characters find
parallels in the mind that reads. The soul of to-day, catching from the
past the voices of prophets and leaders, thrills with a sense of kinship.
The story of American independence means most when the reader has
fought his own Bunker Hill, and wintered at Valley Forge, and
triumphed at Yorktown. The death of Socrates has small significance
unless something in the reader's heart answers to his affirmation that
"nothing evil can happen to a good man, in living or dying." The life of
Jesus and the story of Christianity are most fully understood when life's
experience has brought the Mount of Vision and the Garden of
Gethsemane, the cross and passion, the resurrection, and the coming of
the Holy Spirit.
The interest of the present study is in the illustration of certain great
spiritual laws. These are laws of which every man may make proof for
himself. He may find instances of their working in any close
observation of his nearest neighbor, or in reading his newspaper. He
may find the clearest exemplification of them in studying the noblest
men and women he has known, or, if his life has been worth living, in
recalling the most critical and significant passages of his own
experience. The reading of these laws is the latest and finest result of
the experience of the race. In their substance, they are acknowledged by
all good men. No wholly new path to goodness and happiness is likely
to be suddenly discovered; certainly no essentially new ideal of what
kind of goodness and happiness we are to seek. The saints and heroes
are all of one fellowship, though they do not all speak the same
language. In a word, there are certain traits of character which all men

whose opinion we value now recognize as supremely worthy of
cultivation. To seek to know things as they really are; to fit our actions
to our best knowledge; to conform in word and act to the truth as we
see it; to seek the good of others as well as our own; to be sympathetic
and responsive; to be open-eyed to beauty, open-hearted to our fellow
creatures; to be reverent and aspiring; to resolutely subject the lower
elements of our nature to the higher; to taste frankly and freely the
innocent joys of life; to renounce those joys and accept privation,
suffering, death, when duty calls,--such purposes and dispositions as
these are unquestionably a true rule of life. The main theme to be
illustrated in these pages is that this ideal and rule is in itself an
all-sufficient principle. Fidelity to the best we know, and search always
for the best, is the natural road to peace and joy, the sure road to victory.
It is the key which opens to man the treasury of the universe.
To enforce and vivify this conception,--this interpretation