Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1884-02-14
&eading tnr the $abbath.
CONDUCTED BY
REV. ROBERT LATHAM.
(Original.I
LIFE,S DESIGN.

A startling mystery hangs over the life OF
every single member of the human family
Not only so, but there is something pro"
foundly mysterious about everything in the
universe. Let the reader ask the question.
"Why was l brought into eXiStence"' Let
the question be repeated and the mind SET
to rejecting upon it. Let the history of the
interrogation be called up and reviewed from
the beginning to the end, and what strange
and mysterious events will present them
selves for solution. Year after year the in"
dividual has titled the soil. In the spring
he prepared his fields and planted his seed ::
in the summer, he cultivated the growing
crop; ; and, in the autumn, he harvested the
products of the earth. From youth to old
age he has toiled in the same process of pre-"
pairing, planting, cultivating and harvest
ing. He may have grown rich, Or he may
have struggled all his days with pinchine'
poverty. 1t is all the same. He has really
only been making bread and eating it.
Worn out with toll and care, and exhausted
by the burden of years, he lies down and
dies or, overtaken by accident or disease,
his career is quickly terminated.
Is the individual a merchant. Let him
ask himself what has been his manner o.
life from his youth up. He may have gone
down to the sea in ships, and done business
in the great waters; or his trading may
have been of the humblest character. The
apparent circumstances are different, but
the final end is the same. In both cases, IL
was continued round of buying and selling;
of gaining at one time and on some things
and of losing at another time and on other
things. Finally death overlook him and
he was wrecked. He ceased to be the own"
er of ships, and to dwell in a marble palace
His body became the food of worms, and by
an unalterable fiat returned to dust. What
did he accomplish for himself? The answer
is, "He made bread and eat it,"
AS it is with the humble tiller of the soil
and the rich merchant, so it is with all men
of all trades and all professions. Each and
all were struggling for something, no one
knows what, and all that any one accom-.
plishes is certainly trifling. All thathe did
was to make bread and eat it.
Now the question is suggested by these
reflections, "ls this all that God had in view
in bringing into being the human family"
Was man made for no other, and we may
say no better, purpose than to make bread,
eat it, and then lie down and die? The
thought that the joys and the sorrows, the
successes and the defeats, the pleasures and
the pains which attend us from the cradle to
the grave is to be our all, fills the soul with
feeling that is akin to despair. Who can
believe that the purpose which God had III
view in creating man, was only to subject
him to a tread-mill existence for a few years
Such a conclusion is contrary to all the in
stincts of the soul, and is in open conflict
with all the revelations which God has
made of his own character.
From the Scriptures we learn that God
made all things for himself. They were not
made that he might have in them posses
sion, but they were made that through them
the glory of God might be displayed. For
this grand and glorious end all things were
created. See that tiny creature whosesmall-
ness renders it scarcely visible. Its maker
had an object in bringing it into existence:
1t is partand an important part ofa grand
whole. For the glory Of God it was made,
and for the glory of God it is preserved in
being.