Yes, the
world was not made for man; but man, like all the world, was made for
God. Not for man's pleasure merely, not for man's use, but for God's
pleasure all things are, and for God's pleasure they were created.
And now, surely, common sense will tell us why God made all things. For
His own pleasure. God is pleased to make them, and pleased with what He
has made, because what He has made is worth being pleased with. He has
seen all things that He has made, and, behold, they are very good, and
right, and wise, and beautiful, and happy, each after its kind. So that,
as the Psalmist says, "The Lord shall rejoice in His works." And
Scripture tells that it must be so, if we only recollect and believe one
word of St. John's that "God is Love"--for it is the very essence of
love, that it cannot be content to love itself. It must have something
which is not itself to love that it may go out of itself, and forget
itself, and spend itself in the good and in the happiness of what it
loves. All true love of husband and wife, mother and child, sister and
brother, friend and friend, man to his country,--what does it mean but
this? Forgetting one's selfish happiness in doing good to others, and
finding a deeper, higher happiness in that.
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