Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE UNPROFITABLE SERVANT. " But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat ? " And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shall eat and drink? " Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him ? I trow not. " So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants : we have done that which was our duty to do."—Luke xvii: 7—10. Had Christ thrown out this parable avowedly against the doctrine that the end of man is happiness, and that this was the purpose in his creation, He could not have hit His mark more accurately. There is such a doctrine, and it is widely prevalent, that God as a Being of infinite love has only one motive or principle of action, which is the production of happiness. Men differ as to the meaning of life—that is, what it was given for, why it was bestowed. The problem of existence is one of the ultimate, insoluble problems, and the most comprehensive of all, and will always receive different interpretations so long as man continues in his present state of ignorance and doubt. There are those, and perhaps they compose the majority, who believe that God, having brought man hither without the assent of his will, is morally bound to take care of him, to provide for him, to support him, and even more than that, to make him positively happy, to give him what is called a good time, and make his life on earth a success from a material point of view by supplying him with creature comforts and conveniences. Seeing that this is notoriously not the fact, and th...