ht along the
shallow shores.

Now, my dear friends,--surely beautiful things were made to be seen by
some one, else why were they made beautiful? Common sense tells us that.
But who has seen those countless tribes, which have been living down, in
utter darkness, since the making of the world? Common sense, I think,
can give but one answer--GOD. He, and He only, to whom the night is as
clear as the day, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike. But
more--God has not only made things beautiful; He has made things happy;
whatever misery there may be in the world, there is no denying that.
However sorrow may have come into the world, there is a great deal more
happiness than misery in it. Misery is the exception; happiness is the
rule. No rational man ever heard a bird sing, without feeling that that
bird was happy; and, if so, his common sense ought to tell him that if
God made that bird, He made it to be happy; He intended it to be happy,
and He takes pleasure in its happiness, though no human ear should ever
hear its song, no human heart should ever share in its joy. 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. The man who only loves
himself knows not what Love means. In truth, he