party from vanity, or gives
a present from vanity, or writes a book from vanity, or seeks an office
from vanity,--then, as certainly as the bite of an asp will poison the
body, will the expected good be turned into a bitter disappointment.
Self-love cannot be the basis of human action without alienation from
God, without weariness, disgust, and ultimate sorrow. The soul can be
fed only by divine certitudes; it can be enlarged only by walking
according to the divine commandments.

Confucius, Socrates, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius declared the same
truths, but not so impressively. Not for one's self, not for friends,
not even for children alone must one live. There is a higher law still
which speaks to the universal conscience, asking, What is your duty?
With this is identified all that is precious in life, on earth or in
heaven, for time and eternity. Anything in this world which is sought
as a good, whose end is selfish, is an impressive failure; so that
self-aggrandizement becomes as absurd and fatal as self-indulgence. One
can no more escape from the operation of this law than he can take the
wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea. The
commonest experiences of every-day life confirm the wisdom which Solomon
uttered out of his lonely and saddened soul. If ye will not hear him, be
instructed by your own broken friendships, your own dispelled illusions,
your own fallen idols; by the heartlessness which too often lurks in the
smiles of beauty, by the poison concealed in polished flatteries, by the
deceitfulness hidden, beneath the warmest praises, by the demons of
envy, jealousy, and pride which take from success itself its
promised joys.

Who is happy with any amount of wealth? Who is free from corroding
cares? Who can escape anxiety and fear? How hard to shake off the
burdens which even a rich man is compelled to bear? There is a fly in
every ointment, a skeleton in every closet, solitude in the midst of
crowds, isolation in the joy of festivals. The wrecks of happiness are
strewn in every path that the world has envied.

Read the lives of illustrious men; how melancholy often are the latter
days of those who have climbed the highest! Caesar is stabbed when he
has conquered the world. Diocletian retires in disgust from the
government of an empire. Godfrey languishes in grief when he has taken
Jerusalem. Charles V. shuts himself up in a convent. Galileo, whose
spirit has roamed the heavens,