p. 187 | DOES IT PAY?

The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · December 11, 1879

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 54, No. 24

DOES IT PAY?

PRINCE BISMARCK, the dreaded German Chancellor, who may be said for years to have held the destinies of Europe in his hand, is, it seems, by no means, a happy man. He is rendered uneasy by his conscience, is devoured with melancholy, and he laments his destiny, which he feels to be an unpropitious one, notwithstanding his splendid political successes. “In satisfying my ambition,” he is reported to have lately said at Varzin, “I have made nobody happy. What a number of people I have cast into misery! Without me three great wars would have been avoided; eighty thousand men—nay, many more, would not have been killed, and such numbers of families, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and wives would not have been plunged into mourning. However, that account is to be settled between God and myself, so far as the hereafter goes. What happiness have I derived from all my success? Little or none; and I have reaped endless worry, vexation, hatred, pain, grief, overwork, and care.”

We scarcely see how Bismarck can charge himself with the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, seeing that he was forced to resist the French invasion; but still in contrast with him, how happy is the humblest believer in Christ who has learned the apostolic lesson,—“Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God,” and is enabled to realize the added promise, “And the peace of God, which passeth understanding, shall keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.”—Selected.