(John Angell James, “The Chief End of Life” A new year’s
address to the Young Men’s Christian Association, 1850)

Time, with ceaseless flow rolls onward, and is ever bearing
you on its resistless stream–to the boundless ocean of
eternity. Yes, to eternity!

A misspent life can never be spent over again! A fault
committed in reference to the ‘chief end of existence’ can
never be rectified. It is a mistake on which death sets the
seal of eternity–a mistake which will require everlasting
ages to understand and deplore it!

The chief object of life must be something important.
A rational creature could not be justified in setting up
a mere trifle as the end and purpose of existence. It
marks a base and abject state of mind, or at any rate,
great childishness of taste–to allow one’s thoughts,
feelings and aspirations, to be attracted, as to their
center–to a mere triviality.

God has given to man noble faculties–and to see them
all devoted to some mere petty trifle, as their supreme
aim–is a sad and a humiliating spectacle.