The Christian man has the _promise of God_ that he shall be provided for--Matthew vi.: 32, 33--while the godless man has no such assurances at all.
2. But religion keeps a man from those vices which destroy the health--as dissipation, debauchery, intemperance, etc.--and health is one of the chief elements in human happiness.
3. Religion keeps men also from those crimes which bring men into ruin and disgrace and bitter remorse.
Many a man has come to the jail or penitentiary or gallows who would have escaped it all if he had had religion to protect and shield and restrain and assist him. And many a good and happy man there is who might have been a guilty criminal and a wretched convict but for the grace of God and the lessons and blessings of true religion. He might gradually have been led off and on and on till he would have become capable of committing any crime.
I might have been a drunkard or a murderer still, if God had not changed my heart and helped me mightily and constantly by His grace.
4. But religion takes away the fear of death and the dread of the future and gives inward and constant peace--a heart happiness which poverty and disappointment and trials can not destroy. And nothing else can do this but true religion.
5. Religion can release a man from the power of those evil habits which make a man's life miserable--from acquired appetites, as drinking, opium eating, debauchery, licentiousness, swearing, gambling and even from tobacco.
6. Religion makes a good father, a good mother, a good husband, a good wife, good children, it makes the family happy, and the home bright, cheerful, joyous.
7. It makes a man a good citizen. So he can get along in peace with his neighbors and even become a peace-maker among them when they quarrel.
Thus have I tried to show you that, regardless of the future, godliness is profitable for this life. But if this were not so, if the life of a Christian were an uninterrupted experience of pains and disappointments and sorrows, yet, in view of the interests of the soul, and the possibilities of the future, and the length of eternity, it would be the highest wisdom to cheerfully accept all these and endure them to the bitter end, in order to depart out of this world with a peaceful and unaccusing conscience and a sure preparation for heaven.