OUR DAILY BUTTER | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 21, 1876

OUR DAILY BUTTER.

We remember a little boy, and a bright, pleasant lad he was, who, when his mother wished him to pray for his “daily bread,” declined on the plea, that “he was sure to get that anyhow, but he would pray for his daily butter.” And so he did, and got it too; and years after, we saw him. Whether he had prayed all this time for his daily butter we do not know, but he looked as if he had lived on nothing else; fat, fat, covered him up and weighed him down; the eyes, once bright and intelligent, were almost hidden by rolls of fat. All his aspirations for the future, all his desires for improvement, were quite greased out of existence. We see a great many not satisfied with daily bread, but grasping and straining for luxuries; they want fine houses and clothes, equipages and dainty food. And striving for these things, they forget that the most lasting good is not the most palpable to the sense. They lose the joy over noble acts, the exalted pleasure of generous sentiments, and the keen delight of elevated thought. We always felt sorry for the man who ate a dish of violets with cream! He must have been a greasy soul! Yet we pity him; for he was trying to enjoy what other people enjoyed, through the only avenue of pleasure still open to him. Let us be content, then, that our daily butter is spread thin over the dry bread of life, and never strive to make our daily butter our only diet.—Christian at Work.