^ There must be trust before there is joy. This seems so obvious that at first sight we should scarcely consider it worthy of notice ; but yet in practical life it requires to be most carefully observed. I have myself met with numbers of persons who have told me that they cannot trust the Lord Jesus Christ because they have no joy in their hearts. This is utterly opposed to Holy Scripture, and indeed to the reason of things. If I may not trust till I have joy, where is the joy to come from ? How can any man be rejoicing in safety before he is safe, and before he has learned to trust the Lord Jesus for his safety ? How can there be joy in the heart that is doubting Christ ? If, therefore, we are to be joyous believers, we must learn to trust when we have no joy at all.^
x\re you glad, my big brother, my deep-hearted oak ?
Are you glad in each open-palm leaf ?
Do you joy to be God's ? Does it thrill you with living delight ?
Are your sturdy in stalwart belief?
As you stand day and night,
As you stand through the nights and the days,
Do you praise ?
0 strenuous vine, do you run. As a man runs a race to a goal,
1 E. Iloare.
5t8 the strength OF JOY
Your end that God's will may be done,
Like a strong-sinewed soul ?
Are you glad ? Do you praise ?
Do you run ?
And shall I be afraid,
Like a spirit undone;
Like a sprout in deep shade ;
Like an infant of days :
When I hear, when I see and interpret aright
The winds in their jubilant flight;
The manifest peace of the sky and the rapture of light;
The paean of waves as they flow ;
The stars that reveal
The deep bliss of the night ;
The unspeakable joy of the air ;
And feel as I feel,
And know as I know
God is there ?
Hush !
For I hear him— Enshrined in the heart of the wood : 'Tis the priestly and reverent thrush, Anointed to sing to our God: And he hymns it full well, All I stammer to tell, All I yearn to impart.
Listen !
The strain Shall sink into the heart. And soften and swell Till its meaning is plain,
And love in its manifold harmonies, that shall remain, Shall remain.^
iii. What are the occasions for it?
1. Is there not an occasion for joy in the mere fact of living in a world so wonderful as this of ours, where, as the Psalmist expresses it, everything in His temple cries aloud, "Glory to God ! " The study of the open Book of Nature is full of a subtle joy, and no one who reads its pages aright, and understands the * Daiiske Carolina Dandridge.
NEHEMIAH viii. lo 519
joy of bird and beast, and grasps the perfect beauty of every living thing upon the earth, can for one moment doubt that God's intention is surely that gladness and happiness should be the rule of life, and that sorrow and sadness are contrary to His will.
liet thy day be to thy night
A letter of good tidings. Let thy praise
Go up as birds go up, that when they wake
Shake oft' the dew and soar. So take Joy home,
And make a place in thy great heart for her,
And give her time to grow and cherish her.
Then will she come and oft will sing to thee
When thou art working in the furrows, ay,
Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.
It is a comely fashion to be glad, —
Joy is the grace we say to God.^
All the simple things of nature are joyous ; flowers and fruits, woods and streams, the meadows and the breezes, the song of birds, the movements of animals, the irrepressible mirth of children. All the strong things of nature are magnificently joyous. The sun goeth forth " as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." The sea with its mighty rush and roll, the tempest in its resistless sweep, have the major tone of rejoicing in their roar. The jubilance and triumph of nature are seen in her complex operations. We rejoice in the thunderstorm when we have learnt by how sweet an air, how clear a sky, it will be followed ; we rejoice in snow and hail when we know how benignant a mission they fulfil. Pain and death are recorded in the rocks ; the soil is eloquent of decay. But in the past ages, when the forgotten creatures lived, there was more pleasure than pain in their living ; and their death was as a sacrifice out of which the fuller life of the present has emerged. Decay itself in nature is but the messenger of a nobler vitality ; the herald of renewed rejoicing.
2. Think, again, of the deep joy of human comradeship and family affection, and of the countless blessings of our wonderful civilization, which pours out at our very feet the treasures of the
^ Jean Ingolow, Dominion.
520 THE STRENGTH OF JOY
whole world. And yet again : did not God intend that the joy of the human intellect — that " kingly mind " of man of which the Greek philosopher tells us — should be a very real one ? The joys of literature, of science, of art, and, perhaps beyond all others, the joy of music — are not these most clearly among the plainest evidences of the joy of the Lord ?