II.
Sown Gladness.
" Light and gladness " ! What a wonderful conception of the future portion of llie righteous does the Psalmist here give us! The two words, as is customary in the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, mean almost the same thing. The one is figurative, the other literal. The word " gladness " itself teaches us most emphatically that joy is the portion of the righteous — exuberant, exultant joy — ^joy which beams in tne eye, and lights up the countenance, and gives buoyancy to the frame, and is heard in the jubilant tones of the voice, and which yet has its seat deep among the springs of feeling — in the very heart's core. Gladness ! It is joy, full, deep, and placid, like a lake which knows no ebb, and is sheltered from every agitating storm, and yet like a lake whose calm waters ripple under the gentle breeze, and flash with bright scuitillations in the rays of the summer's sun, with singing birds around pouring out their melody, and flowers shedding fragrance
' Lift of Charles Loring Brace, 458,
* W. Sauday, in The Exiwsitory Times, xxiv. (1913) 440.
PSALM xcvii. II 277
on the air, and beautifying all the scene. Gladness ! It is the laughter of the heart, when, full of enjoyment to overflowing, it ripples over in spontaneous expression, more cheerful than the laughter of childhood at play, serene as a summer evening sky. Gladness ! Surprising revelations — expectation more than realized ; fears dispelled and dangers escaped ; sorrows changed into joys; all perils passed, all apprehensions hushed; satisfy- ing bliss already possessed, higher bliss anticipated ! All this is included in this portion of the righteous.
1. This gladness will be accompanied by, and no doubt partially spring from, the revelation of things that are wrapped in darkness now. It will be no small element in the joy of the righteous that many of the mysteries which perplex them will be unravelled. God's ways, which now seem to us mysterious, and which try the faith and patience of His people, will not always be so unfathom- able as they are now; they will present themselves in a very different aspect when His chosen have reached the end of their course, and begin to see as they are seen, and to know as they are known. " Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." And we cannot but believe that their hearts will be gladdened by the surprisingly new light in which the most trying dispensations appear, and by the lifting up of the veil from the great and glorious purposes which they were designed to promote. There may still be room for the exercise of faith. But, largely, faith will give place to sight, and hope to realization. And in their clearer understanding of the Divine method, and their better acquaintance with its glorious issues, they will find no small portion of their joy. The gladness of brighter and ever-increasing light will be theirs for ever.
^ The missing qualities in Wesley's religious state at this time [before his conversion] are sufficiently obvious. It utterly lacked the element of joy. Eeligion is meant to have for the spiritual landscape the office of sunshine, but in Wesley's spiritual sky at this time there burned no Divine light, whether of certainty or of hope. He imagined he could distil the rich wine of spiritual gladness otit of mechanical religious exercises ; but he found him- self, to his own distress, and in his own words, " dull, flat, and unaffected in the use of the most solemn ordinances." Fear, too, like a shadow, haunted his mind : fear that he was not accepted
278 LIGHT AND GLADNESS
before God ; fear that he might lose what grace he had ; fear both of life and of death.^
2. God is the God of gladness, as well as the God of terror. And this needs special emphasizing for some who would limit His interest to the graver things of life — sorrow, affliction, mourning. It is true, beautifully true, that He is the Consolatio afflidorum, the real, genuine Eefuge for thousands who are burdened and heavy laden ; but it is also true that He presides over the pleasures of His people. Is not the average Englishman's con- ception of God that of a stern, stiff Being, more or less confined to certain times and places, associated chiefly with stiff-backed pews, but having very little, if anything, to do with the pleasures or the gladder side of daily life ? This — though it has its good side — is a view we want to review and revise. We want to get back to the old, happy conception of the Psalmist : " Thou art about my path and about my being, and spiest out all my ways." And worse still : some of us keep this gladsome view of God outside even our religion. The Hundredth Psalm has a line which runs in the old metrical version,
" Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell," which is often sung as if the words were,
" Him serve with fear." The change is a bad one. Fear has its part to play in life, but here it spoils the whole idea of the hymn, and is out of harmony with the verse in the Psalm from which the thought is borrowed : " Serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song." Let us get back to the original as soon as we can in thought, word, and deed.