1 W. J. Arniitage, The Fruit of the Spirit, 22.
^ Life of William Edward Collins, Bishop of Oihraltar, 51.
' A. "W. Robinson, The Voice of Joy and Health, 188.
PHILIPPIANS IV. 4 409
^ The secret of happiness is not found in selfishly seeking for it, as an end in life, any more than Prince de Leon found the fountain of perpetual youth by seeking it among the flowers of Florida. The Golden Eule of life will bring the golden reign of joy and happiness into the heart. Paul and Silas have more joy in the dungeon than those who confined them there. Jeremy Taylor, while in the hands of thieves, had welling up in his heart a joy that surmounted all adverse conditions. Says he, " They have left me the sun and moon ; fire and water ; a loving wife and many friends to pity me and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse, and they have not taken away my merry countenance and my cheerful spirit and the good conscience ; and he that hath so many causes of joy and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures and chooses to sit down on his little handful of thorns." Looking out upon the beauties of nature, recognizing the necessities of life that were supplied him, the love of wife and friends, the privilege of discourse, he was happy in the thought that his merry countenance could not be taken away, for without were still so many pleasantries and within a cheerful spirit and a good conscience. He found the secret of happiness in the peculiar sense of victory over the untoward conditions of life. To how many has this thought given courage and renewed length of happy days ! ^
^ Joy is a most contagious, catching thing. But of all joys, joy in the midst of trouble. Nothing more wins men to the Gospel of Christ than the witness of a bright life ; and that witness we have all of us within our power to bear. Nothing persuades the world of the reality of religion more than the deep rest it brings to the believing heart. A mind at perfect peace — that is the mystery of Christian living, that is the secret of communion with God. But this strange, inward power is most clearly per- ceived in the midst of distress. Men cannot fathom it ; human nature cannot furnish it. It is no worldly stoicism crushing down the natural impulses of the heart. It is a Divine thing to " glory in tribulations " ; to feel the power of Christ resting upon you, raising you above yourself, turning your very weakness to strength.^
2. This joy is fed ty belief in the steadfast love of Christ. — Man's soul is not only discordant but vacant. It cries out for emotion. The fulness of emotion is its life. Now that vacancy is the death of joy, and it sends men on that perpetual chase after happiness,
1 C. F. Ireland. 2 j^^ -^^ Barbour, ThougUs, 49.
4IO CHRISTIAN JOY
which we see so much of in the world. Hence the life-cry of most men is, "Give, give"; for the human soul, unsatisfied with the world, unsatisfied had it possession of the starry universe, yearns for that fulness of emotion which is given only by the love of God. Hence it is that you so often find the young heart, while yet undegraded in its first fresh feelings, willing and even wish- ing to die in its youth. For what means that sentimentalism which so many young souls feel — viz., that to die young is youth's divinest gift — but this, that they are becoming conscious of that hollowness and vacancy in the heart which no mere human emotion can fill? Or to see this in its crisis, look at the un- believer. The man who has lost his early faith in Christianity will often tell you in unutterable sadness, " I have looked up- wards, and backwards, and beyond, and I find nothing in life but the shadow of that vanity and vexation which fill my own soul." For there is no sorrow so intense as that which enters a man when he is tempted to believe that there is no Christ. The hollowness of the heart is awfully realized then. But belief in the love of Christ gives this fulness of emotion. It is the perception of that love in all its grandeur, caring for us in every personal sorrow, sympathizing with us in every individual experience, that fills the heart's vacancy, and at once creates joy.
^ There is one thing which Christ's followers can do, and that is to keep themselves in the delightful atmosphere of His love. It is our fault and our shame if we spend so many days in the chilling fogs or under the heavy clouds of unbelief, or in the contaminating atmosphere of conformity to the world. "Is it always foggy" here on the banks of Newfoundland ? " inquired a passenger of an old Cunard captain. "How should I know, madam ? I don't live here." ^
^ Joy. "What is joy ? Love awake and alive, fully conscious of herself. If love be the heart's first beat, joy is its counter- beat. If love be the outflow of the heart, joy is the inflow, the flowing back of the loving heart. The rise of temperature which love brings, the heightened being, the effervescence — that is joy. ^