Joy Power | Page 2

humane, sympathetic, consoling. Unrest and weariness, the fever
of passion and the chill of despair, soul-solitude and heart-trouble, are
the very things that He comes to cure. He begins His great discourse
with a series of beatitudes. "Blessed" is the word. "Happy" is the
meaning. Nine times He rings the changes on that word, like a silver
bell sounding from His fair temple on the mountain-side, calling all
who long for happiness to come to Him and find rest for their souls.
Christ never asks us to give up merely for the sake of giving up, but
always in order to win something better. He comes not to destroy, but
to fulfil,--to fill full,--to replenish life with true, inward, lasting riches.
His gospel is a message of satisfaction, of attainment, of felicity. Its
voice is not a sigh, but a song. Its final word is a benediction, a
good-saying. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might
remain in you, and that your joy might be full."
If we accept His teaching we must believe that men are not wrong in
wishing for happiness, but wrong in their way of seeking it. Earthly
happiness,--pleasure that belongs to the senses and perishes with
them,--earthly happiness is a dream and a delusion. But happiness on
earth,--spiritual joy and peace, blossoming here, fruiting
hereafter,--immortal happiness, is the keynote of life in Christ.
And if we come to Him, He tells us four great secrets in regard to it.

i. It is inward, and, not outward; and so it does not depend on what we
have, but on what we are.
ii. It cannot be found by direct seeking, but by setting our faces toward
the things from which it flows; and so we must climb the mount if we
would see the vision, we must tune the instrument if we would hear the
music.
iii. It is not solitary, but social; and so we can never have it without
sharing it with others.
iv. It is the result of God's will for us, and not of our will for ourselves;
and so we can only find it by giving our lives up, in submission and
obedience, to the control of God.
For this is peace,--to lose the lonely note Of self in love's celestial
ordered strain: And this is joy,--to find one's self again In Him whose
harmonies forever float Through all the spheres of song, below,
above,-- For God is music, even as God is love.
This is the divine doctrine of happiness as Christ taught it by His life
and with His lips. If we want to put it into a single phrase, I know not
where we shall find a more perfect utterance than in the words which
have been taught us in childhood,--words so strong, so noble, so
cheerful, that they summon the heart of manhood like marching-music:
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."
Let us accept without reserve this teaching of our Divine Lord and
Master in regard to the possibility and the duty of happiness. It is an
essential element of His gospel. The atmosphere of the New Testament
is not gloom, but gladness; not despondency, but hope. The man who is
not glad to be a Christian is not the right kind of a Christian.
The first thing that commended the Church of Jesus to the weary and
disheartened world in the early years of her triumph, was her power to
make her children happy,--happy in the midst of afflictions, happy in
the release from the burden of guilt, happy in the sense of Divine
Fatherhood and human brotherhood, happy in Christ's victory over sin

and death, happy in the assurance of an endless life. At midnight in the
prison, Paul and Silas sang praises, and the prisoners heard them. The
lateral force of joy,--that was the power of the Church.
"'Poor world,' she cried, 'so deep accurst, Thou runn'st from pole to
pole To seek a draught to slake thy thirst,-- Go seek it in thy soul.'
* * * * *
Tears washed the trouble from her face! She changed into a child! 'Mid
weeds and wrecks she stood,--a place Of ruin,--but she smiled!"
Much has the Church lost of that pristine and powerful joy. The furnace
of civilization has withered and hardened her. She has become anxious
and troubled about many things. She has sought earthly honours,
earthly powers. Richer she is than ever before, and probably better
organized, and perhaps more intelligent, more learned,--but not more
happy. The one note that is most often missing in Christian life, in
Christian service, is the note of spontaneous joy.
Christians are not as much calmer, steadier, stronger, and more cheerful
than other people as they ought to be.