love my neighbour: he has so many faults." But it may be urged, Who has more faults than he, whom you love best, that is, yourself? And if a man is still fond of himself, however morose, or fickle, or eccentric he may be, he ought also to love his fellow men, in spite of their imperfections.

We are apt to fancy that privileges are better than common blessings, and that exclusiveness is the perfection of enjoyment. This taste, if unrestrained, would enclose every common in the country, and convert public parks into private gardens. Yet such an impropriation would be as mistaken as it is selfish. If you had exclusive benefit of the Sun, would you enjoy it one whit the more ?* When the Egytians suffered from a palpable darkness the children of Israel had light in their dwellings; but it is not recorded that that light was more brilliant because it was limited to them.

Selfishness is narrow and contracted; but Love is broad and all-embracing. It is elastic,

* Butler's Sermons, XI.

D

and will expand by daily exercise. Let no man confine it to himself, or his family or his friends,

but strive after

66

the larger love

That dwarfs the petty love of one to one."*

Finally, we Christians have new obligations from the love of Christ. Justly and forcibly does he appeal to us, saying: "LOVE ONE

ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.”

* Idylls of the King, p. 119.

CHAPTER IV.

JOY.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."-GAL. v. 22, 23.

WE cannot claim for Joy the first place among the Christian feelings. It is not classed by our Lord among the Beatitudes. He says: "Blessed

are they that mourn;" but he does not say, Blessed are they that rejoice. Joy is not the great object of life, but rather discipline and improvement, to which Joy is sometimes a

hindrance:

"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow

Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day."*

Still it is most important and beneficial in many ways; and first in this, that it affords to every one a test of his character. For a man

* Longfellow.

rejoices in those things of which he is fond :* a musician in music, a sensual man in bodily pleasures, and a good man in heavenly things. Let a man ascertain his chief joy, and he will then be able to judge whether he is walking after the flesh or after the Spirit.

Christian Joy is that feeling of pleasure which the Holy Ghost† produces in our hearts on the occasion of our own and our neighbours' welfare, and at the advancement of the kingdom of God.

This is a chastened, abiding, and substantial joy, and is in this and in other ways distinguished from worldly joy, which is oftentimes wild, fitful, and remorseful.

The Christian rejoices, but it is "with trembling;" for he cannot forget those sins which the mercy of God has forgotten. He remembers also that he is but a tenant at will,—a stranger and pilgrim in the earth; he knows that he must give a strict account of his time, his talents, and

*Arist. Etn. iii. 10. 2.

There are many other authors of joy, but not of Christian Joy. The heathen invocation, "Adsit lætitiæ Bacchus dator" (Aen. i. 734), is, unfortunately, the belief and prayer of multitudes still.

opportunities; and all these things chasten and moderate his joy, so that he rejoices as though he rejoiced not.*

Constantly in the world Excitement is mistaken for Joy. What is the day-dream of the young? They fancy that joy dwells in lofty and ancient halls; they long to mix with the gay assembly of wit and beauty, of wealth and nobility; to open the eye upon bewitching sights, the ear to harmonious sounds. And yet such scenes do not produce true and Christian joy. They often stir up all the passions, and turn the soul into a sea of trouble. Oftentimes they call up envy, and appetite, and jealousy,—making their votaries to swell with expectation, and to sink with disappointment, turning their lives into dreams, and their dreams into nightmare. On the other

hand, Christian joy needs not the aid of splendid circumstance: it dwells with the good man, however poor. It goes to his thatched cottage; it sits with him and his children round their scanty table; it makes his dinner of herbs more grateful than a stalled ox: it gives to his Psalm

* 1 Cor. vii. 30.