rts, too, will sing for
joy. True joy is _not_ a matter of temperament, so much as a matter
of faith. It is _not_ a matter of circumstances. All the surface
drainage may be dry, but there is a well in the courtyard deep and
cool and full and exhaustless, and a Christian who rightly
understands and cherishes the Christian hope is lifted above
temperament, and is not dependent upon conditions for his joys.

The Apostle, in an earlier part of this same letter, defines for us
what that hope is, which thus is the secret of perpetual gladness,
when he speaks about 'rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.' Yes, it
is that great, supreme, calm, far off, absolutely certain prospect of
being gathered into the divine glory, and walking there, like the
three in the fiery furnace, unconsumed and at ease; it is that hope
that will triumph over temperament, and over all occasions for
melancholy, and will breathe into our life a perpetual gladness.
Brethren, is it not strange and sad that with such a treasure by our
sides we should consent to live such poor lives as we do?

But remember, although I cannot say to myself, 'Now I will be glad,'
and cannot attain to joy by a movement of the will or direct effort,
although it is of no use to say to a man--which is all that the world
can ever say to him--'Cheer up and be glad,' whilst you do not alter
the facts that make him sad, there is a way by which we can bring
about feelings of gladness or of gloom. It is just this--we can
choose what we will look at. If you prefer to occupy your mind with
the troubles, losses, disappointments, hard work, blighted hopes of
this poor sin-ridden world, of course sadness will come over you
often, and a general grey tone will be the usual tone of your lives,
as it is of the lives of many of us, broken only by occasional bursts
of foolish mirth and empty laughter. But if you choose to turn away
from all these, and instead of the dim, dismal, hard present, to sun
yourselves in the light of the yet unrisen sun, which you can do,
then, having rightly chosen the subjects to think about, the feeling
will come as a matter of course. You cannot make yourselves glad by,
as it were, laying hold of yourselves and lifting yourselves into
gladness, but you can rule the direction of your thoughts, and so can
bring around you summer in the midst of winter, by steadily
contemplating the facts--and they are present facts, though we talk
about them collectively as 'the fut