broken line--a bright point here and there, separated by long
stretches of darkness? The gaps in the continuity of their joy are
the tell-tale indicators of the interruptions in their faith. If the
latter were continuous, the former would be unbroken. Always believe,
and you will always be glad and calm.

It is easy to see that this is the natural result of faith. The very
act of confident reliance on another for all my safety and well-being
has a charm to make me restful, so long as my reliance is not put to
shame. There is no more blessed emotion than the tranquil happiness
which, in the measure of its trust, fills every trustful soul. Even
when its objects are poor, fallible, weak, ignorant dying men and
women, trust brings a breath of more than earthly peace into the
heart. But when it grasps the omnipotent, all-wise, immortal Christ,
there are no bounds but its own capacity to the blessedness which it
brings into the soul, because there is none to the all-sufficient
grace of which it lays hold.

Observe again how accurately the Apostle defines for us the
conditions on which Christian experience will be joyful and tranquil.
It is 'in believing,' not in certain other exercises of mind, that
these blessings are to be realised. And the forgetfulness of that
plain fact leads to many good people's religion being very much more
gloomy and disturbed than God meant it to be. For a large part of it
consists in sadly testing their spiritual state, and gazing at their
failures and imperfections. There is nothing cheerful or
tranquillising in grubbing among the evils of your own heart, and it
is quite possible to do that too much and too exclusively. If your
favourite subject of contemplation in your religious thinking is
yourself, no wonder that you do not get much joy and peace out of
that. If you do, it will be of a false kind. If you are thinking more
about your own imperfections than about Christ's pardon, more about
the defects of your own love to Him than about the perfection of His
love to you, if instead of practising faith you are absorbed in
self-examination, and instead of saying to yourself, 'I know how foul
and unworthy I am, but I look away from myself to my Saviour,' you
are bewailing your sins and doubting whether you are a Christian, you
need not expect God's angels of joy and peace to nestle in your
heart. It is 'in believing,' and not in other forms of religious
contemplation, however needful these may in