by it, as that a thought should be
bound with a cord or a feeling fastened with fetters. They, and
death, belong to two different regions. It can work its will on 'this
wide world, and all its fading sweets'--but is powerless in the still
place where the soul and Jesus hold converse, and all His joy passes
into His servant's heart. I saw, not long since, in a wood a mass of
blue wild hyacinths, that looked like a little bit of heaven dropped
down upon earth. You and I may have such a tiny bit of heaven itself
lying amidst all the tangle of our daily lives, if only we put our
trust in Christ, and so get into our hearts some little portion of
that joy that is unspeakable, and that peace that passeth
understanding.

Thus, then, the sorrows of the earthly experience and the joys of the
Christian life will blend together to produce the one blessed result
of a hope that is full of certainty, and is the assurance of
immortality. There is no rainbow in the sky unless there be both a
black cloud and bright sunshine. So, on the blackest, thickest
thunder-mass of our sorrows, if smitten into moist light by the
sunshine of joy and peace drawn from Jesus Christ by faith, there may
be painted the rainbow of hope, the many-coloured, steadfast token of
the faithful covenant of the faithful God.

JOY AND PEACE IN BELIEVING

'The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the
power of the Holy Ghost.'--ROMANS xv. 13.

With this comprehensive and lofty petition the Apostle closes his
exhortation to the factions in the Roman Church to be at unity. The
form of the prayer is moulded by the last words of a quotation which
he has just made, which says that in the coming Messiah 'shall the
Gentiles hope.' But the prayer itself is not an instance of being led
away by a word--in form, indeed, it is shaped by verbal resemblance;
in substance it points to the true remedy for religious controversy.
Fill the contending parties with a fuller spiritual life, and the
ground of their differences will begin to dwindle, and look very
contemptible. When the tide rises, the little pools on the rocks are
all merged into one.

But we may pass beyond the immediate application of these words, and
see in them the wish, which is also a promise, and like the
exhibition of every ideal is a command. This is Paul's conception of
the Christian life as it might and should be, in one aspect. You