the words of the text, a very deep
and penetrating view of what the Christian life is, how it is
sustained, and what it demands. 'Wherefore,' says he, 'let us keep
the feast ... with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.'
That 'wherefore' takes us back to the words before it, And what are
these? 'Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us'; therefore--because
of that sacrifice, to us is granted the power, and on us is laid
imperatively the obligation, to make life a festival and to purge
ourselves. Now, in the notion of a feast, there are two things
included--joy and plentiful sustenance. So there are three points
here, which I have already indicated--what the Christian life is, a
festival; on what it is sustained, the Paschal Sacrifice; what it
demands, scrupulous purging out of the old leaven.

I. The Christian life ought to be a continual festival.

The Christian life a feast? It is more usually represented as a
fight, a wrestle, a race; and such metaphors correspond, as it would
appear, far more closely to the facts of our environment, and to the
experiences of our hearts, than does such a metaphor as this. But the
metaphor of the festival goes deeper than that of the fight or race,
and it does not ignore the strenuous and militant side of the
Christian life. No man ever lived a more strenuous life than Paul; no
man had heavier tasks, and did them more cheerily; no man had a
sterner fight and fought it more bravely. There is nothing soft,
Epicurean, or oblivious of the patent sad facts of humanity in the
declaration that after all, beneath all, above all, central to all,
the Christian life is a glad festival, when it is the life that it
ought to be.

But you say, 'Ah! it is all very well to call it so; but in the first
place, continual joy is impossible in the presence of the
difficulties, and often sadnesses, that meet us on our life's path;
and, in the second place, it is folly to tell us to pump up emotions,
or to ignore the occasions for much heaviness and sorrow of heart.'
True; but, still, it is possible to cultivate such a temper as makes
life habitually joyful. We can choose the aspect under which we by
preference and habitually regard our lives. All emotion follows upon
a preceding thought, or sensible experience, and we can pick the
objects of our thoughts, and determine what aspect of our lives to
look at most.

The sky is often piled with stormy, heaped-up masses of blackness,
but between them