nly to make us
sad, but they are to be accepted, and used as means by which we may be
perfected. And when once you get occupied in trying to get all the good
that is in it out of a grief, you will be astonished to find how the
bitterness that was in it was diminished.

We may have the oil on the water, calming, though not ending, its
agitation. We may carry our own atmosphere with us, and like the diver
that goes down into depths of the sea, and cannot be reached by the
hungry water around his crystal bell, and has communication with the
upper air, where the light of the sun is, so you and I, down at the
slimy bottom, and with the waste of water all around us, which if it
could get at us would choke us, may walk at liberty, in peace and
gladness. And so, 'though the labour of the olive shall fail and the fig
tree not blossom, though the flocks be cut off from the folds and the
herd from the stalls,' we may joy in the Lord, and 'rejoice in the God
of our salvation.'

III. Now lastly, we have here a duty.

Peter takes it for granted that these good people, who had persecution
hanging over them, were still rejoicing greatly in the Lord. He does not
feel it necessary to enjoin it upon them. It is a matter of course in
their Christian life. And you will find that all through the New
Testament this same tone is adopted which recognises gladness as being,
on the one hand, an inseparable characteristic of the Christian
experience, and on the other hand as being a thing that is a Christian
man's duty to cultivate. Now I do not believe that the most of Christian
people have ever looked at the thing in that light at all. If joy has
come to them, they have been thankful for it, but they have very, very
seldom felt that, if they are not glad, there is something wrong. And a
great many of us, I am sure, have never recognised the fact that it is
our duty to 'rejoice in the Lord always.' Have you realised it? I do not
mean have you tried to get up, as I have been saying, factitious
emotions, but have you felt that if you are doing what, as Christian men
or women, it is your plain duty to do, there will come into your hearts
this joy of the Lord. I have told you why you are not happier
Christians, why so many of us have, as I said, only got religion enough
to make you gloomy and burdened. It is because you do not think enough
about Jesus Christ, and what He has given you, and what He is doing for
you and in you. It is because you hav