e not the new life in strong
experience and possession, and because you have not the new hope
springing in your hearts, and because you have not the new wealth
realised often in present possession, and because you have not the new
security which He is ready to give you. It is your duty, Christian man
and woman, to be a joyful Christian, and if you are not, then the
negligence is sin.

It is a hard duty. It is not easy to turn away from that which is
torturing flesh or sense or natural desires or human affections, and to
realise the unseen. It is not easy, but it is possible. And, like all
other difficult things, it is worth doing. For there is nothing more
helpful, more recommendatory, of our Christianity to other people, and
more certain to tell on the vigour and efficiency of our Christian
service, than that we should be rejoicing in the Lord, and living in the
possession of the experience of Christ's joy which He has left for us.

There is one other thing I must say. I have been talking about the
co-existence of joy and sorrows. In one form or another that
co-existence is universal. The difference is this. A Christian man has
superficial sorrows and central gladness, and other men have superficial
gladness and central sorrow. 'Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful.'
Many of you know what that means--the black aching centre, full of
unrest, grimly unparticipant of the dancing delights going on about it,
like some black rock that stands up in the midst of a field flooded with
sunshine, and gay with flowers. 'The end of that mirth is heaviness.'
Better a surface sadness and a core of joy than the opposite, a skin of
verdure over the scarcely cold lava. Better a transient sorrow with an
eternal joy than the opposite, mirth, 'like the crackling of thorns
under a pot,' which dies down into a doleful ring of black ashes in the
pathless desert. Choose whether you will have joy dwelling with and
conquering sorrow, or unrest and sorrow, darkening and finally
shattering your partial and fleeting joys.

THE TRUE GOLD AND ITS TESTING

'That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of
gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found
unto praise and honour and glory ...'--1 Peter i. 7.

The Apostle is fond of that word 'precious.' In both his letters he uses
it as an epithet for diverse things. According to one translation, he
speaks of Christ as 'precious to you which