ll in Christ gain command over themselves; and because
they can bridle passions, and subdue hot and impossible desires, and
keep themselves well in hand, have stanched one chief source of unrest
and sadness, and have opened one pure and sparkling fountain of
unfailing gladness. To rule myself because Christ rules me is no small
part of the secret of blessedness. And they who thus dwell in Christ
have the purest joy, the joy of self-forgetfulness. He that is absorbed
in a great cause; he whose pitiful, personal individuality has passed
out of his sight; he who is swallowed up by devotion to another, by
aspiration after 'something afar from the sphere of our sorrow,' has
found the secret of gladness. And the man who thus can say, 'I live: yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me,' this is the man who will ever rejoice.
The world may not call such a temper gladness. It is as unlike the
sputtering, flaring, foul-smelling joys which it prizes--like those
filthy but bright 'Lucigens' that they do night work by in great
factories--it is as unlike the joy of the world as these are to the
calm, pure moonlight which they insult. The one is of heaven, and the
other is the foul product of earth, and smokes to extinction swiftly.

II. So, secondly, notice that this joy is capable of being continuous.

'Rejoice in the Lord _always_,' says Paul. That is a hard nut to crack.
I can fancy a man saying, 'What is the use of giving me such
exhortations as this? My gladness is largely a matter of temperament,
and I cannot rule my moods. My gladness is largely a matter of
circumstances, and I do not determine these. How vain it is to tell me,
when my heart is bleeding, or beating like a sledge-hammer, to be glad!'
Yes! Temperament has a great deal to do with joy; and circumstances have
a great deal to do with it; but is not the mission of the Gospel to make
us masters of temperament, and independent of circumstances? Is not the
possibility of living a life that has no dependence upon externals, and
that may persist permanently through all varieties of mood, the very
gift that Christ Himself has come to bestow upon us--bringing us into
communion with Himself, and so making us lords of our own inward nature
and of externals: so that 'though the fig-tree shall not blossom, and
there be no fruit in the vine,' yet we may 'rejoice in the Lord, and be
glad in the God of our salvation.' If a ship has plenty of water in its
casks or tanks in its hold, it do