who behave as if the whole sky was one
roof of doleful grey. Do not you do that! There is always enough to be
thankful for. Lay hold of Christ, and be sure that you open your eyes
to His gifts.

Surely, dear friends, if there be offered to us, as there is, a gladness
which is perfect in the two points in which all other gladness fails, it
is wise for us to take it. The commonplace which all men believe, and
most men neglect, is that nothing short of an infinite Person can fill a
finite soul. And if we look for our joys anywhere but to Jesus Christ,
there will always be some bit of our nature which, like the sulky elder
brother in the parable, will scowl at the music and dancing, and refuse
to come in. All earthly joys are transient as well as partial. Is it not
better that we should have gladness that will last as long as we do,
that we can hold in our dying hands, like a flower clasped in some cold
palm laid in the coffin, that we shall find again when we have crossed
the bar, that will grow and brighten and broaden for evermore? My joy
shall remain . . . full.

HOW TO OBEY AN IMPOSSIBLE INJUNCTION

'Be careful for nothing; but in everything by
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let
your requests be made known unto God.'--PHIL. iv.
6.

It is easy for prosperous people, who have nothing to trouble them, to
give good advices to suffering hearts; and these are generally as futile
as they are easy. But who was he who here said to the Church at
Philippi, 'Be careful for nothing?' A prisoner in a Roman prison; and
when Rome fixed its claws it did not usually let go without drawing
blood. He was expecting his trial, which might, so far as he knew, very
probably end in death. Everything in the future was entirely dark and
uncertain. It was this man, with all the pressure of personal sorrows
weighing upon him, who, in the very crisis of his life, turned to his
brethren in Philippi, who had far fewer causes of anxiety than he had,
and cheerfully bade them 'be careful for nothing, but in everything by
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make their requests known
unto God.' Had not that bird learned to sing when his cage was darkened?
And do you not think that advice of that sort, coming not from some one
perched up on a safe hillock to the strugglers in the field below, but
from a man in the thick of the fight, would be like a trumpet-call to
them who heard it