rouble; joy flows on through the
dark; joy flows in the night as well as in the day; joy flows all
through persecution and opposition; it flows right along, for it is an
unceasing fountain bubbling up in the heart; a secret spring which the
world can't see and don't know anything about; but the Lord gives His
people perpetual joy when they walk in obedience to Him.

This joy is fed by the Divine Word. Jeremiah says in chapter xv, 16:
"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy Word was unto me
the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Thy name, O
Lord."

He ate the words, and what was the result? He said they were the joy
and rejoicing of his heart. Now people should look for joy in the
Word, and not in the world; they should look for the joy which the
Scriptures furnish, and then go work in the vineyard; because a joy
that don't send me out to some one else, a joy that don't impel me to
go and help the poor drunkard, a joy that don't prompt me to visit the
widow and the fatherless, a joy that don't cause me to go into the
Mission Sunday-school or other Christian work, is not worth having,
and is not from above; a joy that does not constrain me to go and work
for the Master, is purely sentiment and not real joy.

JOY IN PERSECUTION.

Then it says in Luke vi, 22: "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you,
and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall
reproach you and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's
sake. Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy, for behold your reward
is great in heaven for in like manner did their fathers unto the
prophets."

Christians do not receive their reward down here. We have to go right
against the current of the world. We may be unpopular, and we may go
right against many of our personal friends if we live godly in Christ
Jesus; and at the same time, if we are persecuted for the Master's
sake, We will have this joy bubbling up; it just comes right up in our
hearts all the while--a joy that is unceasing--that flows right on.
The world can not choke that fountain. If we have Christ in the heart,
by and by the reward will come. The longer I live the more I am
convinced that godly men and women are not appreciated in our day. But
their work will live after them, and there will be a greater work done
after they are gone, by the influence of their lives, than when they
were living. Daniel is doing a thousand times more than when he was
livi