4. It triumphs over the hindrances by which all other joy is thwarted. As to remembrances of the past, all that needed to be forgiven is forgiven. As to actual trouble, it can take hold of God. As to forecasts of the future, that, in its truest blessedness, is secure.
Who would not be a Christian? And who, being a Christian, can refuse to be glad?
Eternal Source of Life and Light,
From whom my every blessing flows,
How shall my lips extol aright
The bounty that no measure knows?
Sweet are the gifts Thou dost accord;
Still best when best we love Thy ways:
But one yet add, all bounteous Lord,
And teach me as I would to praise.
To praise Thee ofttimes with my tongue;
To praise Thee ever with my heart;
And soon, where heavenly praise is sung,
Oh, let me take my blissful part!
Then, Lord, not one of all the host
That hymn Thy glory round the Throne,
How e’er exalted there, shall boast
A strain more fervent than mine own.
XIII.
SICKNESS.
“Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.”—John xi. 4.
Much contact with sickness of late has set me thinking about it; about the place it occupies in the Divine dispensations of our life, and the lessons it may teach. The subject will find an easy entrance into our meditations. Most of us have known what sickness is, and all of us have in prospect that which will prove to be our last.