painful thoughts consumed them. Certainly to encounter a very happy face, a visage radiant and beautiful, not with mere outward jollity, or with the excitement of stimulants, but with a calm delight and joy radiating from within, from the mind and soul, is a rare occurrence. Such a visage, noticeably of intense and joyful aspect, would draw instant attention from its singularity. Everyone would look up as that countenance passed along, as much surprised as if at night they suddenly beheld a meteor with a train of gold and purple light travelling through the sky. How is this? Why is it that we all seem to pitch our estimate of the possibilities of happiness so low, and press forward in life as if the grand object were to lose the sense of present trouble in a future, of which the anticipation may serve to divert attention from the heartache which poisons the passing hour. Is nothing higher than this possible? It may be there is something in the offer made to the crowd by the Wonderful Person who stood at the gates of the Exchange, and proclaimed that he held in his hand the keys of the gates of Heaven."

Perhaps again another passenger, who had heard the unwonted interruption on the business of the hurrying crowd of haughty modern men—a man who had some thoughts in him beyond those of wool, or cotton, or timber, who had devoted some attention to Nature, and knew a little of the living creatures who cover the globe, in the air, in the water, on the dry land, in multitudes so overwhelming to the imagination-a man of business who was fond of natural history, and whose evenings were dedicated to some refining and scientific pursuit,-such an one might begin to think, as he walked towards the West, somewhat in this fashion-" Well, it does appear as if life was created for the sake of happiness, even if it be a happiness that must be reached through sorrow-and surely, according to the quality and refinement of the life, ought to be the depth and spirituality of its joy. Here is an immense ascending scale of animated beings. At the base there are zoophytes; it is doubtful where conscious sensation begins; but wherever the point is found, there begins pleasure and not pain. The animal races all appear to be happy according to their lights and powers. The deep sea is full of happy creatures, from the 'leviathan who plays therein,' and spouts aloft his water-columns in the breeze, then plunges headlong downward into the abyss of eternal night,-to the shrimps who leap and toss by myriads upon the sunny shore. The atmosphere is full of happy creatures,-from the eagle who ascends like an angel on outspread wings to the blazing sun, and the albatross who floats in serene majesty on the upper realms of air, down through the countless tribes endowed with song or

resplendent with plumage, to the humming-birds, the fireflies and the ephemera, who dance away their little day of life beneath the summer sky. The dry land again teems with creatures who are happy according to their capacities-the wild beasts who roam and hunt their prey through the wilderness, the cattle on a thousand hills, with all the millions of millions who, under their different species, haunt the polar, the temperate, and the torrid zone. There seems no afterthought of sorrow, there is mind enough for the purposes of their existence, but not enough to embitter it by reflection on the past and the future. Some of them appear to be supremely happy, especially the birds, whose wonderful voices in spring, by day or by night, whether the chorus be led by the lark or by the nightingale, breathe forth the very soul of joy. It is the great human race alone who are not so joyful, whose spirits have sunk so low, who are so full of gloom, and who are so often in an agony.' What can be the meaning of all this? Obviously man has a capacity for happiness, a nature so delicately strung, so 'fearfully and wonderfully made,' that the enjoyment or suffering of animals seems hardly worthy to be compared with the exalted joy or fathomless woe that can be revealed in us. Here are senses of eyesight and hearing that are alive to all the world of colour and of sound, and can be trained into the most acute sensibility of enjoyment by the practice of the arts of painting and of song. The very senses of touch, of taste, of smell, seem to be constructed in man of a more exquisite delicacy. Here are inward faculties. of observation, of memory, of reasoning, of imagination, of affection, of will, which qualify man to live all the day long in a spiritual world of divine enjoyment, and to lead an inner life akin to that of heaven itself. And here, deeper than all, at the very centre of his being, are the moral powers, those awful endowments which, more than any other, determine whether man's life shall be one of joy or sorrow, of gladness or of gloom. Here is Conscience with its peculiar pleasures and pains, a divine oracle within the breast, a veritable Urim and Thummim, whose voice of approval is the chief joy of life, whose voice of condemnation we may stifle but cannot wholly still, whose voice we may render indistinct and half inaudible by imprisonment in dark recesses and under the deep accumulations of a sinful history, but which still speaks out of the ground, and persists to the last in accents of thunder, which gather fresh terror as we approach the grave, in proclaiming, with the Apocalypse, that 'dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers shall not inherit the kingdom of God,' and that whosoever loveth and maketh a lie shall be cast into the lake of fire.'-Well, here is this wonderful assemblage of faculties, of sensibilities, of emotions, of capacities in every

man, resulting in what issue to the generality?-in the production certainly of a vast amount of pleasure, since powers originally made for happiness cannot suddenly be rendered wholly wretched; but pleasure, chiefly of a 'sinful' sort, that is derived too exclusively from the senses, a pleasure, therefore, much broken by deeper feelings of unrest, dulled by excess, or crossed by vexations,-in a vast sum of indifference and stupor produced by reaction from licentious indulgence, by sloth, or by the use of anodynes and narcotics,—and, finally, in an untold sum of positive and intense wretchedness, heart-ache, and melancholy from pole to pole.

"And there is nothing more remarkable in the whole scene of human life than the apparent indifference felt by most as to any improvement of the case, as to plans for attaining a higher rate of happiness, happiness of a more refined and durable quality; so that while you could enchain the attention of any audience by explaining to them how they could command a higher rate of interest, or a higher rate of wages, or an increase in the returns of their business or profession, the generality of men feel bored with even the shortest discussion on a project for becoming 'full of joy for evermore.' This is because mortification is set in, men are past feeling,' and have come to this, that having forsaken the Fountain of Living Waters, they can no longer endure even to hear with patience of the Rivers of Paradise proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb."

Such reflections as these might perhaps prompt the two passengers to return to the point where Jesus had taken his stand, with the ancient question, "Master, where dwellest thou?" To which, doubtless, the old answer would be returned, " Coine and see." And they would go away to see in his home, and to study more closely, a person possessed of the true human happiness, the happiness proper to a man,-that which places him in harmony with all the rest of creation, and with its invisible Author, "the Happy God." The lesson which these inquirers would learn from Jesus Christ would be that man's happiness depends on the synthesis of two worlds-the seen and the unseen--with which the two parts of his nature stand in eternal relation, his body and his spirit; and that it is as impossible for man to be happy apart from God, as for an animal made for the air, the water, or the land, to enjoy life out of its own element. God made man in his own image. He cannot, therefore, be rendered happy merely with the enjoyment of an animal. Hence that vague craving after something more than they already possess, even in the hearts of the wealthiest that vest discontent with what is already in store-that deep-seated yearning after something which can give not only pleasure but

peace, not only a momentary excitement but enduring repose. And this is the fulness of Joy which Christ both possesses and confers. He himself is happy, in conformity to the eternal laws of being, and he will teach the grand lesson to mankind.

He was himself "full of joy." He was no doubt happy as a child. Much quiet enjoyment falls to the lot of infancy and childhood, even as things are now. The mind is not racked with anxieties, or tormented by the conscience of sins. Hence the senses enjoy more deeply, and the fancy, like the sun, throws its thousand rainbow-tints over the stream of life as it breaks in a cataract at our feet. One never sees children at play without thinking how plentifully heaven supplies them with amusement. They need not to "go to the play." Their theatre is always open their drama is always in progress before their eyes, for everything is dramatic to them. "All the world's a stage," and heaven and earth to them are already "new." But Christ's childhood must have been supremely joyful. "Trailing clouds of glory did He come from God, who was His home." Heaven lay about Him in His infancy." The spotless Lamb, the radiant Rose of Sharon, must have passed some blissful years among the fields and hills of Nazareth., As He grew up there were present with Him none of the causes which so often embitter youth, and shroud the soul in a cloud of melancholy-none of the tempers and none of the vices which so often canker existence and blot out the sun, until the soul becomes a sort of scorpion in the breast, ever ready to strike and sting, itself most wretched, and spreading its own dark shadow upon all around. Then came His manhood. Every power in perfect order, the senses clear and strong, as only those are clear and strong which are the organs of a spirit at perfect rest within,-His eyes were bright with innocency, His ear "attent" to every voice of God, His sense of beauty pure and fresh in more than virgin chastity of soul; each flower was arrayed to him in "glory" greater than Solomon's; his intellect alert and buoyant as the chariot of the cherubim; everything seemed interesting upon which He looked -the birds, the sky, the lilies, the works of God above and below. His speech represented the immense calm within his soul; His very. presence stilled the storm and charmed the winds and waves to rest. The very birds and fishes recognized his power. It must have seemed as if the flowers looked brighter through their thousand eyes as He passed along. His purity of soul raised every meal to the dignity of a sacramentevery ablution into the symbol of a divine pardon. But his chief happiness arose from what He was to others who needed his help, from his perpetual self-offering upon the altar of the world. It was his "meat and drink" to teach dark souls to

see-to associate patiently beneath that burning sky with the hot crowds of struggling peasantry, who brought forth their sick to be healed on "beds and couches,"-to toil over unnumbered leagues of burning sand and rock to reach the obscure mountain. villages of Palestine where souls were to be awakened by Truth, the "trump of God,"-to dry the tears of the widow, and of the poor mother whose little daughter lay cold and dead,—to fill whole regions with gladness because all their sick were cured by a word, to exalt a Simon into a Peter, a coarse and blasphemous fisherman of Galilee into a seraphic apostle,—to give his breast as a pillow to a soul that loved the divine mysteries,—to unfold heaven's own delights-"the better part"-to the sweet soul who sat at his feet and gazed up, awe-struck, unto his Godrevealing countenance,-to offer Himself at last a sacrifice for the sins of the world,-to express that "greater love" which knows how to give up life itself for its object,-this was the happiness of Jesus Christ. He felt strong in the embrace of the Everlasting Arms; he knew that he pleased God, and lived on a plan which was worthy of prolongation to eternity. His pleasures were not like passing gales, but like the steady breathings of the Almighty, who is "alive for evermore." The face of Memnon in the desert was fixed towards the blushing orient, and every morning the beams of the day-spring drew forth music from the stone, so travellers fabled; but here was a countenance steadfastly fixed to ascend to the Jerusalem abovefixed towards the eternal Sunrising, and the beams of the Divine glory broke in music at His approach. The very expression of His face revealed the reality of the eternity towards which He travelled as to his perpetual home. His features already shone with the reflected radiance of the sun-lit city to which he should soon "go up." The was no earthly element in His joy. Outwardly there were abundant causes of sorrow. was acquainted with grief. The storm of evil beat upon and stained His brow with its biting blast; its lightnings marred his visage more than any man's; his spirit sometimes chafed and sometimes sank under the suffering caused by the perpetual neighbourhood of grossness, stupidity, fraud, and blasphemous profanity; but the "Man of Sorrows" possessed a joy too deep for tears to destroy. His was the inward well-spring of Divine delight. If darkness gathered around the mountain basis, eternal sunlight settled on its crown. He rose above this region of cares and trifles into the infinite realms of God, and inhaled a joy which death itself could not extinguish; for with his last breath he spake of Paradise," and commended his spirit into the hands of Everlasting Love.

He

Such was the "joy" of Jesus Christ, and such is the joy