ON THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGIOUS JOY.
"Let pure devotion in my heart
For ever dwell, thou God of love;
And light and heavenly peace impart,
Sweet earnests of the joys above."
MAN is born to trouble, and Christians are not exempted from the ordinary calamities and sorrows of humanity. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Though their hopes are high, and they know that, when they reach their home, they shall find their inheritance to be invaluable and immense; while they are in the house of their pilgrimage, they experience much to disturb their peace, and to exercise their faith, fortitude, and patience. Their faculties are limited and feeble; their graces are imperfect; their understandings are only partially enlightened; their hearts are deceitful; their bodies are frail; they are placed in a wicked and ensnaring world; surrounded with manifold temptations; and exposed to severe and complicated trials. They cannot always do the things that they ought, nor even the things that they would. When they would do good, evil is present with them: they feel a law in their members warring against the law in their minds; and are burdened with a body of sin and death.
Though, therefore, it is the duty of all who are reconciled unto God by the death of his Son, to be strong in the Lord, to glory in his love, to rejoice alway; there are seasons when this joy becomes unattainable, and when their souls are filled with distress and anguish. Is it possible, or proper, to rejoice when God forsakes them, and