THE DAILY LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

REJOICE EVERMORE.

"He is the happy man whose life even now
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come;
Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state,
Is pleased with it, and were he free to choose,

Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,

Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must

Below the skies, but having there his home."

"Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.”. 1 THESS. V. 16-22.

THE words "rejoice evermore," are the first of seven prescriptions that occur in succession, describing the completeness or the perfection of the Christian character. Principle should or will always flower into practice. Life will show itself in living. Every Scripture truth has a directly practical tendency. Christian doctrines are not abstract dogmas, to be retained in all the clearness, and with all the

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coldness, of moonlight in the head; but warm, prolific, practical truths, like the grace of God spoken of by the apostle, tending and teaching us to live soberly, and righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ our God and Saviour. We cannot suppose that the vital truths of Christianity reIceived into the heart fail to bear fruits. No Christian doubts their fruitfulness. We feel it to be true; in our practical experience and history we know it to be true; but there are persons who think and say, "Christians are always proving doctrinal truths, and rarely do they attempt to show us the blossoms these should bear as the ornaments of Christianity, and the fruit that should ripen upon them as its practical growth before God and all mankind." The beautiful prescriptions, seven in number, given by St. Paul, contain, as carried into practical life, the plastic influences that generate a holy life, and ripen into the fruit, the fragrant fruit, of the Christian character. However, we need not argue that doctrinal truths are practical. We never can' admit that a cause is without an effect; or that the sun at mid-day sheds down no splendor. We cannot suppose a person in his senses speaking of a fire, but regretting that it has no heat; or of the sun at noon, but lamenting there is no light. In the same manner it is absurd, and equally absurd, to speak of great, broad, doctrinal truths, and yet to regret they have no practical value. They are living, and therefore fruitful. A truth is meant for telling not only with the lips, but on the life, the character, and the conduct. Great truths we admit may be taken into the head, where they may lie cold, magnificent abstractions for they never part with their magnificence even when thus received, but there they produce no proper fruit. But we are in such a case to blame not the truths, but the subject that imperfectly receives them. If one were to scatter seed-corn upon the

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pavement, or on the hard stones, we could not reasonably expect a harvest; not because the seeds had no vitality, but because the hard stones were not receptive soil. So when these truths produce no practical fruit of whatever things are pure, and just, and lovely; do not blame the truths, which is the common thing, but blame yourselves, which is the difficult, and, we admit, the painful, but, nevertheless, the right thing. The tendency of man is to lay the responsibility upon the truths, and say, "I am not what I should be because these truths leave not the power which the preacher says they have;" but the real duty is to lay the guilt upon himself. We have in all likelihood taken the truths into the head and left them there, instead of taking them into the heart and giving them hospitality there, where by their constraining and sanctifying energy you would be adorned by all the fruits of practical and true Christianity. It is important to show that vital truths have all a directly personal and practical effect; and to do so not simply by quoting instances in actual life, but by quoting such prescriptions as are given by the apostles, and thus showing how they regard them, and what they hold to be, logically, their precious fruits.

The seven or eight prescriptions in the very short, but extremely suggestive, passage, in 1 Thess. v. 16–22, contain the perfection of the Christian character. They are Christianity not in portrait on the outer page, but in living sculpture and in living men. It is the perfect man in Christ Jesus. The whole seven have a most intimate connection, being linked together in sweet and blessed harmony. If you wish always to rejoice, the way to do so is to "pray always." And if you want to pray successfully for new blessings, the way to do so is "to give thanks" for old ones; and if you desire "always to rejoice," always to pray, always to give thanks, take care you "quench not the

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