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I. THE CONTROL WHICH A RIGHTEOUS MAN EXERCISES OVER HIS PASSIONS AND DESIRES. A righteous man is a happy man, because he is a free man, and the servant to no inward lust; he can act up to his own decisions, and when he sees what is right, he can do it. If there is wretchedness upon earth, it is to live by a rule which we perpetually violate. The most miserable of human beings are professed sinners, men who despise rule, who look upon their passions as mere instruments of pleasure. Putting aside all religious considerations, there is not a greater mistake than to suppose that a profligate man can be happy. He may seem to be happy because his enjoyments are more visible and ostentatious, but is in truth a very sorry and shallow impostor, who may deceive the young, but is laughed at by the wise, and by all who know in what true happiness consists. The truly happy man is he, who has early discovered that he carries within his own bosom his worst enemies, and that the contest must be manfully entered into. A religious man is happy because he is secure; because it is not in the power of accident or circumstance to disclose any secret guilt; as he is, he has long been; he can refer to the blameless tenor of years, to a mind long exercised in avoiding offence towards God and towards man.

II. THE FEELINGS OF CHARITY AND BROTHERLY LOVE WHICH RELIGION ALWAYS INSPIRES. As God has given to one object beautiful colours, and to another grateful odours, He has annexed exquisite feelings of happiness to the performance of every benevolent action. It is impossible to do good to others without feeling happy from it. The conviction which religion inspires, that a man is not born for himself alone, and the habit which it inculcates, of attention to the interests and feelings of mankind, induces at last that state of calm and permanent satisfaction which the words of Solomon describe. Nothing is more grateful than general love, produced by a long tenor of courtesy, of justice, of active kindness, and of modest respect.

III. THE COMFORTS DERIVED FROM THE FUTURE RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE OF RELIGION. A man of proper feeling always suffers from observing the striking disproportion that exists in this world between happiness and merit. It is the severest trial of human patience to witness the respect, honour, and prosperity of bad men. These sad scenes are tolerable to the religious man alone, from that final order and regularity with which he knows they will hereafter be concluded. Wherever he looks, justice in its most perfect shape terminates his view; all guilt is detected, all innocence is brought to light; at the conclusion of all things a never-failing Judge gives to every thinking soul the good and the evil which is its due. Pleasure, then, is gained by being the lord and master of our own hearts, by binding our passions in links of iron; by adapting worldly hopes and fears to the nature of worldly things; by obeying God, by trusting to His providence, by expecting His judgments.

(Sidney Smith.)

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KJV: Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

WEB: Her ways are ways of pleasantness. All her paths are peace.