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We all need enthusiasm and vigour in our work. It is, however, a rare thing to find these as an abiding, continuous experience. Youth, of course, has freshness and freedom. Its ardent hopefulness covers everything, just as we find when, looking at distant objects through a lens not perfectly achromatic, we see them fringed with prismatic tints — a rainbow brilliancy which does not belong to the objects themselves. There are objects in life that lose their illusive and enchanting brightness when viewed in the sober inspection of maturer age. Health, too, has its influence in imparting enthusiasm. On a bright and bracing day we walk the street with resounding foot. The sunlit skies and the crisp air help to quicken and enliven our spirits. Contact with a friend we love warms our soul with new emotion, and pours the elixir of life into languid veins. A great thought, or the perusal of a delightful book, may stir our intellect to fresh activity. A new key to the mystery of life is given us by momentary contact with an illuminated mind. But society is complex. Cares are multiplied and minute in this our hurrying and exacting life. By no voluntary act of ours can we maintain this tension, any more than we can stretch a wire a hundred yards without a sag. With added years and with narrowing friendships we see less of pleasure ahead to anticipate. We come to feel the need of something to alleviate the weariness of life. Can we as Christian disciples find in our religion that ennobling and enlivening element which was found in the Hebrew? If not, ours is narrower and more limited than the Hebrew. Yes, we do not find strength and gladness here. We do not find a transient glow, an occasional enthusiasm, but an abiding joy, as we come under the power of the religion of Christ? Do you ask, How this is to be maintained?

I. WE FIND IT IN THE ENTIRE RELIEF FROM SOLITUDE AS TO THE FUTURE WHICH THE GRACE OF CHRIST IMPARTS.

II. WE REALISE THIS ABIDING STRENGTH AND GLADNESS AS WE REMEMBER THAT WE ARE WORKING OUT GOD'S WILL CONCERNING US IN ALL THAT IS DONE OR BORNE BY US.

III. WE ARE EDUCATED BY WHAT WE DO. The thought of developed character and of virtues daily nourished within us is calculated to give abiding joyousness and strength to life.

IV. LIFE ETERNAL IS THUS LINKED TO THIS. A light supernal cheers and lifts up our spirits as the swing of the sea lifts and carries forward the waves till they flood every inlet and beach along the winding shore. We are released from apprehension as to the future. We see all things working together for our good, around us and within us. We do not rightly estimate the believer's privilege. We go moaning and whining, instead of walking on the high places. We go with weights, and not with wings, over the bleak and barren paths of life. But if character have this abiding strength and gladness, freshness and exuberance; if each of us have this shekinah of glory within the soul, we shall show to men of the world that we have what they have not. We have more than a knowledge of the truth in its verbal exactness. We have Christ in us the hope of glory. We have an enthusiasm more continuous than the ardour of youth or the glow of health, or the inspiration of genius. This abiding power is what the world wants. Its fruits, seen in character, ennoble society and link earth with heaven. They make earth bright and vocal. Culture, art, science, mechanical skill cannot work this transformation. Wealth is powerless.

(Richard S. Storrs, D. D.)

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KJV: Glory and honour are in his presence; strength and gladness are in his place.

WEB: Honor and majesty are before him. Strength and gladness are in his place.