they are present facts, though we talk about them collectively as ’the future’—­the facts on which all Christian gladness ought to be based.  We can carry our own atmosphere with us; like the people in Italy, who in frosty weather will be seen sitting in the market-place by their stalls with a dish of embers, which they grasp in their hands, and so make themselves comfortably warm on the bitterest day.  You can bring a reasonable degree of warmth into the coldest weather, if you will lay hold of the vessel in which the fire is, and keep it in your hand and close to your heart.  Choose what you think about, and feelings will follow thoughts.

But it needs very distinct and continuous effort for a man to keep this great source of Christian joy clear before him.  We are like the dwellers in some island of the sea, who, in some conditions of the atmosphere, can catch sight of the gleaming mountain-tops on the mainland across the stormy channel between.  But thick days, with a heavy atmosphere and much mist, are very frequent in our latitude, and then all the distant hills are blotted out, and we see nothing but the cold grey sea, breaking on the cold, grey stones.  Still, you can scatter the mist if you will.  You can make the atmosphere bright; and it is worth an effort to bring clear before us, and to keep high above the mists that cling to the low levels, the great vision which will make us glad.  Brethren, I believe that one great source of the weakness of average Christianity amongst us to-day is the dimness into which so many of us have let the hope of the glory of God pass in our hearts.  So I beg you to lay to heart this first commandment, and to rejoice in hope.

II.  Now, secondly, here is the thought that life, if full of joyful hope, will be patient.

I have been saying that the gladness of which my text speaks is independent of circumstances, and may persist and be continuous even when externals occasion sadness.  It is possible—­I do not say it is easy, God knows it is hard—­I do not say it is frequently attained, but I do say it is possible—­to realise that wonderful ideal of the Apostle’s ‘As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.’  The surface of the ocean may be tossed and fretted by the winds, and churned into foam, but the great central depths ’hear not the loud winds when they call,’ and are still in the midst of tempest.  And we, dear brethren, ought to have an inner depth of spirit, down to the disturbance of which no surface-trouble can ever reach.  That is the height of attainment of Christian faith, but it is a possible attainment for every one of us.

And if there be that burning of the light under the water, like ‘Greek fire,’ as it was called, which many waters could not quench—­if there be that persistence of gladness beneath the surface-sorrow, as you find a running stream coming out below a glacier, then the joy and the hope, which co-exist with the sorrow, will make life patient.