I am not sure that views
as gross and material are not often held by people who ought to be
wiser. In reality, Joy is as much a matter of Cause and Effect as
pain. No one can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of
the ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must
be grown. There is a very clever trick in India called the mango
trick. A seed is put in the ground and covered up, and after diverse
incantations a full-blown mango-bush appears within five minutes.
I never met any one who knew how the thing was done, but I never
met any one who believed it to be anything else than a conjuring
trick. The world is pretty unanimous now in its belief in the
orderliness of Nature. Men may not know how fruits grow, but they
do know that they cannot grow in an hour. Some lives have not even
a stalk on which fruits could hang, even if they did grow in an
hour. Some have never planted one seed of Joy in all their lives;
and others who may have planted a germ or two have lived so little
in sunshine that they never could come to maturity.
Whence, then, is joy? Christ put His teaching upon this subject
into one of the most exquisite of His parables. I should in any
instance have appealed to His teaching here, as in the case of Rest,
for I do not wish you to think I am speaking words of my own.
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