Rejoice in the Lord

The Christian religion is no morose system, stifling every spring of cheerfulness in the heart, or converting its waters into those of Marah. It lifts the spirit out of the thrall and misery of sin, and elevates it to the enjoyment of the divine favour, and the possession of the divine image; nay there is a luxury in that sorrow which weeps tears of genuine contrition. Therefore, to mope and mourn, to put on sackcloth and cleave to the dust, is not the part of those who are in the Lord, the exalted Saviour, who guarantees them “pleasures for evermore.” Such joy is not more remote from a gloomy and morbid melancholy, on the one hand, that it is, on the other hand, from the delirious ecstasies of fanaticism, or the inner trances and raptures of mystic Quietism. -- John Eadie