We ought to think of the joys of Christ, as well as of His sorrows. Nothing shows where a man's heart is, and what it is, more than, when oppressed, distressed, and full of sorrow, where his heart finds its joy, and if it does find a joy unreached by it. We see these joys in Christ, a secret comfort in the midst of His sorrow. He had " meat to eat," which man knew not of. Besides, His communion with His Father there was this working of love to us. Paradise shone in upon His heart, in comforting the poor thief. " Go in peace" refreshed His spirit in the house of the Pharisee. " She hath done it for my burial" justified Mary against the reproach of selfish man. " Thou halt hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes," was His joy in the sense of the heartless rejection to which the wickedness of man subjected Him. How blessed to the heart, besides learning where His joy was, to think that He found it in the working of His love to us!
I am not satisfied with the acknowledgment commonly made of Christ. It is not whether I am rich or poor, though the latter is the safer, truer, and better state. Sacrifice of convenience and worldly means is no way answering a character to God's glory, if the principle of the world's greatness is avowedly kept, though perhaps sacrificed to the dissemination of gospel truth.