_Rejoice, then, and be exceeding glad_, and you will please Him best."

Once more, then, we appear to be in the wrong, to whatever side we turn.
The happy red-faced monk with his barrel of beer is a caricature of our
joy. Can this, it is asked, be a follower of the Man of Sorrows? And the
long-faced ascetic with his eyes turned up to heaven is the world's
conception of our sorrow. Catholic joy and Catholic sorrow are alike too
ardent and extreme for a world that delights in moderation in both
sorrow and joy--a little melancholy, but not too much; a little
cheerfulness, but not excessive.

II. First, then, it is interesting to remember that these charges are
not now being made against us for the first time. In the days even of
the Roman Empire they were thought to be signs of Christian inhumanity.
"These Christians," it was said, "must surely be bewitched. See how
they laugh at the rack and the whip and go to the arena as to a bridal
bed! See how Lawrence jests upon his gridiron." And yet again, "They
must be bewitched, because of their morbidity and their love of
darkness, the enemies of joy and human mirth and common pleasure. In
either case they are not true men at all." Their extravagance of joy
when others would be weeping, and their extravagance of sorrow when all
the world is glad--these are the very signs to which their enemies
appealed as proofs that a power other than that of this world was
inspiring them, as proofs that they could not be the simple friends of
the human race that they dared to pretend.

It is even more interesting to remember that our Divine Lord Himself
calls attention to these charges. "_The Son of Man comes eating and
drinking._ The Son of Man sits at the wedding feast at Cana and at meat
in the rich man's house and you say, _Behold a glutton and a