their children do, with this on the fly-leaf, 'With a father's love.'
Whatever comes to God's child with that inscription, surely it ought
to kindle a thrill of gladness. That 'the king of Assyria's heart is
turned'; shall we thank the king of Assyria? Yes and No! For it was
God who 'turned' it. Oh! to carry the quiet confidence of that thought
into all our daily life, and see His name written upon everything that
contributes to make us blessed. God is the true Source and Maker of
every joy.

And by the side of that we must put this other thought--there are
sources of joy with which He has nothing to do. There are people who
are joyful--and there are some of them listening now--not because God
made them joyful, but because 'the world, the devil, and the flesh'
have given them ghastly caricatures of the true gladness. And these
rival sources of blessedness, the existence of which my text suggests,
are the enemies of all that is good and noble in us and in our joys.
God made these men joyful, and so their gladness was wholesome.

II. Note the consequent obligation and wisdom of taking our God-given
joys.

'They kept the feast with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful.'
Then it is our obligation to accept and use what it is His blessedness
to give. Be sure you take Him. When He is waiting to pour all His love
into your heart, and all His sweetness into your sensitive spirit, to
calm your anxieties, to deepen your blessedness, to strengthen
everything that is good in you, to be to you a stay in the midst of
crumbling prosperity, and a Light in the midst of gathering darkness,
be sure that you take the joy that waits your acceptance. Do not let
it be said that, when the Lord Christ has come down from heaven, and