os e a = a ae 
 i) eet te — 
 
 M 
 
 A Book by Rev. Paul Wilhelr 
 Reviewed by Rev. 
 
 (Published by the B. Herder Bi 
 
 the times in Germany is the w 
 
 in which a book on Christian j 
 has taken the nation by storm. The 
 are great possibilities in a people w 
 by the thousands have found comfc 
 and hope in the pages of this little bo 
 by the Bishop of Rottenburg. Pre 
 dent. Roosevelt did much to make por 
 lar the “Simple Life,’ by Pastor Wa 
 ner. But here is a book that has be 
 its own commendation and introdu 
 tion. : 
 
 First published in 1909 as an East 
 greeting, the book has gone into ma: 
 editions. Although written by a Rom 
 Catholic bishop. it has overleaped d 
 
 On: of the most hopeful signs 
 
 Io ‘19J 
 
 
 
 ‘yIOM UOTSSIW 
 ' 9Y} oJoyM ‘Pole SUIUTey oY} U 
 -SIP 9q 0} SUOTINGIIjUOD PIeM 
 
 AON 
 
 ‘jospng sdue[OAo 
 ‘TIOUNOD t 
 
 YWION 34} Jo ysonbalr 2 
 peziioyyne sey suOIssty 
 
 sutjueld surids Suryeur 
 
 sajqqed pue pues ‘sy 
 sooejd Aueu ul pue sdo 
 
 eUIYD YHON ‘ 
 
 TUNING "ATI 
 
 otis ol, 
 
 —_—w. 
 
 DEATH IN THE MINISTRY 
 Rev. Sylvanus Haupert, D.D. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Sylvanus Haupert, pastor 
 of the Bridesburg Presbyterian church, 
 Philadelphia,} died on March 31, aged 
 fifty-five. if 
 
 Sylvanus Haupert, son of Frederick 
 and Philippina (Cappel) Haupert, was 
 born at. Frys... Valley, \Tuasedrawas 
 County, Ohio, on November 7, 1869. He 
 graduated from the Dennison, Ohio, 
 high school, when his older brother, Dr. 
 Charles Haupert, was superintendent. 
 Following this, he taught /a district 
 school in Tu§carawas County for a 
 year; then entered Heidelberg College. 
 at Tiffin, Ohio, where he was graduated 
 after a five-year course. He then com- 
 pleted his preparation for his life’s 
 work at McCormick Theological Sem- 
 inary, Chicago, IWinois, graduating in 
 1895. His first charge was that of the 
 Presbyterian churches of Bradner and 
 Pemberville, Ohio, going from there to 
 Mason, Ohio, in 1898. During this pas- 
 torate, he made a ‘trip through parts 
 of Europe, Egypt d Palestine. His 
 wife’s ill health necessitated his going 
 to Colorado, first accepting a charge at 
 Del Norte in 1902, and at Aspen in 
 1903, where he remained until 1907. In 
 that year, he accepted a call to the 
 Westminster church of Pittsburgh, and. 
 remained there for eight years. During 
 this pastorate, he completed his work 
 for a doctorate, and received the degree 
 of Ph. D. from Grove City College«in 
 1908. In 1915, Dr. Haupert came to 
 his last charge, that of the Bridesburg 
 church, Philadelphia. Being afflicted by 
 a slight stroke, which perceptibly af- 
 fected his health, he resigned this 
 charge a little over a year ago, retiring 
 from active service. Since last July, he 
 spent his days of retirement at Acad- 
 emia, Pa. While pastor in Bridesburg, 
 he remodeled the Sabbath-school build- 
 ing and cancelled the debt involved. 
 During the influenza epidemic, he ren- 
 dered every possible .assistance to the 
 sick, the sorrowing and the distressed. 
 Wherever there was need, Dr. Haupert 
 went and gave himself to the service 
 of all. He was a splendid preacher and 
 a devoted pastor. He was widely 
 known and greatly beloved by. Jali 
 When compelled to retire from the ac- 
 tive ministry, Dr. Haupert was made 
 pastor-emeritus of the Bridesburg 
 
 ‘A Rab Boo Ue ee ee ee Se ose 
 
 
 
, ae AY SOME 
 
 ZO eae 
 
 Library of The Cheolo gical Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CP 
 
 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 | The Estate of 
 BZ s00-.-K45 1934 ane 
 
 Keppler, Paul Wilhelm vo 
 1852-1926. is 
 
 More joy 
 

 

 
 BY 70, 
 a a 
 Sin 
 
 Rs £ FLOP es a se WW thE 
 Tue RT. REV. PAUL WILHELM VON KEPPEER ~ 
 
 Bisuop oF RorrensuRrG 
 
 ADAPTED INTO ENGLISH 
 FROM THE EDITION OF 1911 
 
 BY 
 
 THE. REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C. S. P. 
 
 FIFTH EDITION 
 
 B. HERDER BOOK CO. 
 17 SOUTH BROADWAY, ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 AND 
 68 GREAT RUSSELL ST., LONDON, W. C. 
 1924 
 
NIHIL OBSTAT 
 
 Sti. Ludovici, die 26. Feb. 1914 
 F. G. Holweck, 
 
 Censor Librorum. 
 
 IMPRIMATUR 
 
 Sti. Ludovict, die 27. Feb., 1914 
 
 -Joannes J. Glennon, 
 Archiepiscopus, 
 Sti. Ludovici. 
 
 Copyright, 1914 
 
 by 
 Joseph Gummersbach 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Printed in U. 8. A. 
 
 First impression, May 1914 
 Second impression, September 1914 
 Third impression, December 1915 
 
 Fourth impression, 1919 
 Fifth impression, 1924 
 
 VAIL -BALLOU PRESS, INC. 
 BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK 
 
AUTHOR’S NOTE 
 
 “JOY!’? No sooner is the word written 
 down than a solemn feeling takes possession of 
 me. It seems as if a thousand little faces, 
 haloed with children’s hair, look at me sadly. 
 Tears are falling from eyes of brown and eyes 
 of blue; and I hear voices pleading: ‘‘Do bring 
 us joy; we need it, oh, so sorely.’’ 
 
 Then I see other faces, withered, worn, tor- 
 mented by fear, and their dull looks say plainly: 
 “Speak not to us of joy; it is only an illusion.”’ 
 
 But then, beyond these again, there are others, 
 radiant with happiness and affection, that turn 
 to me encouragingly: ‘“Yes: Do speak of it. 
 Tell us what to do in these unhappy times to 
 save joy from destruction and to get more of it, 
 for ourselves and for everybody.’’ 
 
 So I am going to speak of joy. Would that 
 all who still believe and hope, might listen to me; 
 that all who still love joy and mankind, might 
 assist me. Then indeed, the phrase I have 
 placed on the title-page would soon be something 
 more than a wish, an aspiration. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 In 2022 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 httos://archive.org/details/morejoyOOkepp 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 Tuer Ricut to Joy 
 DOAN D LEE AGH ae aie cuuiurat teh nes lpr hs 
 
 MopERN DESTROYERS OF JOY . . . , 
 
 Too Many PLEASURES AND TOO LiTTLE Joy . 
 
 UOVRAND. CART ayo) oh Siti eel Waihi SR rR 
 JOY AND THE FOLK-SONG 
 
 JOY AND YOUTH . 
 
 JOY AND CHRISTIANITY . 
 
 THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 JoY AND Houy SCRIPTURE . 
 
 JOY AND HOLINESS . . 
 
 A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE .. . 
 More Joy 
 
 LitTtLe Joys 
 
 JOY AND GRATITUDE . 
 
 JOY AND EDUCATION SHRI ainsi ea ae 
 NOVO HROUGH JOY a vee nae deen te 
 
 PAIS ANTS RECT Cian ing Canin ea cen Gan CUNNING 
 
 183 
 
 , 195 
 
CHAPTER 
 XIX 
 xX 
 XXI 
 XXII 
 Dae OE 
 XXIV 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 JOY AND THE CARE oF SOULS . 
 
 JOY AND THE LOVE oF NATURE 
 JOY IN WORK 
 
 JOY OF THE SOUL 
 
 REJOICE ! 
 
 CoNCLUSION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 203 
 rone 
 . 226 
 . 236 
 . 244 
 . 256 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 THE STORY OF THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 
 One dreary winter I wrote my Little Book of 
 Joy; and, in the spring of 1909, I sent it forth as 
 an Haster greeting. It met a kindly welcome 
 here and abroad, among both people of cul- 
 ture, and those commonly miscalled the ‘‘lower 
 classes.’?’ Wafted by a happy fate over land 
 and sea, it encountered a larger number of 
 friends than provision had been made for, and 
 was introduced in more than one foreign land 
 before it had yet learned the language of the 
 country. Denominational barriers were low- 
 ered before it; and from the reviewers it ob- 
 tained passports even into hostile camps. 
 When, after a year of travel, it came home again 
 to its author, it bore the proud title “ Fiftveth 
 Thousand’’; and had many a tale to tell. Well- 
 filled mail-bags from both hemispheres followed 
 it home, bringing touching testimonies of grati- 
 tude, moving confidences from pain-racked souls, 
 
 messages of enthusiastic concurrence, of keen 
 i 
 
ii INTRODUCTION 
 
 criticism, of encouragement, together with re- 
 quests for ‘‘more.”’ 
 
 The author felt constrained to put all this to 
 good use, to return greetings, to correct blunders, 
 to comply with requests. Thus a new edition 
 has come into existence; and now, bearing the 
 device “‘Fifty-fourth Thousand,’ the Little 
 Book begins its second voyage around the world. 
 It is going to tap gently at the door of old 
 friends, to greet them in the author’s name and to 
 thank them. Perhaps it is also going to enroll 
 new friends in the crusade of joy. 
 
 In behalf of this crusade, we may properly 
 enough here set down one or two wholly imper- 
 Sonal observations suggested by many kind, and. 
 a few unsympathetic, criticisms. 
 
 Our Little Book found its starting point, and 
 indeed its very reason of being, in the joyless- 
 ness of modern civilization. To establish the 
 fact of this joylessness appeared to be the very 
 first and also the most difficult step. On this 
 point, therefore, I deliberately multiplied au- 
 thorities high in the world’s esteem, feeling quite 
 prepared nevertheless to meet with contradic- 
 tion and to be reproached for my pessimistic 
 view of the age. Great was my surprise to en- 
 counter on every side, not denial of the world’s 
 
INTRODUCTION ili 
 
 joylessness, but admission and acknowledgment. 
 General agreement in every quarter; thousands 
 of hands reaching out eagerly for the Little 
 Book ;—this seemed like a new and almost terri- 
 fying evidence of the extent to which men were 
 suffering from the lack of joy. 
 
 Now, the poisonous weed of pessimism 1s no 
 Christian, or Catholic, growth; it flourishes in the 
 world’s own soil. As Father Weiss has noted,’ 
 itis the unbeliever, not the Christian, who makes 
 the bitterest, most pitiless criticisms of life: 
 
 ‘Schilling calls existence a farce, an absurd 
 romance; Feuerbach, a madhouse, a jail; Scho- 
 penhauer, a sham, an annoying and useless inter- 
 ruption of the steady calm of eternal nothingness, 
 Swinburne in Atalanta describes life as a time, 
 
 ‘Filled with days we would not fain behold 
 And nights we would not hear of.’ 
 
 And Moritz Block affirms that throughout hu- 
 man history, evil keeps so much to the fore and 
 good so far in the background, that we can 
 get statistics of evil conduct only, never of the 
 good.’’ 
 
 There is more optimism, a stronger affirmation 
 
 1 Lebensweisheit in der Tasche, 12, Freiburg, 1910, 99. (References 
 in German are copied from Bishop Keppler, without verification. 
 Tr.) 
 
iv INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the value of life, in Catholic Christianity than 
 in all the rest of the world. 
 
 I am a confirmed optimist and I think I have 
 set the imprint of optimism on this Little Book. 
 But healthy optimism finds very little support in 
 a vague hope that improvement will come at 
 last. It insists upon getting at the root of exist- 
 ing evils, giving them their true names, and then, 
 laying hold of them with both hands to uproot 
 them. Optimists do not wait for improvement; 
 they achieve it. | 
 
 My judgment upon modern art was by some 
 called too harsh. Certain sharp phrases I have 
 since canceled. But, as a whole, my criticism 
 was justified, for it is not true that the infirm- 
 ities indicated have been completely cured, or 
 that Manet’s principle of ‘‘Art for art’s sake’’ 
 has been wholly abandoned by our artists. 
 Every annual exhibition proves the contrary. 
 And in so far as improvement has come, it has 
 hardly come as the result of sounder principles. 
 One fashion has simply replaced another; and 
 there is no guarantee that the vagaries now dis- 
 credited will not in the tortuous course of fash- 
 ion some day again become the modern vogue. 
 Hven before this Little Book was published, an 
 intensely modern man had recommended to 
 
INTRODUCTION Vv 
 
 contemporary art the very same prescription of 
 More Joy. ‘‘ Nothing made in sadness will ever 
 diffuse joy. Hence above all else, I would 
 appeal to modern art for more joy. I do not 
 mean playfulness, nor frivolity; but that holy 
 sort of joy which is born of pain and earnest 
 effort, the joy we see on the face of the dying 
 Schiller, the joy perceptible in all sincere art 
 that still speaks to us with living voice.’’’ 
 
 All honor to the noble efforts, the skilful work- 
 manship, the technical progress that we witness 
 in the world of art. But let it not be proclaimed 
 that we have already crossed the mountains and 
 acquired an art and a style all our own. Morbid 
 fear of forfeiting originality by studying the 
 great masters, weak-kneed readiness to imitate 
 whatever is most modern, childish contempt of 
 all tradition, effeminate devotion to fashion, 
 pursuit of sensation and novelty, and, at the same 
 time, a distressing poverty of great thoughts, 
 deep feelings, warm affections,—these are no 
 symptoms of health. And where there is not 
 health, certainly there can be no Joy. 
 
 Of course, it is praiseworthy in our artists 
 that, by way of change, they have turned their 
 
 2A. von Gleichen-Russwurm, Sieg der Freude, Stuttgart; 1909, 
 250. 
 
V1 INTRODUCTION 
 
 attention to winter scenes, to ice-fields and snow- 
 landscapes, endeavoring to catch and reproduce 
 the never-failing charm of these. But when in 
 this present year of 1910, winter scenes and snow- 
 landscapes appear at the Glaspalast by the dozen, 
 many of them looking like attempts to kill poor 
 dead nature all over again, a chill fastens upon 
 our spirits and we find ourselves not at all dis- 
 posed to believe that this is a young, vigorous, 
 joyous school of art. Widespread and careful 
 attention ought to be given to the critical articles 
 of Momme Nissen in the Kunstwart,? in which 
 he points out the true road to progress. It will 
 be a pity if all his true and clever observations 
 go for naught. 
 
 It betrays shortsightedness and superficiality 
 and inexperience when Christians are denied the 
 privilege of being right heartily joyful in this 
 life, just because they are not exclusively devoted 
 to it, but are solicitous also about the life to 
 come. And it is worse than shortsighted and 
 Superficial when a paper professedly Christian, 
 —although addicted to the ‘‘sport’’ of baiting 
 everything Catholic,—proclaims its discovery of 
 a new species, namely, ‘‘Catholic Pessimism’’; 
 and offers as sole evidence the deductions that 
 
 8 dahrgang 17 und 18. 
 
INTRODUCTION Vil 
 
 ean be drawn from Catholic faith in Our Savior’s 
 
 saying, ‘‘The Lord shall come as a thief in the 
 night,’’ from Catholic belief in the Last Judg- 
 ment and in Eternal Punishment, and from Cath- 
 olic use of the words of the Salve Regina, “‘Ad 
 te clamamus, exules filu Hevae.’’ The re- 
 viewer includes among his observations this 
 peculiarly interesting one that ‘‘as a rule, even 
 Catholics of the best class do not work any longer 
 than they have to, and prefer to retire at the early 
 age of forty-five.”’ 
 
 No one will venture to affirm, much less at- 
 tempt to prove, that to limit life to this present 
 existence, to shun the thought of death, to elimi- 
 nate belief in judgment and immortality, to rep- 
 resent the world as a paradise, a sort of heaven 
 on earth, is sufficient to do away with all suffer- 
 ing and to keep the cup of joy filled to the brim. 
 Then only does joy become solid and enduring 
 when it has learned to face boldly the pain of this 
 life and the threat of ever-approaching death, 
 when it has contrived to make the anchor of hope 
 catch hold of eternity. 
 
 To think of death and to prepare for death, is 
 not a surrender; it is a victory over fear. 
 In fact, the fear of death presses all the 
 harder upon worldlings and unbelievers, in the 
 
vill INTRODUCTION 
 
 measure that they try to shun every thought of 
 Tiss 
 
 Once upon a time our German people were well 
 aware that the true joy of living results from 
 being ready to die. They had a saying: ‘‘He 
 that thinks of death begins to live.’’ They did 
 not shrink from preparing shroud and grave- 
 clothes long beforehand and laying them aside 
 ready for use. The sight of these things only 
 heightened the sense of being alive and the pleas- 
 ure of work. Chamisso’s ‘Old Washerwoman,”’ 
 cheerfully stitching her shroud with her own 
 hands and keeping it as carefully as a wedding- 
 dress, belongs to a type fortunately not yet ex- 
 tinct among our people. Let us not forget the 
 poet’s concluding wish: 
 
 I would I were as wise as she, 
 Life’s cup to empty, never sighing; 
 And then, with joy like hers, to see 
 The shroud made ready for my dying. 
 4See A. Wibbelt, Ein Trostbiichlein vom Tode, Warendorf, 1911. 
 
MORE JOY 
 
 i 
 THE RIGHT TO JOY 
 
 Strange as it may seem, we shall have to begin 
 with establishing man’s right to joy, for although 
 fundamental, this right is, at the present time, 
 often misunderstood and as often undervalued. 
 How much men mistake the true nature of joy, 
 may be seen from their feverish thirst for it and 
 their mad pursuit of it. Not a few regard it as 
 a delicious relish, a sweet morsel, to be greedily 
 devoured whenever found; or a sort of cham- 
 pagne for the gratification of the rich; or an 
 honor reserved to decorate Fortune’s favorites. 
 On the other hand, many speak contemptuously 
 of joy, call it a bonbon for women and children 
 and, setting their faces in a pessimistic frown, 
 pose as men of lofty intellect and wide experience. 
 Pious souls, too, there may be, who in their sim- 
 plicity look upon all joy as the disguised foe of 
 
 1 
 
2 MORE JOY 
 
 religion and holiness. And more numerous and 
 more simple still, are the persons absolutely op- 
 posed to all religion and piety because they re- 
 gard these as the irreconcilable enemies of joy. 
 
 The truth is, however, that joy is a constituent 
 of life, a necessity of life; it is an element of life’s 
 value and life’s power. As every man has need 
 of Joy, so too, every man has a right to joy. It 
 is indispensable to the health of both soul and 
 body; it is necessary to physical and spiritual 
 industry; it is a condition of religious living. 
 
 Hence it is not a mere poetical phrase to say 
 that joy acts upon human beings as sunshine 
 upon plants. The quickening influence of joy 
 and the paralyzing effect of sadness are readily 
 observed. In children especially, we note that 
 sorrow deadens, whereas happiness revives and 
 enlivens. With invalids happiness actually 
 works miracles,—a fact known and utilized by 
 sage physicians. 
 
 The English physician, Weber,! lays stress 
 upon the importance of cultivating cheerful- 
 ness. It is to be attained and preserved by 
 a strong sense of duty and by restraint of the 
 passions; and, to effect this, the chief instrument 
 
 1 Sir Hermann Weber, On Means for the Prolongation of Life, Lon- 
 don, 1908, ch. xii. 
 
THE RIGHT TO JOY 3 
 
 is the will. Physiologically, the influence of the 
 feelings on the organism is explained as follows: 
 
 Joy and hope, by quickening respiration, in- 
 crease the flow of blood to the brain and the sup- 
 ply of nourishment to the nerve-cells. On the 
 contrary, psychic depression retards respiration 
 and heart-action and lessens the blood-flow to the 
 brain, causing first functional and then organic 
 derangement. What we may call the gymnas- 
 tics of joy, therefore, would produce definite and 
 physiological results, would expand the lungs 
 and ease the heart,—like a deep breath of pure 
 mountain air,—thereby improving the whole 
 psychic life, and warding off or expelling illness. 
 
 Joy is ozone for both body and soul. Just as 
 the fragrant odor of sassafras, wafted from the 
 shore, roused Columbus and his crew out of their 
 despondency to new life, so are we often awak- 
 ened and enlivened by the fragrance of joy. 
 True joy, which springs from sources undefiled, 
 works upon the soul no less than upon the senses. 
 It is the balm of life. In education, it is a price- 
 less aid; in work, it is the best possible assistant; 
 and in all social life, it is a most important factor. 
 
 At times our strength and energy seem to be 
 actually redoubled by the coming of joy. A 
 man’s power to will and to do is reinforced. He 
 
 gS 
 
42 
 
 ¢ 
 
 4 MORE JOY 
 
 is made bold, he is kept undismayed. Many a 
 lofty resolve and many a noble deed have been 
 born of joy. It smilingly shows us how to get 
 over obstacles and how to get out of difficulties. 
 Working ever with high purpose, zealous for the 
 good, the true, the beautiful, joy keeps a man’s 
 lower inclinations under strict control and de- 
 velops his best capacities. Under the magic of 
 its influence, he grows gracious, kindly, ready to 
 serve. Thus joy brings individuals closer to- 
 gether, promotes social intercourse, and ties the 
 knot of friendship. 
 
 Joy preserves and fosters optimism and averts 
 pessimism,—a most meritorious achievement. 
 Emerson says truly: ‘‘I find the gayest castles 
 in the air that were ever piled, far better for com- 
 fort and for use than the dungeons in the air that 
 are daily dug and caverned out by grumbling, 
 discontented people. I know those miserable 
 fellows, and I hate them, who see a black star 
 always riding through the light and colored 
 clouds in the sky overhead: waves of light pass 
 over and hide it for a moment, but the black star 
 keeps fast in the zenith. But power dwells with 
 cheerfulness; hope puts us in a working mood, 
 whilst despair is no muse, and untunes the active 
 powers. A man should make life and nature 
 
THE RIGHT TO JOY 5 
 
 happier to us, or he had better never been 
 OLE 7 
 
 Even from a religious point of view, this fine 
 tribute to joy need not be essentially modified, 
 nor restricted to the higher and supernatural 
 forms of joy. There is a notion,—common 
 enough, yet false——that Christianity, with its 
 austere morality, its summons to penance, its 
 doctrine of pain, its view of the necessity and 
 value and merit of suffering, demands always re- 
 nunciation of joy, or, at best, perfect indifference 
 in its regard. Later on we shall show how er- 
 roneous is this belief. 
 
 No one can live without joy, not even the 
 Christian soul following the path of perfection. 
 Indeed, a cheerful, happy, friendly spirit is more 
 often encountered among believers and Chris- 
 tians than among unbelieving and irreligious 
 men. Among the saints the proportion of joyous 
 souls is particularly great. It is not the ‘‘mod- 
 erns’’ in art and letters, but the religious writ- 
 ers and poets and artists, that have most care- 
 fully cultivated, most warmly befriended, and 
 most sincerely championed the cause of joy. In 
 the history of modern literature we find a shock- 
 ing number of famous names listed as foes of joy 
 
 2 Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Lrfe, ch. vii. 
 
 @ 
 
2 
 
 6 MORE JOY 
 
 and prophets of pessimism, from Leopardi, ‘‘the 
 black swan of Recanati,’’ to Schopenhauer, 
 Nietzsche and their lugubrious disciples. 
 
 On the other hand, it was an eighteenth-cen- 
 tury Capuchin who undertook to defend joy 
 against the Jansenistic rigorism which cast a 
 gloom not only over the religious life, but over 
 all existence. I refer to Ambroise de Lombez ? 
 whose book on ‘‘The Joy of the Soul’’ still de- 
 serves toberead. He loudly proclaims the worth 
 of joy: 
 
 ‘‘Joy is useful to virtue, useful in the transac- 
 tion of business, useful in society, useful for all 
 good things. As long as your soul is in joy, 
 your intellect will be more active and productive, 
 
 /your ideas will be clearer, your imagination 
 
 more lively, your heart more at rest, your tem- 
 per more gay and cheerful, your society more 
 agreeable, even your health stronger, or at all 
 events less delicate; your piety will be sweeter, 
 your virtue more generous. ... Joy is useful 
 in the transaction of business. With the help 
 of joy, the fatigue of our necessary labor is made 
 easy; our difficulties vanish; we unravel the knot 
 of our perplexities; the means of attaining suc- 
 
 8 His real name was La Pairie. He was a native of Lombez in 
 Languedoc and lived from 1708 to 1778. 
 
THE RIGHT TO JOY ff 
 
 cess in our undertakings becomes clear tous. A 
 melancholy and gloomy man is not at all fit for 
 the management of affairs, everything disgusts 
 him, the least thing puts him out of temper, the 
 slightest difficulty discourages him. He either 
 neglects his duties altogether, or they suffer con- 
 siderably from the gloom and weariness pervad- 
 ing his soul. ... Melancholy was never-a vir- 
 tue, and never will be; it takes away from the 
 value of our sacrifices, instead of adding thereto. 
 The Apostle tells us that ‘God loves a cheerful 
 giver,’ and nothing does more honor to the ‘yoke’ 
 of His service than the calm serenity on the brow 
 of those who bear the whole weight of it, for His 
 sake.’’ 4 
 
 Frederick W. Faber, the English Oratorian, 
 who died at London in 1863, waged war against 
 the contemporary spirit of sourness and pessi- 
 mism. Throughout his numerous ascetical writ- 
 ings there runs a pure stream of joy. So whole- 
 some and so sensible is his teaching that we may 
 well summarize it here. 
 
 As Goethe terms joyousness the mother of all 
 virtues, Father Faber calls it the atmosphere of 
 heroic virtues. ‘‘It is doing no injury to the 
 
 4Treatise on the Joy of the Christian Soul, London, 1894, pp. vi 
 and 9-11. 
 
8 MORE JOY 
 
 mortified character of high sanctity to say that 
 joy is one of the most important elements in the 
 spiritual life, and nothing is more common than 
 cases in which persons are kept back from great 
 attainments, or from persevering in their voca- 
 tions, by the want of joy. They say there was 
 an epoch on this planet of ours when, from the 
 quantity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, the 
 growth of vegetation was magnificently prolific, 
 rapid, and gigantic. Just so is it in the spiritual 
 life when everything breathes of holy and super- 
 Natural jOViieree 
 
 ‘‘T¢ cannot be too often repeated that it 1s no 
 honor to holy mortification to think or speak 
 lightly of the sweetness, and the balm, and the 
 fragrance of spiritual joy. . . . Now it is quite 
 notorious that joy is of all things the one which 
 most helps us in sustaining this equable sweetness 
 towards others. When we are joyful, nothing 
 comes amiss tous. Nothing takes us by surprise 
 or throws us off our guard. Unkindly inter- 
 pretations of other men’s deeds and words seem 
 unnatural to us; and we lose our facility of judg- 
 ing harshly and of suspecting unreasonably. No 
 matter what duty we are unexpectedly called 
 upon to do, no matter what little unforeseen dis- 
 appointments come upon us, no matter what sud- 
 
THE RIGHT TO JOY * 
 
 den provocations to petulance and irritability 
 assail us, all seems to come right. There is no 
 shadow in our souls under which we can sit and 
 be morose; for the grace of joy is as universal as 
 the strong sunshine of a fine day.’’® 
 
 It is joy alone which can give liberty of spirit. 
 Without it, ‘‘helps become hindrances, sacra- 
 ments formalities, fervors scruples, and. the or- 
 der of rule and habit, instead of being a facility 
 _ of expansion, grows into a chain of bondage and 
 pusillanimity.’’® Far from being destructive of 
 joy, mortification is its foundation and chief sup- 
 port. ‘We cherish our joy in order to nurture 
 our mortified spirit, and we practice austerities 
 in order to increase our joy. . . . Self-love is the 
 filth, the squalor, the confinement, the poverty, 
 the depression, the bad air of the spiritual life, 
 and mortification is our emancipation from it 
 all. What wonder it should be so joyous?... 
 
 ‘Tf the saints are such gay sprites, and monks 
 and nuns such unaccountably cheerful creatures, 
 it is simply because their bodies, like St. Paul’s, 
 are chastised and kept under with an unflinching 
 sharpness and a vigorous discretion. He that 
 would be joyous, must first be mortified; and he 
 
 5 The Blessed Sacrament, Book II, 
 6 Ibid. 
 
10 MORE JOY 
 
 that is mortified is already joyous, with the joy 
 that is of pure, celestial birth.”’ ‘ 
 
 Of course, sorrow is precious, inevitable, in- 
 dispensable, meritorious, but we have absolutely 
 no right to set it above joy. Joy is antecedent, 
 primary, a condition of eternity, whereas sorrow 
 is a sequel of sin and a condition of time. Joy 
 and sorrow work together in the life of the Chris- 
 tian, blending into one another and alternating 
 with each other, like the heaving and sinking of 
 the ocean’s billows. ‘*They live together be- 
 cause they are sisters. Joy is the eldest-born, 
 and when the younger dies—as she will die—joy 
 will keep a memory of her about her forever- 
 more, a memory which will be very gracious, so 
 gracious as to be part of the bliss of heaven.’’® 
 
 Joy is the sail of the boat; he who knows how 
 to manage this sail, can take advantage even of 
 adverse winds and make them serve towards a 
 swifter voyage. True pure joy is as good a 
 tutor as sorrow and is equally necessary, if not 
 more so. ‘‘T'here are souls, too, in the world 
 which have the gift of finding joy everywhere, 
 and of leaving it behind them when they go. Joy 
 gushes from under their fingers like jets of light. 
 There is something in their very presence, in 
 
 7 Ibid. & Bethlehem, ch. viii. » 
 
THR IGE SRO JOY 11 
 
 their mere silent company, from which joy can- 
 not be extricated and laid aside. . . . Of a truth, 
 he is the happiest, the greatest, and the most god- 
 like of men, as well as the sole poet among men, 
 who has added one true joy to the world’s stock 
 of happiness.’’ ® 
 
 Quite in keeping with the importance of joy 
 in human life is the divine care to provide joy 
 in both the natural and supernatural order, so 
 that every creature shall be able to appropriate at 
 least as much as is necessary for existence. 
 
 In the creating of joys, nature is as tireless 
 and as lavish as in the making of flowers; to each 
 season and to each place she assigns its own. No 
 well-ordered life, no life that is reasonable, moral 
 and Christian, will be entirely without joy. Sol- 
 itude and society, rest and labor, prayer and serv- 
 ice, faith and hope and love,—all have their own 
 peculiar joys. By the wise cultivation of joy, 
 the life of the individual and of society will be 
 illumined, ennobled, adorned. Art and poetry es- 
 pecially, have the fair calling and an almost 
 miraculous ability to ‘‘twine heavenly roses into 
 earthly lives.’’ 'T'rue religion, true Christianity, 
 may be determined by this property,—it in- 
 creases, rather than lessens, the joy of life. 
 
 9 Ibid. 
 
12 MORE JOY 
 
 To this extent then, the question of the joyous- 
 ness of an epoch is really a question of conscience 
 and of education, and it is a question that must 
 be put to our own age. 
 
IT 
 JOY AND THE AGE 
 
 Is our age rich or poor in joy? The optimist 
 who says it is rich may be envied but he will 
 hardly be believed. Frankly, joylessness, yea 
 despair, is characteristic of our age, and domin- 
 ant in the life of people. It would be easy enough 
 from the pages of modern literature to piece to- 
 gether long jeremiads, mourning choruses, sym- 
 phonies of lamentation; but we refrain. Neither 
 shall we quote from avowed pessimists. Nor 
 shall we even enter our own judgment, since we 
 are so unmodern that our opinion would be 
 neither accepted nor excused. On the point in 
 question, however, let us hear men unquestion- 
 ably capable of judging, men revered as proph- 
 ets, or at least acknowledged as authorities, by 
 the modern world. 
 
 There could hardly be a severer censure than 
 the following drastic comment of a critic who is 
 certainly far from being religious, namely, the 
 
 much overrated Chamberlain: 
 13 
 
14 MORE JOY 
 
 *‘And so this too great preoccupation with the 
 material banished the beautiful almost entirely 
 from life; at the present moment there exists 
 perhaps no savage, at least no half-civilized peo- 
 ple, which does not to my mind possess more 
 beauty in its surroundings and more harmony in 
 its existence as a whole than the great mass of 
 so-called civilized Europeans.’’ ! 
 
 Rudolf EKucken, one of the most earnest and 
 noble of modern philosophers, regards as demon- 
 strated the inadequacy of a merely human cul- 
 ture divorced from faith in another world: 
 
 “It splits life up into opposing extremes. 
 Now it throws man back upon himself as a refuge 
 from the icy coldness of a soulless world, and 
 again it bids him flee from the narrow, stultify- 
 ing influences of human relationships to the 
 ampler life of the universe. Nowhere is there 
 a sure footing, nowhere a comprehensive synthe- 
 sis, nowhere a life that repays all the toil and 
 trouble which highly civilized man is bound to 
 expend on it. And this failure appears all the 
 more disconcerting when we remember the great- 
 ness of the hopes which attended the birth of the 
 
 1 Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des 19 Jahrhun- 
 
 derts, vol. I, p. 32. Translated by John Lees, New York, 1912, 
 p. xXcvi. 
 
JOY AND THE AGE 15 
 
 movement. Life in its progress has shattered 
 these hopes and reversed all expectations. We 
 looked for certainty, and have fallen into griey- 
 ous perplexity. We sought a life that should 
 be one and single, and found it dismembered and 
 self-conflicting. We craved happiness and tran- 
 quillity, and could find only conflict, trouble, and 
 sorrow.’’? 
 
 He calls modern culture mere material devel- 
 opment, not true culture of the spirit; and de- 
 clares it utterly worthless: | 
 
 ‘*W hirling complexity, restless hurry and pur- 
 suit, a passionate exaltation of self and an 
 overweening pushing of its claims against those 
 of others; life occupied with alien interests 
 rather than its own; no inward problems or in- 
 ward motives; little pure enthusiasm or genuine 
 love; the fostering and furthering of self ever 
 the dominant note, despite all boastful profes- 
 sion and even some really honest work; man, with 
 his likes and dislikes, the supreme arbiter of good 
 and evil, true and false, so that the main goal of 
 endeavor is to win social favor and respect ap- 
 pearances. All this, however much it may make 
 profession of following after ideal goals and be- 
 
 2The Meaning and Value of Life. Translated by Lucy Judge Gib- 
 son and W. R. Boyce Gibson, London, 1913, p. 63. 
 
16 MORE JOY 
 
 ing guided by ideal sentiments, yet reveals in 
 every part of it an inner insincerity, a repellent 
 unreality, a spiritual tameness and hollowness.’’ ® 
 
 In another passage he calls modern culture ‘‘a 
 sham, straining after pomp and polish, substi- 
 tuting external service for interior development, 
 sacrificing the intrinsic value of life to mere util- 
 ity, and inevitably becoming mere show and 
 emptiness.”’ * 
 
 Friedrich Paulsen, in his latest work, speaks 
 still more sharply: ‘‘It is as if, in one instant, 
 all the devils had been let loose to devastate the 
 fields of German life.’? He draws particular at- 
 tention to the fact that modern education, so 
 effeminate, so deficient in character and so neg- 
 lectful of character, brings no increase of joy to 
 young people, but quite the contrary. ‘*The 
 young people of to-day, the product of a soft, 
 weak, yielding method of education, look on 
 themselves as unfortunate, oppressed, misunder- 
 stood, and abused, whereas formerly strict dis- 
 cipline was borne with patience and even with 
 cheerfulness.’’ ° 
 
 Keen and accurate is the judgment of Werner 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 139. 
 
 4 Miinchener Neueste Nachrichten, Beilage, I, 1908. 
 
 5 Moderne Drziehung und geschlechiliche Sittlichkeit, Berlin, 1908, 
 &3, 86. ; 
 
JOY AND THE AGE 17 
 
 Sombart: ‘To-day our real insight into the es- 
 sence of things is in no sense better than before. 
 Modern culture has done nothing for our inner 
 life, our happiness, our contentment, our thor- 
 oughness.’’ 
  **Far better be a wood-chopper than to live 
 any longer this worthless civilized and educated 
 life. We must get back to the sources high up 
 in the lonely mountains,’’ is the dejected ery of 
 P. de Lagarde. 
 
 Another recent critic expresses himself as 
 follows: ‘‘Our unquiet and restless life is full 
 of painful groaning and yearning. Day by day 
 our fund of knowledge grows. Scarcely any im- 
 passable obstacles confront our progress in tech- 
 nical science, . . . and still we take no joy in it, 
 still we hear louder and louder the tiresome, 
 troublesome question, ‘To what purpose?’ We 
 lack that which gives life its basis and inspira- 
 tion,—namely, a sure philosophy. Or rather, we 
 have come to the point where we can no longer 
 live on the philosophy which since the Age of 
 Enlightenment has been impressing itself more 
 and more on our whole spiritual life. Material- 
 ism and greed, in coarser or finer form, have per- 
 meated our habits of thought, even with those of 
 us who would angrily repudiate the name ‘Ma- 
 
i8 MORE JOY 
 
 terialist.’ Along with materialism there used 
 to exist a considerable capital of antique ideal- 
 ism; and so long as a man could live on this, ma- 
 terialism seemed to be a force for the destruction 
 of deep-rooted prejudices and the opening of a 
 path to progress in every field. The new gene- 
 ration retains little or nothing of this old capital. 
 Brought up in exclusive materialism, it sees 
 before it an existence of frightful barrenness 
 and emptiness. And now that even the man on 
 the street has got hold of the childishly simple 
 principle of materialism and from the heights of 
 ‘scientific’ philosophy looks down with scorn 
 upon all reactionaries, we are beginning to recog- 
 nize the peril that threatens everything associ- 
 ated with the word, ‘Humanity.’ This explains 
 why so many contemporary writings deal with 
 questions of philosophy.’ ® 
 
 H. W. Foerster* and Robert Saitschick® are 
 fundamentally in accord with this judgment. 
 Foerster contrasts the technical culture of to-day 
 with the spiritual culture of the Middle Ages 
 and points out that modern education directs the 
 attention to secondary matters, destroys interior 
 
 6 Literarisches Zentralblatt, 1909, Nr 23. 
 
 7 Jugendlehre, Berlin, 1905, often reédited. 
 
 8 Quid est Veritas? Hin Buch iiber die Probleme des Daseins, Ber- 
 lin, 1907. 
 
JOY AND THE AGE 19 
 
 peace, estranges men from one another and makes 
 them in many respects inwardly poorer though 
 externally richer. He doubts if the victories of 
 modern civilization render the life of the spirit 
 surer and deeper; and do not rather, in the long 
 run, tend to coarsen and ruin the spirit, entailing 
 moral deterioration while promoting material 
 comfort. He thinks that the poverty and empti- 
 ness of our lives will yet open our eyes and make 
 us realize that true culture is impossible unless 
 the life of the soul is the center of thought and 
 interest. 
 
 Saitschick says: ‘‘Never have men heaped up 
 such masses of knowledge, and never perhaps did 
 the educated know less of what man really needs 
 to know. ‘They read easily in the book of nature, 
 but the human soul is a sealed volume to them.’’ 
 Hence the struggle for happiness, the desire to 
 heighten and multiply pleasant sensations, leads 
 to no goal. Man is looking for ‘‘a level land of 
 painlessness through which ripples a shallow 
 brook of sensuous pleasure’’; and even this he 
 seeks 1n vain. 
 
 These thinkers agree that, despite all technical 
 progress, all beautifying and improving of the 
 conditions of life, despite all increasing and re- 
 fining of pleasure, modern culture is unable to 
 
20 MORE JOY 
 
 satisfy the inner man, but impoverishes and 
 weakens and empties him, and ends with a la- 
 mentable deficit of joy. It admits failure and at 
 heart is plainly diseased, rotten. Yor all healthy 
 culture buds and blooms in joy; all healthy life 
 incessantly and in rich fullness puts forth flowers 
 of joy. 
 
 The above testimonies indicate where the fault 
 hes. Modern culture is fundamentally worldly, 
 and of this present life; it is culture of technical 
 science, culture of the intellect. Hence it is in- 
 capable of satisfying or contenting man, and is 
 empty of joy. True culture is essentially inner 
 culture of heart and soul. ‘‘Only when we set a 
 higher value upon character than upon knowl- 
 edge and thought,’’ says Saitschick® quite 
 rightly, ‘‘are we tilling the soil in which real cul- 
 ture grows.”’ 
 
 The overrating of knowledge and intellect at 
 the cost of will and character is the malady of 
 our age and has made us unhappy. We should 
 pay more attention to Schiller’s saying, ‘‘When 
 a man has once reached the point of cultivating 
 his mind at the expense of his heart, to him the 
 holiest thing is no longer holy; to him man and 
 
 9 Quid est Veritas? 102. 
 
JOY AND THE AGE 21 
 
 God are nothing; neither world is aught in his 
 eyes. 79 10 
 
 In a misguided search for external and intel- 
 lectual development, man has undoubtedly gone 
 astray in the wilderness. Any culture affecting 
 intellect and memory, but not heart and soul, will 
 be poor in joy, because it can never give peace 
 and happiness to the inner man. Intellectual 
 processes and intellectual activities may indeed 
 be accompanied with joyous feelings, but these 
 are only reflected joys, cold like frost-flowers on 
 the window-pane. Indeed, these Joys may even 
 be dangerous by chilling the soul with pride and 
 arrogance. If love, faith, and religion die of 
 this chill, the inner misery is complete. How 
 often does it happen that the man of highly de- 
 veloped intellect and vast knowledge satisfies his 
 hunger for joy with merely sensual, nay bestial, 
 gratifications. For although the tyrant intellect 
 may be able to bind the heart and soul and cast 
 them into cold dungeons, it cannot alone subdue 
 the struggles of sensual nature. Under its su- 
 premacy, they get more cunning and more brutal. 
 
 Again is Tantalus the symbol of men fevered 
 with thirst for joy. ‘‘Tantalus, who in old times 
 
 10 Preface to “The Robbers.” 
 
22 MORE JOY 
 
 was seen vainly trying to quench his thirst with 
 a flowing stream which ebbed whenever he ap- 
 proached it, has lately been seen in Paris, in 
 New York, in Boston. He is now in great 
 spirits; thinks he shall reach it yet; thinks he 
 shall bottle the wave. It is however getting 
 a little doubtful. Things have an ugly look still. 
 No matter how many centuries of culture have 
 preceded, the new man always finds himself 
 standing on the brink of chaos, always in a crisis. 
 Can anybody remember when the times were not 
 hard, and money not scarce? Can anybody re- 
 member when sensible men, and the right sort of 
 men, and the right sort of women, were plentiful? 
 Tantalus begins to think steam a delusion, and 
 galvanism no better than it should be.”’ 1? 
 
 A noxious culture has sickened mankind in 
 body and soul. The realization of this fact is 
 manifested in the high esteem now accorded the 
 Science of hygiene. We need summon just one 
 decisive witness, a witness greatly respected by 
 the world and never contradicted, namely, Death. 
 Death opens his record and shows the frightful 
 increase in the number of suicides. "While men 
 have been prating about the value of life, and 
 about Joy in living, the rate of suicide in Europe 
 
 11 Emerson, Society and Solitude: Essay on Works and Days. 
 
JOY AND THE AGE 23 
 
 has been increasing by four hundred per cent, 
 during the past fifty years,—the population 
 meantime increasing by only sixty per cent. In 
 Germany alone there are yearly about twelve 
 thousand deserters from the army of life.” 
 Who could imagine a more terrible satire on our 
 boasted modern culture! And the real increase 
 in the rate of suicide is far greater than the above 
 figures show. Suicide is become so epidemic, 
 that the Salvation Army, devising the most mod- 
 ern form of social relief, has established Anti- 
 suicide Bureaus in London, New York, Berlin, 
 Chicago, and Melbourne, where would-be suicides 
 are advised and, if possible, converted. 
 
 12 According to the report for 1911, the U. 8. Census Bureau finds 
 the suicide rate for that year to be 16.2 for each 100,000 of popula- 
 tion in the registration-area. This rate applied to the total popula- 
 
 tion would mean approximately 15,400 suicides in the United States 
 in the year 1911. (Tr.) 
 
VEG 
 MODERN DESTROYERS OF JOY 
 
 In addition to the fact that modern culture is 
 not of a nature to promote joy, it involves many 
 things that directly disturb and destroy joy. 
 
 True, our great technical progress and our in- 
 ventions have in many respects lightened labor 
 by passing the heaviest tasks over to machines. 
 The external standards of living are higher than 
 before. But the value of the progress we have 
 made is greatly lessened by its effect upon all 
 classes, in both their individual and their social 
 life; for it has changed modern existence into a 
 life of frightfully high pressure, a life of almost 
 fatal intensity. It is as if steam, electricity, and 
 all the powers and forces of nature yoked to hu- 
 man service by machines and wires, were thus 
 taking revenge upon man, driving him on in 
 feverish haste and excitement his whole life 
 long, and depriving him of all rest of mind and 
 
 body. ‘‘We have become the slaves of the 
 24 
 
MODERN DESTROYERS OF JOY 25 
 
 monster that we ourselves created,’’ says Wil- 
 liam Morris, the Socialist. 
 
 This high-pressure life has begotten a peculiar 
 modern infirmity, which is a joy destroyer of 
 supreme efficiency, namely nervousness or neu- 
 rasthenia. It afflicts the whole race in body, 
 mind and will; and it robs our social life of all 
 joy and cheerfulness. 
 
 Despite every effort, despite all attempts of 
 governments and philanthropists, the factories 
 and machines of modern industry make the con- 
 ditions of life and labor very hard for a great 
 part of mankind. ‘‘I think it is probable,”’ says 
 Chamberlain,* ‘‘that the nineteenth century was 
 the most ‘pain-ful’ of all the ages, and that 
 chiefly because of the sudden advent of the ma- 
 chine.’’ 
 
 It will not be necessary here to present a de- 
 tailed picture of the life of many laborers and 
 their families. There is no need of journeying 
 through our monster industrial establishments 
 in order to become acquainted with the grinding, 
 often depressingly monotonous, tasks performed 
 in the stifling air of the factory, or in the fiery 
 atmosphere of the boiler room, or amid the 
 frightful noise of trip-hammers, humming 
 
 10Op. cit., IT, p. 363, 
 
26 MORE JOY 
 
 wheels, rattling looms and buzzing bobbins. One 
 needs no special training to be able to interpret 
 what is written on so many pale and wrinkled 
 faces. ‘This much is sure; it means anything but 
 joy. 
 
 No wonder! For modern industry has in 
 great measure changed the nature of labor for 
 the worse. It is the sad consequence of a prin- 
 ciple practically very valuable, the division of 
 labor. Unquestionably this principle brings 
 great technical advantage; but it entails still 
 greater disadvantages, physical and moral. It 
 robs a man’s work of soul and spirit. No longer 
 completing anything, his labor is limited to one 
 minute service, to one small detail. It gives no 
 Satisfaction ; it has become a servile task scarcely 
 worthy of a human being. 
 
 ‘In an international exhibition,” relates A. von 
 Gleichen-Russwurm, ‘‘I came upon a machine 
 served by a dejected-looking operator. I do not 
 know what the machine was making; I only know 
 that it worked with most uncanny precision, 
 doubling and folding something, as if with the 
 skilful, unwavering hand of a giant, executing 
 a task so complex that I could scarcely help re- 
 garding the machine as a conscious being. On 
 the other hand, the man who attended it was con- 
 
MODERN DESTROYERS OF JOY 27 
 
 fined to the minimum of activity and mental 
 work. He had merely to feed the rollers from 
 time to time. If the machine seemed alive, 
 its human vassal seemed dead, with no more 
 life than a stone. Instead of inquiring about 
 the nature of the machine, I stood there 
 shocked at what I saw. Never had man’s great- 
 ness and the hmits of his greatness been so clear 
 tome. I saw a symbol of the age in the snatch- 
 ing, grasping, infinitely dexterous hand of the 
 machine, of which the dull gloomy-faced creature 
 before me was but a tool. In behalf of our age, 
 I tried to think of toiling people at work on the 
 Egyptian pyramids, of weeping women pound- 
 ing corn, and of similar monotonous industries 
 of antiquity. but I could not get away from the 
 conviction that the bitterest slavery of all is 
 man’s slavery to the machine he has himself in- 
 vented. It oppresses its creator and dominates 
 even his thought with its ugly mastery. It is not 
 comfort, nor easy work, that man desires; he is 
 not so modest as that. To create, at least on a 
 small scale, is his supreme aspiration, perhaps 
 his curse. The materializing of work,—of all 
 work and of all art,—is one of the most amazing 
 incidents in the adventurous epic of our genera- 
 tion. For, in his intercourse with the enslaved 
 
28 MORE JOY 
 
 elements, whose hissing, snorting and whistling 
 fills the great factories with such horrible hellish 
 clamor, man undergoes an experience like that of 
 the dwarfs, the legendary smiths and necroman- 
 cers of olden times. He becomes savage, cruel, 
 malicious, wild. He absorbs something of the 
 fierceness, the antagonism, the irrepressible re- 
 belliousness of these raging subject forces. After 
 the ancient dragons had been exterminated, in- 
 ventors constructed frightful new monsters 
 whose breath is fire, whose claws tear a man to 
 pieces. They may serve man; but they exact a 
 stern price. Specialists may tell about the ma- 
 terial significance of the industrial revolution; 
 but no one can ever tell, or measure, the joy that 
 has been destroyed in the gaining of each victory, 
 the quiet contentment and splendid activity that 
 has been done to death.’’ ? 
 
 Ruskin well says: ‘‘It is not, truly speak- 
 ing, the labor that is divided, but the men:— 
 divided into mere segments of men—broken into 
 small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all 
 the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man 
 is not enough to make a pin or a nail, but exhausts 
 itself in making the point of a pin, or the head of 
 
 2 Sieg der Freude. Hine Asthetik des praktischen Lebens, Stutt- 
 gart, 1909, 383 f, 
 
MODERN DESTROYERS OF JOY 29 
 
 a nail. Now it is a good and desirable thing, 
 truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could 
 only see with what crystal sand their points were 
 polished,—sand of human soul, much to be mag- 
 nified before it can be discerned for what it is,— 
 we should think there might be some loss in it 
 also. And the great cry that rises from all our 
 manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace 
 blast, is all in very deed for this,—that we manu- 
 facture everything there except men; we blanch 
 cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and 
 shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to 
 refine, or to form a single living spirit, never en- 
 ters into our estimate of advantages.’’? 
 
 To be sure, the factory and the machine are not 
 alone responsible. A large share of responsibil- 
 ity must be borne by that power which pushes 
 itself forward as the best friend, the accredited 
 champion, yea, as the emancipator, of labor. It 
 has a gruesome interest in preventing the worker 
 from being happy. It makes his discontent an 
 object of financial speculation; converts his de- 
 pression and his anger into steam-power for its 
 paddle-wheels; makes the current of his tears 
 turn its mills. This dismal philanthropist works 
 systematically to root up the laborer’s peace, 
 
 8 The Stones of Venice, II, ch. vi, § xvi. 
 
30 A PLEA FOR MORE JOY 
 
 to make him rebel against what is unavoidable. 
 It arouses hopes that can never be realized, and 
 continually provokes and incites to covetousness 
 in order to destroy the last hold of religion. 
 The inevitable consequence for all who let them- 
 Selves be guided, or rather misguided by it, is the 
 destruction of their final remnant of happiness 
 in living and in working. 
 
 It is true that the discontent, the joylessness, 
 of so many men makes us all suffer, that the 
 gloomy cloud of their depression darkens the 
 life of the whole race. ‘‘Seldom,’’ says Foerster, 
 ‘‘do we let ourselves appreciate how much each 
 joy of ours is diminished by the thought of those 
 shut out from it. Our very laughter is half 
 stifled. Our loudest mirth is half artificial, and, 
 in the last analysis, implies self-deception rather 
 than spontaneous joy. Even the most superficial 
 man falls under the blight. If his soul is not dis- 
 turbed by the social contrast, still the lamenta- 
 tions on the street pierce his ears; he sees starv- 
 ing, defiant faces; he misses the look of common 
 Joy; and he is bothered about what is thought and 
 felt underneath the surface. Man is a social be- 
 ing, not a dog to gnaw his bone in the corner. 
 All his true joy is conditioned by the joy of oth- 
 ers. lor a laugh there must be deep peace of 
 
MODERN DESTROYERS OF JOY 31 
 
 mind and conscience; because real laughter 
 springs out of the depths, from dried tears and 
 broken fetters and slain selfishness. We are 
 suspicious of our own laughter, if others remain 
 mute; joy is a chorus. To-day we no longer 
 know what joy really is; nor shall we ever know, 
 _ until technical progress and social organization 
 will have adjusted the great crisis caused by mon- 
 strous industrial expansion, and higher ideals of 
 life will have come again to bless the whole hu- 
 man company of workers.’’ ‘ 
 
 ‘The life of the people seems o be abel 
 robbed of joy. Country life is now joyless; and, 
 despite all outward glitter, life in the great ties 
 is utterly without joy. We may think Emer- 
 son’s description somewhat exaggerated, and yet 
 we cannot help recognizing many true details in 
 his drastic criticism: ‘‘In our large cities the 
 population is godless, materialized,—no bond, no 
 fellow-feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not 
 men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers and appetites 
 walking. How is it people manage to live on,— 
 so aimless as they are? After their pepper-corn 
 aims are gained, it seems as if the lime in their 
 bones alone held them together, and not for any 
 worthy purpose. There is no faith in the intel- 
 
 ¢ Ohristentum und Klassenkampf, Ziirich, 1908, 247 f. 
 
32 MORE JOY 
 
 lectual, none in the moral universe. There is 
 faith in chenustry, in meat and wine, in wealth, 
 in machinery, in the steam-engine, galvanic bat- 
 tery, turbine-wheels, sewing-machines, and in 
 public opinion, but not in the divine causes.’’® 
 
 Change continual and uncontrolled, confine- 
 ment, discomfort, crowding, lack of privacy,— 
 all the conditions prevalent in great cities, inter- 
 fere still further with that family sociability and 
 intimacy which the spirit of the age has already 
 so largely weakened. 
 
 ‘*]t is but a small proportion of the population 
 of a great city which is able to maintain privacy 
 of domestic arrangement and to train those senti- 
 ments and traditions which gather about a home. 
 The great proportion of the city’s population 
 are industrial nomads, likely any day to fold 
 their tents like Arabs and migrate to some better 
 market for their labor or their wares; and, of 
 these, a pitifully large proportion have not even 
 tents to detain them, and herd together in the ac- 
 cidental companionship of the lodging-house, the 
 tenement, and the street... . The Roman fam- 
 ily had its symbol of continuity in the sacred fire, 
 burning on the ancestral hearth; but it is not 
 without difficulty that this sense of a sacred and 
 
 5 The Conduct of Life, ch. vi. 
 
MODERN DESTROYERS OF JOY 33 
 
 permanent unity can be maintained round the 
 cooking-stove of the tenement, the hot-air regis- 
 ter of the boarding-house, or even the steam- 
 radiator of the apartment-hotel.’’® Where this 
 sacred fire of family union and family affection 
 is burning, how many joys are radiating, how 
 - warm and wholesome is the atmosphere! Where 
 it has been extinguished, how cold and inhos- 
 pitable everything seems to be! 
 
 _ 8 Jesus Christ and the Social Question, by Francis Greenwood Pea- 
 body, New York, 1900, p. 164, f. 
 
IV 
 
 TOO MANY PLEASURES AND TOO 
 LITTLE JOY 
 
 But how is this alleged decline of joy to be ree- 
 onciled with the actual multiplication of forms, 
 kinds, occasions, contrivances and establishments 
 of entertainment and amusement, and with the 
 steady increase in the use of these? How does 
 it fit in with Sunday excursions, summer-outings, 
 mountain-trips, sports, social and festive organ- 
 izations, theatres, concert-halls, cheap shows and 
 cabarets ? 
 
 The vast number of these things is really noth- 
 ing but another proof that men are totally bank- 
 rupt with regard to joy. It is impossible not to 
 be sick at heart when we observe the sort of pleas- 
 ures provided for the people and the use made of 
 them on holidays. Alcohol and lewdness are the 
 focus of interest and the high-water mark of en- 
 joyment. Not to set too austere a standard in 
 this matter, let us listen to the excuse offered by 
 
 Lange: ‘‘Very often, indeed, what seems to be 
 34 
 
TOO MANY PLEASURES 35 
 
 noisy or senseless joy in frivolous amusements is 
 nothing but a result of immoderate, galling, and 
 brutalising labor, since the mind, by perpetual 
 hurrying and scurrying in the service of money- 
 making, loses the capacity for a purer, nobler and 
 calmly devised enjoyment.... That such a 
 _ state of things is not healthy, and can hardly 
 exist permanently, seems obvious.’’? 
 
 With regret rather than condemnation, we e note 
 that the kind of enjoyment which for centuries 
 satisfied our people’s need of beauty and relaxa- 
 tion, is too insipid for most of us nowadays. 
 Love of nature, conversation, play, family-read- 
 ing, folk-games, folk-songs mean nothing at all 
 to the great majority of people. The nervous 
 system, partly numb and partly over irritated, 
 demands more elaborate amusements. Hence 
 the reigning favorite is alcohol, that base impos- 
 tor with its twofold lying promise of removing 
 life’s burdens and restoring life’s strength and 
 joy. Things have gone so far that many people 
 now can hardly think of pleasure or a holiday, 
 without alcohol; and take it as a matter of course 
 that a picnic should end with general intoxica- 
 
 1 History of Materialism and Criticism of Its Present Importance, 
 
 by Frederick Albert Lange, Authorized Translation by Ernest Ches- 
 ter Thomas, Boston, 1881, vol. III, p. 238. 
 
36 MORE JOY 
 
 tion. But the bill for this must one day be paid 
 in coin of joy and of life. After a Sunday or a 
 holiday passed thus, the poor workman or artisan 
 returns to the frightful monotony of his worka- 
 day existence with a heavy head, a heavier con- 
 science, and a further deficit of strength and 
 joy. 
 
 Not only among the lower classes, but in the 
 higher circles also, we can verify the correctness 
 of Hilty’s observation: ‘*Most of the happiness 
 and still more of the gayety of the world 1s of no 
 use to mature persons, except to help them for a 
 few hours to forget what otherwise would be un- 
 endurable, and what even now, at times, fills them 
 with deep melancholy and almost with despair. 
 Theatres, concert-halls and other places of 
 amusement live on this fact. It is not the thirst 
 for pleasure, nor the artistic sense alone, that 
 builds and supports them. The real motive for 
 sociability and social activity is to avoid being 
 left alone with ourselves and our thoughts. And 
 the attraction of alcohol is so irresistible, not 
 because it supplies pleasure to a multitude whose 
 only aim in life is pleasure, but rather because it 
 drives away care and is the River Lethe of the 
 modern world. For this reason all the physical 
 demonstrations of its harmfulness make no im- 
 
TOO MANY PLEASURES 37 
 
 pression on its faithful disciples. Were it uni- 
 versally recognized as poison, they would still 
 take 1t; not because it is a delightful poison, but 
 because it induces stupefaction. If Nietzsche 
 ever wrote one true word, it was this, ‘Not joy 
 but Joylessness is the mother of dissipation.’ ’’ 2 
 
 Equally true is Ruskin’s saying that every- 
 where in the world a frail barrier separates bois- 
 terous joy from dumb despair. At first, indeed, 
 alcohol’s false joy resembles true joy; the heart 
 beats more strongly, the course of the blood 
 quickens, the eye sparkles. But we must not for- 
 get that in addition to that circulation of the 
 blood which bestows life-giving heat and energy, 
 there is another kind which comes from fever 
 and consumes life’s energies. 
 
 Regarded as causes of joy, the social amuse- 
 ments of so-called cultured people do not deserve 
 to be valued highly. There is too much conven- 
 tional deceit, too much pretense, too much forced 
 politeness, too much varnished merriment. 
 ‘Life would be endurable but for its pleasures,’’ 
 is a phrase attributed to Lord Palmerston. A 
 desire for the vacations formerly reserved ex- 
 clusively to the upper classes, grows more and 
 
 2 Das Glick, III, 113. The first and second series of these essays 
 are published in English by the Macmillan Company. (Tr.) 
 
38 MORE JOY 
 
 more common among the people. The ever- 
 spreading rush to the mountains doubtless entails 
 many good results. It carries men away from the 
 deadly city air to a purer atmosphere and better 
 company, to the great sanitarium of nature, the 
 Alpine world. Unfortunately, the more that sort 
 of thing gets to be a fashion and a sport, the 
 smaller is the gain in true appreciation and sim- 
 ple enjoyment of nature; and the greater is the 
 danger that even the natural mountain people 
 and the natural mountain world will be modern- 
 ized, contaminated, and made unhappy. Jour- 
 neys to far countries and to regions of magnifi- 
 cent beauty will make many a person blasé and 
 irresponsive to the appeal of nature’s simpler 
 Scenes, and to the peculiar charm always pos- 
 sessed by one’s native land when visited with af- 
 fection. 
 
 Walter shows clearly the unnatural relation 
 of modern man tonature: ‘There is now astate 
 of absolute divorce between culture and nature. 
 Great cities of vast extent, with monstrous piles 
 of masonry and congested populations, make 
 communion with nature impossible. Life and 
 labor develop within the walls of the workshop, 
 the cramped dwelling, the office, the school. The 
 city child is but a hot-house plant, not so much a 
 
TOO MANY PLEASURES 39 
 
 child as a human being matured by artificial 
 methods. Man cannot with impunity hold aloof 
 from the pleasures nature provides; if he pos- 
 Sesses no power of enjoying nature, he is to be 
 pitied. 
 
 ‘‘The true relationship with nature has been 
 - completely lost. Educated men no longer know 
 how to commune with nature. Trustful, broth- 
 erly, common life has disappeared, and esteem 
 for the blessings and gifts of nature has in great 
 measure passed away. When, for a few hours 
 or days, the city-dweller breaks loose from his 
 dusty prison, he hurls himself on nature like a 
 Savage; he comes down like a barbarian on the 
 blossoming trees and shining corn-fields to 
 plunder them. An excursion of city people often 
 resembles a raid to sack and pillage the country. 
 The excursionists fall into a sort of intoxication, 
 the very opposite of real delight in nature. It is 
 a sure proof of their alienation from what is 
 natural. Look at them coming home after their 
 day’s outing, laden with flowers and leaves and 
 blossoms, trying to satisfy their craving for na- 
 ture by carrying some of her charms back into 
 their dwellings, but with never a thought of the 
 ravished fields.’’ ® 
 
 8 Kélnische Volkszeitung, vom 12 Jul; 1908. 
 
y 
 JOY AND ART 
 
 There are certain elements of culture adapted 
 and destined to beautify life and lift it above the 
 common wretched level. Even these fail us mis- 
 erably in our present battle for joy. Itis so, for 
 instance, with all the various forms and branches 
 GE Art: 
 
 Certainly it is not to be reckoned among the 
 merits of the art and literature of the nineteenth 
 and twentieth centuries that so many of the 
 masters and the productions have helped to di- 
 minish rather than increase joy; that they have 
 missed. their supreme vocation, namely, to glad- 
 den human hearts and to create the sunshine of 
 life. ‘To-day this vocation is largely repudiated. 
 According to modern esthetics, art must be with- 
 out purpose, or rather must be a purpose unto 
 itself. It seems utterly useless to dispute about 
 this shadowy phantom, the purposelessness of 
 art. That it can still haunt us only shows how 
 
 far away from lifeart has gone. For this theory 
 40 
 
JOY AND ART 41 
 
 of the purposelessness of art is not born of actual 
 experience, nor sprung of any ardent creative 
 artistic spirit. It is a mere empty abstraction 
 fashioned in the bloodless brains of theorists and 
 doctrinaires; and it will go out of vogue far more 
 quickly than it came in. 
 
 The real master spirits, recognized even by the 
 modern world, have a very different conception 
 of the purpose of art. Years ago Goethe la- 
 mented that in literature ‘‘high aims, genuine 
 love for the true and the fair, and the desire of 
 diffusing them are all absent.’?* What would 
 he say of an art and a literature that positively 
 disavow all such aims? ‘The advocates of pur- 
 poselessness are opposed by Schiller who in the 
 Introduction to the Bride of Messina, when dis- 
 cussing the use of the chorus in tragedy, lays 
 down this principle: ‘‘All art is dedicated to 
 joy, nor is there any higher or nobler task than 
 to make men happy. That alone is true art 
 which affords the highest delight. But the soul’s 
 highest delight is found in the free exercise of 
 all its powers. ... Serious, and yet disagree- 
 able, is the impression made on us by poets and 
 artists who merely reproduce material realities ; 
 
 1Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, Translated by S. M. 
 Fuller, Boston and Cambridge, 1852, p. 152, | 
 
42 MORE JOY 
 
 we feel ourselves painfully thrust back among 
 the petty, common things by the very art which 
 ought to liberate us.”’ 
 
 In one of Haydn’s letters we read, ‘‘Often, 
 when struggling with obstacles opposed to my 
 works—often when strength failed me and it was 
 difficult for me to persevere in the course upon 
 which I had entered—a secret feeling whispered 
 to me, ‘there are so few joyful and contented 
 people here below; everywhere there is trouble 
 and care; perchance your labor sometime may 
 be the source from which those burdened with 
 care may derive a moment’s relief.’ ’’? Senti- 
 ments like these are worth much more than dec- 
 lamation about art’s being a purpose to itself; 
 they honor the artist and help the people; and 
 they surely further the cause of true art. 
 
 Although the aim of art is to make people 
 cheerful and happy, neither in Schiller’s mind 
 nor in ours is the field of art restricted to the 
 bright and joyful things of life, excluding all 
 Serious themes and tragic materials. All we de- 
 mand is this, that when art does turn to the seamy 
 side of life, when it affirms something serious or 
 reproduces something terrible, when it paints 
 
 2 Life of Haydn, by Louis Nohl, Translated from the German by 
 George P. Upton, Chicago, 1883, p. 181. 
 
JOY AND. ART 43 
 
 gloomy things in dark colors, or even dips its 
 brush in blood, it must not altogether omit the 
 encouraging stroke, the explaining word, the 
 saving thought, which liberate, quicken, enrich 
 and cheer the soul of listener and spectator. An 
 art which has lost all sense of this duty and rejects 
 these demands as beneath it, will never be a bless- 
 ing to mankind and will never find its way into 
 the heart of the people. Feeble, decadent, shut 
 out from every living, pulsating interest, it will 
 remain sitting on the lonely perch of its own aim- 
 lessness. 
 
 True, to-day we have also that kind of art 
 which uplifts and gladdens. It is the noble 
 friend and helper of worried humanity, of the af- 
 flicted people. Religious art, which is especially 
 destined and equipped to fulfil this function, 
 never wholly dies out. Even at the present time, 
 despite the unfavorable conditions of life, it 
 achieves great things. A literature also, which 
 is essentially Christian and fears not the dread 
 reproach of having some definite object or “‘ten- 
 dency,’’ has acquired a good modern technique, at 
 the same time excluding everything unhealthy in 
 sentiment or expression, and is favoring us con- 
 stantly with delightful gifts. Modern painting 
 has done much to nourish and stimulate apprecia- 
 
44 | MORE JOY 
 
 tion and love of nature. Landscape painting is 
 its darling child. The whole drift of the age, the 
 rapid advance of the natural sciences, the sharp- 
 ening of men’s powers of observation, the im- 
 provement in technique, the finer sense of color, 
 —all these influences urge in the same direction. 
 No longer does the painter look for what is inter- 
 esting or vast in nature; he prefers what is in- 
 significant, obscure, austere, or crude. He likes 
 to awaken men to a recognition of the modest 
 charms and latent poetry of plains and meadows, 
 fields frozen and hushed under ice and snow, 
 meads bathed in noonday light, shining stretches 
 of water, woods shot through with straying sun- 
 beams, drifting morning clouds and thickening 
 twilight,—and so to do is, in the highest degree, 
 good and praiseworthy. 
 
 Modern architecture too, gives a good sign in 
 its refusal to be concerned exclusively with mon- 
 ster constructions, in its manifestation of sincere 
 and enthusiastic interest in the problem of build- 
 ing real homesteads and thus promoting healthy 
 and happy family life. 
 
 These efforts should be encouraged by every 
 possible means. Away with the superstition that 
 comfortable homes are the privilege of the rich 
 and must be bought at a great price. How taste- 
 
JOY AND ART 45 
 
 less, uncomfortable, and cheerless is many an 
 aristocratic dwelling; how homelike and inviting 
 many a peasant’s cottage in the Black Forest, the 
 Algau, or the Tyrol! For the making of a com- 
 fortable, pleasant family home, where joy will 
 _ reside as a willing guest, there is required only 
 that simplicity and natural fitness which of them- 
 selves make beauty. ‘The great secret is the care- 
 ful adjustment of the living rooms; the furniture 
 may be ever so plain, if only harmonious and well 
 placed. No! homes do not need to be palaces that 
 joy may dwell therein. In how many palaces is 
 joy only a fleeting guest! 
 
 Nor must we esteem lightly the progress made 
 by the reproductive arts. By their aid what is 
 fairest and best of the creations of every epoch 
 becomes the common property of all, in the form 
 of copies fully. as beautiful as the originals. 
 This helps us to forget the poverty of present- 
 day art and also to a certain extent makes up its 
 deficit of joy. 
 
 Well may we use these gifts from the art treas- 
 ures of the past, for strictly modern art and lit- 
 erature offer very little that is pleasant. Medi- 
 eval art was warm and pure, gay with color and 
 with youth, deep of soul and popular. To-day, 
 art is often so frigid, unclean, stale, insipid, that, 
 
46 MORE JOY 
 
 in Goethe’s words, it sickens the soul. HEvery- 
 body has heard about the ejaculation made by 
 some visitor to a modern exhibition of paintings: 
 ‘‘Oh, that my eyes could vomit!”’ 
 
 We are, of course, leaving wholly out of con- 
 sideration that kind of art and literature 
 which, as with Circe’s magic wand, brutalizes all 
 who frequent its company; which serves up in 
 silver platters, not merely what Goethe calls “*po- 
 tatoes,’’ but the husks of swine; which, in obedi- 
 ence to a perverted instinct, cultivates the hor- 
 rible, the vicious, the bestial, and covers all that 
 is great and holy with its loathsome slime; which 
 in the words of a modern esthete, ‘‘likes to root 
 around in moral misery and takes special delight 
 in sniffing out with abnormally developed nose 
 the different kinds and varieties of moral 
 stenches.’’* This sort of art destroys not only 
 joy, but the very soul itself. It tempts thou- 
 sands to look and read themselves to death. 
 Such art is a crime against the human race; it 1s 
 murderous. ‘The pens that serve it are doing the 
 work of hell. Calamus calamitatum auctor! 
 
 But even those among modern artists who are 
 free from such fatal tendencies, destroy much 
 joy by their crass realism, their pessimism, their 
 
 8 Volkelt, Asthetische Zeitfragen, Miinchen, 1895. 
 
JOY AND ART 47 
 
 fatalism. True, there is some justification for 
 realism in its improved sense of actuality, its 
 honesty, its sincerity. It is better than an af- 
 fected, insincere, studied kind of art. But real- 
 ism becomes unhealthy and perverse, if it re- 
 gards as most real the things which are vile and 
 ~ common and ugly,—the scum of life,—and lives 
 and works for them alone. Is human life real 
 only when base and vile, but not when good and 
 noble? ‘‘To be sincere, must one be brutal, 
 fleshly, cynical? Is the scum of life real and 
 not its deeper waters? Is the mud real and not 
 the star? Is there, in a word, any fundamental 
 issue between the real and the ideal; or is the 
 ideal the most real of human possessions, and 
 are the best interpreters of reality the ideal- 
 ists?’’* The people in their thinking, feeling 
 and willing, combine realism and idealism, and 
 only by an art which knows how to combine 
 these, can men be satisfied, instructed, and up- 
 lifted. 
 
 Goethe, in his day, coined a good name for a 
 certain school of poetry. He called it ‘*hospital- 
 poetry’’ and said: 
 
 ‘* All the poets write as if they were sick, and 
 
 4Francis G. Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, 
 New York, 1905, p. 224. 
 
48 MORE JOY 
 
 the whole world a lazaretto. All speak of the 
 miseries of this life, and the joys of the other; 
 and each malcontent excites still greater dissat- 
 isfaction in his neighbors. This is a sad abuse 
 of poetry, which was given us to smooth away 
 the rough places of life, and make man satisfied 
 with the world and his situation. The present 
 generation fears all genuine power, and is only 
 at home and poetical amid weakness.” ° 
 
 How well Goethe anticipated that typically 
 modern tendency of art and literature to ‘‘dance 
 dolefully around a little mound of misery,’’ to 
 gloat over the nastiest and filthiest scenes, to rave 
 enthusiastically about the dull, the inane, the 
 commonplace,—and thus to waste and weaken 
 the life of men and nations. Goethe was right. 
 Those who probe pitilessly into misery and pose 
 as Supermen are the poorest heroes of all. They 
 are weaklings, incapable of helping either them- 
 selves or others. Nietzsche gave out this fine 
 phrase: ‘‘Cast not the hero in thy soul away,”’ 
 but unfortunately he did not follow his own ad- 
 vice, and his disciples are still less faithful to it. 
 
 The people can get little joy from an art which 
 is contemptuously indifferent as to subjects 
 chosen and means employed, and concerns itself 
 
 5 Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, p. 236. 
 
JOY AND ART 49 
 
 solely about form and technique. The people 
 will not be satisfied with mere artistic form, nor 
 interested in painters’ experiments and delicate 
 questions of light-effects. Their eyes are too 
 normal, their palate is too natural, their taste is 
 _ too unspoiled, for that. They want an art with 
 a spiritual content, an art offering something not 
 only to the eye, but to the heart as well. The art 
 of a people must be based upon moral and spirit- 
 ual principles, not on mere color values and il- 
 lusions. 
 
 Much is made of the democratic tendency of 
 art and many believe that by means of it, art and 
 true appreciation of art will again find a way to 
 the heart of the people. To be sure, art is not 
 to be reproached for devoting itself to the fourth 
 estate, to the machinist, the plowman, the pro- 
 letarian, any more than fiction is to be reproached 
 when it leaves the salon for the workshop and 
 the peasant’s hut. Human life is full of inter- 
 est always, and not only when it rustles in silken 
 garments, glides over polished floors, envelops 
 itself in perfumes and lives upon oysters and 
 champagne. Yet everything depends upon 
 the purpose of art in attempting to get down to 
 the common people. If it aims to exploit misery, 
 hunger, and filth, as a novel means for the stimu- 
 
50 MORE JOY 
 
 lation of dulled nerves, it scarcely deserves 
 praise. If it aims to raise the prevalent discon- 
 tent to a higher pitch, to stir up hate and jeal- 
 ousy, it acts criminally; it becomes a socialistic 
 agitator, a dangerous anarchist. If, like a guard- 
 ian angel, it descends to console, to uplift, to 
 gladden, then it is really doing a great good work. 
 
 It is able to do this, only when it takes to heart 
 Leonardo’s words, ‘‘There can be no great art 
 without a true love of man.’’ Art must love the 
 people, and its love must be founded upon respect 
 for them, upon knowledge of their worth and sig- 
 nificance. This might be learned even from 
 Goethe who says of the peasantry: ‘Our peas- 
 ants have always retained a goodly amount of 
 strength; and we may hope that for a long time 
 to come, they will be able not only to provide us 
 with sturdy troopers, but also to preserve us (and 
 joy) from utter decay and ruin. We may look 
 upon them as a reserve for the continual renew- 
 ing and refreshing of mankind’s declining 
 strength. Buta visit to the great cities will give 
 one very different feelings.’’?® When modern 
 art chooses epileptics, consumptives and drunk- 
 ards as its heroes, introducing them into novels 
 and upon the stage, and immortalizing them 
 
 6 Gespriche mit Eckermann, 552. 
 
JOY AND ART ol 
 
 on canvas, it is showing neither respect nor 
 affection for the people. Surely that is not 
 the way to make men healthier and happier. 
 Quite rightly Lorenz Krapp points out the 
 very different path followed by folk poetry: 
 ‘Throughout the folk-song, it is kings and 
 heroes, gentle ladies and daring warriors, dying 
 princes, youths and maidens, who march along, 
 making merry in the sunshine of the May.’’’ 
 The people are more delighted and uplifted by 
 this kind of art than by that which vulgarizes 
 their life and paints for them exaggerated pic- 
 tures of their own misery. The attempt to bring 
 art back to the people is certainly praiseworthy. 
 But unfortunately modern efforts to achieve this, 
 have usually proceeded from men with no ade- 
 quate idea of the people’s needs. To inject a 
 charge of carbonic gas into an artistic beverage 
 is not enough to make it popular. 
 
 The people’s poverty in art and appreciation 
 of art is most clearly shown by the present dry- 
 ing up of the fountain of folk-song which once 
 Spontaneously bubbled up out of the popular life. 
 
 7 Gottesminne, 1905, 201. 
 
VI 
 JOY AND THE FOLK-SONG 
 
 The Folk-song! The press has been disputing 
 as to whether or not it is still alive. Quite dead 
 indeed, it is not; for it can never wholly die. 
 But that it is no longer what it was, that at pres- 
 ent it exists in a way which by contrast might 
 be called death, nobody willdeny. True, the peo- 
 ple still sing,—especially the Christian people 
 when at church. There the folk-song is still 
 alive. There it is always busily occupied, weav- 
 ing the highest and noblest kind of joy into the 
 people’s lives, by means of soulful music, an old 
 heritage of verse, melodies and harmonies that 
 display the road to heaven. 
 
 On other occasions, too, the people still do 
 some singing, but so seldom and so poorly, that 
 it sounds like their swan-song. They still sing 
 now and then, in the country, in the woods and 
 fields, on Sundays, and at household tasks; but, 
 outside of this, almost never, except in saloons, 
 at recruiting stations, and in the army. They no 
 
 62 
 
JOY AND THE FOLK-SONG 355) 
 
 longer sing the folk-songs that we heard thirty or 
 forty years ago. Now, we hear only coarse 
 drinking songs and obscene rhymes that voice not 
 the soul of a people but the mad spirit of alcohol, 
 songs composed of mingled foolishness and lust, 
 street-songs, the latest melodies, arias picked up 
 in music-halls and low theatres,—all these re- 
 peated over and over again to the point of nausea 
 and then cast aside for others still more banal and 
 lascivious, if possible. Speaking of the songs 
 sung by recruits and soldiers, a prominent news- 
 paper recently observed : ‘‘Many of them not only 
 border on vulgarity, but are essentially vulgar.”’ 
 
 How do the people sing nowadays? Often 
 with such shocking crudeness and nearly always 
 with such unspeakable sadness, that one’s heart 
 is torn with pity and sympathy for the poor sick 
 soul of the people thus unconsciously voicing its 
 pain. True, there was always a strain of melan- 
 choly in the German folk-song, owing, as Foers- 
 ter observes, to the fact that the soul of the peo- 
 ple, with its simple outlook, interprets life more 
 deeply and truly than so-called educated men are 
 able to do.* But the pathos of the old folk-song 
 was quite different from this present sadness. It 
 burst out of the depths of the soul, ran gaily up 
 
 1 Jugendlehre, 55. 
 
o4: MORE JOY 
 
 the scale, readily embraced wit and joy and broke 
 gladly into laughter. It gave the over-burdened 
 the relief of song and admonished merry folk to 
 be discreet lest joy should be changed into sor- 
 row. 
 
 The melancholy remnant of the folk-song lacks 
 both proper gravity and wit. ‘*What has hap- 
 pened to the German laugh ?”’ asks Ernst v. Wil- 
 denbruch. ‘‘Germany was once a merry land 
 and Germans could laugh as heartily as other 
 races,—aye, more loudly than any. What has 
 become of it all? The guffaw of the great city 
 applauding imported stage-wit, drowns out the 
 laugh of the German people. What with the 
 poorhouse smell of our naturalistic social writ- 
 ings, and the very offensive odor emanating 
 from our modern feminist literature, the laugh 
 has vanished from the face of Germany. Fur- 
 rows and wrinkles have come that used to be 
 unknown, hiding-places of depression, anxiety, 
 weariness. Oh! if he would but waken once 
 again, that loud-laughing carl, the German wag! 
 So that our people might grow glad laughing at 
 themselves; that they might laugh themselves 
 back to health; that they might laugh out 
 of their souls all sulkiness and contention and 
 bitterness and irritability; that once again they 
 
JOY AND THE FOLK-SONG 55 
 
 might look out upon the world with dancing | 
 eyes!’’ 
 
 Death has overtaken that folk-song which once 
 accompanied every footstep of the German peo- 
 ple, the comrade of their journeys, and the tent- 
 mate of their travels, their jolly friend in com- 
 pany and amusements, their comforter in time of 
 trouble, and especially their trusted partner and 
 tried helper in daily work. In this last respect 
 above all, singing assisted wonderfully to per- 
 meate life with joy and to lighten the yoke of 
 labor. Extremely interesting researches have 
 lately shown that work and play and art were all 
 originally combined in a single phase of human 
 activity, the three being bound together with 
 pleasure-giving rhythm as in poetry, music, danc- 
 ing. This alliance of work and rhythm lasted 
 down through the centuries, contributing to the 
 well-being of the people and the general spread 
 of joy. It received the blessing of Christianity 
 which from the beginning intertwined with labor 
 ““nsalms and hymns and spiritual canticles’’ ac- 
 cording to the admonition of the apostle.’ 
 
 ‘‘The discovery of numberless facts,’’ says K. 
 Biicher, ‘‘has reconstructed in the depths of hu- 
 man history a submerged world,—the world of 
 
 2 Hph. v. 18 ff. 
 
56 MORE JOY 
 
 cheerful labor. The economist who for the first 
 time sets foot in this world, rubs his eyes incred- 
 ulously, for he seems to have been transported by 
 a miracle into the Utopia described in political 
 romances. Here labor is not a burden, not a 
 hard lot, not a marketable merchandise; it is not 
 organized by cold calculation. The further he 
 goes in this new world, the more astonished he 
 becomes. Everywhere play and pleasure, song 
 and glad shouting, sociability and codperation,— 
 a sort of economic child-life.”’ 
 
 But nowadays, he continues, the world of cheer- 
 ful labor is largely submerged in the sea of cul- 
 ture, like an ancient continent covered by the 
 ocean. Here and there among us some lonely 
 island rock may still lift its head; but it is only 
 amid the backward peoples that any considerable 
 stretch of land remains to be seen. The rest- 
 lessness and hurry of our life, the chaining of 
 so great a part of human labor to machines, 
 confinement in the factory and many another 
 cause have banished the folk-song from the realm 
 of labor. ‘‘Of what avail is the human voice 
 against whirring wheels and buzzing transmitters 
 
 8 Arbeit und Rhythmus 4 (1909) ; Nigele, Ueber Arbeits lieder bei 
 
 Johannes Chrysostomus (Berichte der philol.-histor. Klasse der kel. 
 siichs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Leipzig, 1905). 
 
JOY AND THE FOLK-SONG 57 
 
 and all the indescribable noises that fill the aver- 
 age workroom, making comfort impossible??? * 
 
 We must be careful not to underrate the grav- 
 ity of our loss of the folk-song. What we have 
 really lost in it and with it, is clearly demonstra- 
 ted by the thorough, yet delicately sympathetic, 
 researches of Otto Bokel. One must be either 
 very cynical or very superficial, if one can per- 
 ceive in the folk-song nothing more than a naive 
 form of popular entertainment, or poetry of too 
 low a form to be quite consistent with high cul- 
 ture. One who looks deeper will discover in it 
 the genius of a people. No less an authority than 
 Goethe rated the poetic content of folk-song 
 highly; and its moral, disciplinary, and educa- 
 tional value is greater still, Welling up out of 
 the depths of the people’s life, it reacts in turn 
 upon them with elemental force, charming, start- 
 ling, freeing, uplifting, gladdening them. It is . 
 pervaded by a healthy optimism. Even when 
 dominated by melancholy and sadness, it still at- 
 tempts to light up the darker side of existence 
 and to resolve life’s discords into harmony.’ It 
 contains a powerful religious element; and 
 through its warp are woven the strong threads 
 
 4Op. cit., 439. 
 5 Psychologie der Volksdichtung, Leipzig, 1906. 
 
08 MORE JOY 
 
 of a pure and healthy moral sense. Faith and 
 trust in God, joy in work, love of country, home- 
 love, mother-love, family affection, conjugal de- 
 votion, are its rich, dominant notes; and like an 
 undertone is heard the laugh of humor and rip- 
 pling merriment. 
 
 Itself a child of nature, the folk-song draws 
 its best inspiration from nature. It plunges into 
 nature whole-heartedly; learns the words and 
 notes that conjure up natural beauties and joys 
 and fears; and brings these close to the people’s 
 heart. ‘‘In folk-poetry the descriptions of na- 
 ture are almost always brief, but delicately 
 Shaded. They include only what is essential. 
 The children of nature live and move in what 
 Surrounds them and they have no need of detailed 
 descriptions. The poet may safely assume 
 that a few bold strokes will make his picture live 
 - In the souls of his hearers and his fellow-singers. 
 Hence the beauty of the nature-scenes in a folk- 
 Song can be appreciated fully only by those whose 
 souls are on the same plane as the singer’s. He 
 who cannot give himself up with perfect sym- 
 pathy to the enjoyment of flashing sunbeams or 
 of colors playing upon a cloud, who never feels 
 his soul overflow with ecstasy at the song of birds 
 and the fragrance of flowers, is not one of the 
 
JOY AND THE FOLK-SONG o9 
 
 elect to whom the full charm of folk-poetry will 
 be disclosed. He will never be able to see the 
 perfect beauty of living nature in the delicately 
 outlined descriptions.’’ ® 
 
 There is still another characteristic of the folk- 
 song, namely, its persistence, its almost inde- 
 structible vitality. Hven amid the most unfav- 
 orable circumstanees, it yields only slowly; step 
 by step. When despised and persecuted, it with- 
 draws by degrees, farther and farther,—first 
 from town to country, and then still farther into 
 the hills. If rejected by adults, it will still, for 
 a long time, find a refuge among children. It 
 survives wars and catastrophes, and, century 
 after century, renews its youth. 
 
 Why is it dying out now? Nothing short of a 
 radical transformation of the world could have 
 brought it to the point of death. The fact is 
 there are no longer any natural folk; and this is 
 why there is no longer any folk-song. Culture 
 knows only artistic poetry. ‘‘The folk-song 
 loves the still nooks where peace and quiet reign. 
 The noisy new age frightens it away into soli- 
 tude. As the elves of old fled at the sound of a 
 _ bell, so the folk-song vanishes before the steam 
 of the locomotive and the smoke of the factory 
 
 @ Ibid., 234. 
 
60 MORE JOY 
 
 chimney. The old native folk-song is scared 
 away by advancing culture. Here and there, a 
 stray child of the folk-muse, like a frightened 
 fawn, with startled eyes, looks out from some 
 thicket at the wonderfully changed world, 
 smoky, noisy, never resting. But with this oc- 
 casional exception, the folk-song has disappeared 
 from the world.’’* 
 
 According to Bokel, this disappearance indi- 
 cates a slow decay of the people’s soul and 
 leaves a lack which cannot be filled with all the 
 goods that culture brings. He thinks, however, 
 that it may be possible for us to restore the van- 
 ishing folk-song. Can it ever be revived to 
 perfect health? We must not rely too much on 
 recent loud appeals to ‘‘Save the Folk-song!’’,§ 
 nor on Folk-song Associations, nor on the culti- 
 vation of the folk-song by the schools and sing- 
 ing societies which for so long a time so loftily 
 ignored it. The evil is now too deeply rooted. 
 In the modern world the folk-song has as many 
 enemies as the song-bird. 
 
 Unquestionably, there is here a relation of 
 cause and effect. With the death of the folk- 
 
 T Ibid., 416. 
 
 8H. Eschelbach, Rettet das Volklied, Berlin; and Der Niedergang 
 des Volksgesanges, Neuwied. 
 
JOY AND THE FOLK-SONG 61 
 
 song, there disappears from the life of the people 
 a considerable portion of their joy; and, in the 
 measure that joy goes out of the people’s life, 
 the folk-song decays. With the folk-song will 
 disappear folk-poetry, for they live and die to- 
 gether. 
 
 At the flame of the song the heart of the hearer was kindled, 
 
 At the heart of the hearer nourished the singer his flame; 
 
 Nourished and purified it. Happiest he of all singers, 
 
 To whom in the voice of the people clear echoed the soul of 
 his song.® 
 
 ® Schiller, Die Sanger der Vorwelt, 
 
VII 
 JOY AND YOUTH 
 
 And now we must set down the saddest fact 
 of all,—that joy is lacking even among children 
 and young people, among those to whom it has 
 always been conceded as a right and to whom 
 it 1s as necessary as daily bread, as necessary as 
 sunlight is to the flower or pollen to the bee. 
 
 We can present no statistical evidence of this. 
 But it is well known to all who are in the slight- 
 est degree familiar with child-psychology, who 
 even half notice the movements of the child’s lit- 
 tle world, who know how to read the faces of 
 children and the eyes of young people. Anyone 
 whose heart is open to the little ones finds cause 
 for deep distress in the recent rapid spread 
 among them of precocious cynicism, bitterness, 
 discontent, coarseness, boldness and vulgarity. 
 far beyond their years, of misdeeds and crimes 
 and even of suicide. At the same time we find 
 
 that the sunny merriment and the cheerfulness 
 62 
 
JOY AND YOUTH 63 
 
 which radiate from eye to eye and from heart to 
 heart, are distressingly rare. 
 
 But frankly now, can this be wondered at, 
 when even the family,—the cell of the social or- 
 ganism, in both State and Church,—has begun 
 _ to disintegrate, and multitudes of poor children 
 are deprived of their protecting refuge and their 
 garden of joy! Hundreds of poor mothers,— 
 and the mother must be considered first when 
 there is question of the child’s joy,—have now 
 no time for their children; they must be at the 
 factory. Hundreds of rich mothers have now no 
 time for their children; they must discharge 
 their tedious ‘‘social duties,’’ they must take 
 part in public life, deliver addresses at conven- 
 tions and the like. Poor children of the fac- 
 tory-workman and his wife! Poor children of 
 the modern, emancipated, speech-making, book- 
 writing mother! Poor city children, into whose 
 life there falls no ray of heaven’s sunshine, no 
 ray of the sunshine of joy; who are acquainted 
 only with the joys picked up in the filthy gutters 
 and sewers of sin! 
 
 After a babyhood empty of joy, or nearly so, 
 the little citizen enters school, where he finds an- 
 other world hardly richer in happiness. The 
 modern school, especially the public school, is 
 
64 MORE JOY 
 
 the apple of our eye, the petted darling of society. 
 To express any doubt as to its perfection, to op- 
 pose its development, is looked upon as treason, 
 as a crime, an infamy. And yet, of late, the Op- 
 ponents of modern education have been growing 
 more numerous and they do not all come from 
 the camp of the ‘‘reactionary’’ Catholics. 
 
 In his book Jugendlehre, which circulated so 
 rapidly throughout all Germany, F. W. Foerster 
 starts from the thesis that the modern school is 
 a replica of modern life, reproducing its defects 
 and faults. In the old days the central interest 
 of education was a Christian training and every- 
 thing else was subordinated to that. In the mod- 
 ern school, there is no such unity, no such con- 
 Scious cooperation in the building up of charac- 
 ter, for the reason that we are still under the spell 
 of the great eighteenth-century illusion that pop- 
 ular education necessarily entails popular moral- 
 ity, that moral culture is a by-product of intel- 
 lectual enlightenment. ‘‘Whoever is familiar 
 with life, knows how little of real culture resides 
 in mere knowledge, aye, that growth in mere 
 knowledge may hurt us, may puff us up, unless 
 it is early subordinated to growth in character. 
 True culture depends not on what a man knows, 
 but on the result of his knowing, on the connec- 
 
JOY AND YOUTH 65 
 
 tion between his knowledge and the highest and 
 greatest goods of life. It is not the fact that a 
 man can read and write, but the thing he reads 
 and the thing he writes which counts. The 
 school that teaches reading and writing must 
 also look after the cultivation of the inner man, 
 lest the acquisition of mere intellectual skill 
 leave no room for thorough culture.’’! - The 
 Church’s distrust of modern methods of popular 
 education is easily understood; nor is that dis- 
 trust to be allayed by sneering at ‘‘reactionary 
 influences’’ and eulogizing so-called enlighten- 
 ment. It would be more accurate to qualify as 
 reactionary those influences which set back the 
 development of our hearts and wills for the 
 sake of advancing us in mere knowledge and 
 power.’ 
 
 Still sharper is the criticism of Hilty in his 
 widely read book Glick. ‘‘In the matter of 
 education,’’ he says, ‘“‘our day of reckoning will 
 surely come. Let us but ask, ‘What does the 
 school give nowadays, and what does it take 
 away?’ It takes away a very large part of our 
 happy youth and our physical freshness; it takes 
 away our childish faith and our natural freedom. 
 It gives us our first contact with wicked men and 
 
 1 Jugendlehre, 6 f. 2 Ibid., 8. 
 
66 A PLEA FOR MORE JOY 
 
 vicious conditions. It destroys, as far as it can, 
 all predisposition to originality or genius. It 
 teaches us a mass of stuff not only totally use- 
 less for later life, but often false as well. . . . It 
 gives, In return, a certain amount of necessary 
 and useful knowledge, a practically useful famil- 
 larity with other_individuals and groups, and— 
 when all goes well—a permanent inclination to- 
 wards some particular science.’’® 
 
 Sharp criticism, this,—in some respects, per- 
 haps, too sharp! The gravest charges do not ap- 
 ply to our denominational schools. The writer 
 apparently values too lightly, or regards as ex- 
 ceptional, those good influences which in a 
 properly organized school surround and control 
 the child, those opportunities of forming soul and 
 spirit which even to-day are open to a zealous 
 and pious catechist, a teacher whose heart is in 
 the right place. 
 
 But it is certainly true that, so long as the dis- 
 astrous over-valuing of knowledge and under- 
 valuing of character and will, dominate the field 
 of education; so long as we go packing more and 
 more knowledge into the curriculum of the pub- 
 lic school; so long as what Ruskin ealls ‘‘the 
 madness of the modern cram and examination 
 
 8p. 285. 
 
JOY AND YOUTH 67 
 
 system’’* everywhere prevails; there will be 
 great danger of the pupil’s coming to regard in- 
 tellect and knowledge as supremely important, 
 and heart and character as of little worth. The 
 former will absorb the best energy and time and 
 eare of the school. Should the so-called progres- 
 sive movement which is, in fact, a most ignomin- 
 lous retrogression, succeed in banishing re- 
 ligion entirely from the schools, the evil conse- 
 quences of the kind above referred to will be sim- 
 ply frightful. All this, of course, also menaces 
 the child’s joy, which is a thing of the heart and 
 cannot strike deep root except in a good char- 
 acter. 
 
 Joy is likewise menaced when teachers and ed- 
 ucators,—we hope the case is rare, but it does 
 sometimes occur,—are under the illusion that the 
 rod is the magic wand of pedagogy; when they 
 are, first of all, masters in the art of flogging; 
 when the teacher at school and the parent at home 
 enter into whipping contests. For joy might be 
 flogged entirely out of hundreds of childish 
 hearts and out of whole generations of children; 
 the joy of learning, the enthusiasm of youth, the 
 strength of will and, in a word, every good im- 
 pulse might be beaten to death, so that nothing 
 
 4Fors Clavigera. 
 
68 MORE JOY 
 
 but insolence and anger and spite and meanness 
 and vulgarity would live any longer in the child. 
 ‘‘Hdueation’’ of this sort must be classed among 
 the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance; it ranks 
 with oppression of the poor, the helpless, the de- 
 fenceless. Indeed, the cries raised by those 
 maltreated children against their torturers will 
 ascend to heaven and be heard by their Heavenly 
 Father. He will one day make these joy-killers 
 aware that their stewardship of authority does 
 not justify the brutal use of their superior 
 strength; that they ought to cherish and nourish 
 the young tree and bring it to a happy develop- 
 ment, and not foolishly beat it until the last blos- 
 som of joy has been hacked off. 
 
 We are not opposed to reasonable strictness, 
 nor to the exercise of the right of chastisement, 
 when chastisement is dictated and controlled by 
 reason and affection. We are not partisans, but 
 avowed antagonists, of slack training, careless 
 discipline, unmanly softness; and we regard 
 these things as contributing to the decrease of 
 joy in the children’s world. It is a true saying: 
 ‘‘Life would be far happier if it were taken more 
 seriously, especially in youth.’? We agree per- 
 fectly with Foerster ‘‘the best preparation for 
 a joyful life is to be found in that strength of 
 
JOY AND YOUTH 69 
 
 character, that love of sacrifice, that habit of 
 self-control, which enable us bravely to endure 
 seasons of sadness or a life that is empty of 
 joy and filled with misfortunes and_ priva- 
 tions.’’® For life is serious, its conditions 
 are hard, and the modern struggle for existence 
 often becomes brutal. Therefore conscientious 
 education is that which forms strong characters, 
 not that which sends out into the world soft, sen- 
 sitive, delicate creatures who go straightway 
 down to their ruin, or else are for the first time 
 hammered into hardness by painful experience.° 
 
 We must also be grateful to Friedrich Paulsen 
 that, in his latest publication,’ he has spoken 
 sharply against the effeminate tendency of mod- 
 ern pedagogy, and also against the foolish at- 
 tempt to bring joy back into the school by making 
 pleasure the sole motive of learning. He advo- 
 cates a return to ‘‘the strenuous education’’ of 
 earlier days and to the three great imperatives: 
 Learn Obedience; Learn Hard Work; Learn 
 Self-denial. 
 
 It is precisely for joy’s sake, that we do not 
 exclude, but rather insist upon, seriousness, dis- 
 
 8 Jugendlehre, 146. 
 
 6 Tunsione plurima, “with much hammering,” is the phrase of the 
 hymn Coelestis Urbs Jerusalem. 
 
 7 Moderne Erziehung und geschlechtliche Sittlichkeit, 83 ff. 
 
10 MORE JOY 
 
 cipline, order, and effort on the part of children, 
 whether at home or at school. Yet, on the other 
 hand, we are certainly not of the opinion that 
 bodily punishment is the only means to this end, 
 or that it is indispensable. By nature, it is a 
 disciplinary means which may have both good 
 and bad effects—good, if rarely used, bad, if it 
 becomes a regular part of the routine. Even 
 when the children are exceptionally undisciplined 
 and perverse, the constant use of punishment is 
 still unjustifiable, if for no other reason than be- 
 cause its very frequency renders it ineffectual 
 and changes the dispositions of the child from 
 bad to worse. 
 
 Punishment must always be correlated with 
 joy; the sunshine fructifies what wind and rain 
 have cleansed and softened. Jean Paul’s phrase 
 does honor to his heart: ‘‘Oh! Away with the 
 tears of children; long rains do so much harm 
 to the blossoms.’’ He refers to the happy nature 
 of children, which makes them soon ready again 
 for joy even after severe punishment. ‘‘Thank 
 God!’’ he says, ‘‘the child’s memory is poorer for 
 suffering than for joy. Were it otherwise, a 
 long series of punishments would girdle the little 
 ereature with a chain of thistles. As it is, how- 
 ever, the child can be made happy over and over 
 
JOY AND YOUTH 71 
 
 again, aS many as twenty times, in one unlucky 
 days? 
 
 He who has only the rod of pain and not also 
 the rod of gentleness, had better not try to wield 
 the first. With it alone he will never do good. 
 That teacher or educator, deserves the palm and 
 is worthy of all honor, who with a glance of the 
 eye, a change of tone, an uplifted finger,—a 
 purely psycho-physical means of warning and 
 of punishing,—can hold his little flock in disci- 
 pline and order, without destroying their joy and 
 confidence. Here upon earth, a tear is lurking 
 in the eye of every joy. But then again a smile 
 of joy follows each tear, and without fail, must 
 follow every tear that happens to be caused by 
 the teacher. A ray of love will make such tears 
 sparkle so that they will seem to be not a mis- 
 fortune but one of life’s best prizes. 
 
Vil 
 JOY AND CHRISTIANITY 
 
 We have recorded the heavy deficit of joy on 
 the balance-sheet of modern culture. Now comes 
 the question, ‘‘What causes this deficit?’’ Vari- 
 ous contributory causes we have already indi- 
 cated; but the principal cause still remains to 
 be named. As a matter of fact the chief cause 
 is the irreligious, unchristian Spirit of the Age. 
 This Spirit is the sworn enemy and assassin of 
 joy. Itsets up the intellect as a tyrant to oppress 
 the heart and soul. It tries to banish faith from 
 the people’s hearts,’ although faith emancipates 
 and makes them happy as nothing else can. 
 Doubt saddens us and unbelief makes us 
 wretched. Even Friedrich Strauss, in his let- 
 ters, admits that man gets along better with 
 faith than without it. This Spirit of the Age 
 destroys the innocence of the soul and hence all 
 true joy. It tries to disrupt the union of the 
 
 1 The heart will he of all its wealth deprive, 
 Make war on Fancy, nor let Faith survive.—Schiller. 
 72 
 
JOY AND CHRISTIANITY: 73 
 
 soul with God; and without God there can be no 
 real joy in life. It chills the heart and withers 
 it up with selfishness, emptying it of love and, 
 consequently, of joy. It leads man to keep ever 
 circling and circling about his own petty self 
 as a centre, and this brings on giddiness, vertigo 
 and finally nausea. 
 
 This Spirit of the Age is a great liar and im- 
 postor. It pretends that modern and material 
 improvements will lead men to happiness and 
 joy. And yet, as Carlyle forcibly puts it, all the 
 ministers of finance and all the reformers of mod- 
 ern HKurope together, could not make one boot- 
 black happy, or at most could not make him 
 happy for more than a couple of hours. The 
 Spirit of the Age promises that it will open up 
 new worlds of joy and, as if by magic, create 
 numberless new pleasures in the life of man, by 
 giving free rein to the instincts, provoking and 
 spurring on lust, opening the road for the pas- 
 sions, and licensing vice. The real consequence 
 however is ruin of both soul and body, a disturb- 
 ing and shattering of the entire nervous system, 
 the loss of strength to act and to endure, weari- 
 ness instead of joy in living, pessimism, fatalism, 
 and suicide. The Spirit of the Age is indeed 
 the chief enemy of joy. All other virus, or 
 
74, MORE JOY 
 
 poison, can be easily overcome by the antidote 
 of a strong healthy Christian sense but, once 
 infected by the Zeitgeist, we are lost. 
 
 Therefore, the only possible solution is the one 
 which always gives the modern world nervous 
 spasms and drives it into mental convulsions: 
 “We must go back to Christian faith, back to 
 healthy folk-life, to religious earnestness, to hu- 
 mility and simplicity of heart, to plain, noble, 
 pure habits of thought, to religion, to the Church, 
 to Christ.’’ 
 
 We cannot dispense with this ‘‘Go Back!’’ for 
 the reason that absolutely no other power can 
 hold in check the enemies who under the leader- 
 ship of the Spirit of the Age, their commander- 
 in-chief, are invading and devastating the world 
 of joy. This same power achieves still more. 
 It constructs deep coffers around every one of 
 nature’s sweet sources of joy so as to exclude all 
 poisonous seepage, and, on its own higher level, 
 it opens up numberless supernatural springs of 
 joy. 
 
 ‘‘A crucified man!—A fine God of Joy, for- 
 sooth!’ ‘‘Self-crucifixion!—Truly a delightful 
 path to joy!’’ Thus sneers the anti-Christian 
 world. In these recent years we frequently en- 
 counter the same old pagan attacks with which 
 
JOY AND CHRISTIANITY 73 
 
 Herder, Goethe, and Schiller were familiar. 
 Again are free spirits, like Heine, impelled *‘to 
 take up arms for the old gods and their good 
 ambrosial law’’ against ‘‘the wan Christ with 
 his bleeding savior-hands,’’ against ‘‘the pale 
 Galilean who delights in the whimpering over 
 bliss destroyed,’’? against ‘‘the enemy of joy 
 with his bloodless hands,’’® against ‘‘the symbol 
 of the negation of life’”’ and ‘‘the blaspheming of 
 life.’?* Men are still mourning the paradise of 
 joy that vanished with the mythology of ancient 
 Greece. ‘‘When the gods were still guiding 
 the fair world in the sweet leading-strings of 
 joy, how different, oh! how different, all was 
 then!” 
 
 But historical researches have destroyed this 
 myth of the Hellenic paradise. Greece’s art, its 
 noblest possession, supreme in harmony and 
 symmetry, speaks not of joy and pleasure only, 
 but also of tearful suffering and of tragic woe,— 
 witness the farewell scenes upon the tombstones. 
 In the last analysis Greek art was a song of sor- 
 row. During the archaic age, its monuments 
 were tombs or sepulchral decorations. It 1s no 
 Olympian mirth that laughs at us from antiquity. 
 Tn the endeavor to be happy there was produced 
 
 2 Ibsen. 3 Anatole France. 4 Nietzsche. 
 
76 MORE JOY 
 
 only a wild, noisy laughter with a boisterousness 
 evidently intended to conceal deep-lying pain. 
 Ancient art vanishes with a song of sorrow, in 
 the tomb sculpture of the first Christian cen- 
 tury.’ According to one of the men most fa- 
 miliar with antiquity, ‘‘The Greeks amid the 
 splendor of art and in the highest enjoyment of 
 liberty, were more unhappy than is generally 
 supposed.’’ ° 
 
 The cross with its stern lines,—a cold, bare, 
 branchless tree with rough-hewn stumps for 
 arms,—is indeed at first sight a sad and joyless 
 thing to look at, so true an image is it of harsh 
 contradiction, so good a symbol of bitter pain. 
 Yet men find that the cross possesses a certain 
 beauty. In its sturdy clear-cut, well-propor- 
 tioned form they see a picture of steadfastness, 
 of aspiring effort, of opposition conquered and 
 contradictories reconciled. The sight of a man 
 hanging in agony upon the cross arouses, at first, 
 no sense of joy, it is true. Yet there is a well- 
 spring of joy in the sure faith, that the Divine 
 Hero bleeding on the cross is dying in battle 
 against the fiercest foe of joy and of salvation, 
 
 5 Der Gral, 1907, 145 f. 
 
 6 Boeckh, The Public Economy of the Athenians, Translated by 
 Anthony Lamb, Boston, 1857, p. 787; Schneider, Das Andere Leben, 
 10th ed., Paderborn, 1909, 62 ff. 
 
JOY AND CHRISTIANITY 77 
 
 and conquering as He dies. The cross becomes 
 the symbol of victory and thereby the symbol of 
 joy. Darkness and gloom are dispelled and 
 everywhere is shed the glory of the resurrection. 
 In its light, the tree of the cross becomes the 
 tree of life, of resistless power; the dried trunk 
 is clothed with blossoms and fruit; and out of the 
 crown of thorns spring forth roses. 
 
 Thus also is it with the cross and the crucifix- 
 ion in the life of each individual Christian. 
 That a man should take up his cross daily’; that 
 he should not only bear his cross, but crucify the 
 flesh, the old man *—these are not forced figures 
 of speech, but stern demands which certainly do 
 seem likely to lead far away from joy. Yet the 
 battle to which they summon is waged not against 
 joy, but against joy’s worst enemies. ‘The cross 
 obliges us to renounce the apples of Sodom, the 
 wild cherries of sin, which are really no joys at 
 all, but it does not demand a total renunciation 
 of legitimate natural joys; it only insists that 
 they be used in moderation and with a good in- 
 tention. This much would be required not by 
 Christian morality alone, but by reason and 
 health as well. Excessive enjoyment always be- 
 
 7 8t. Luke ix, 23. 
 8 Galatians v, 24; Romans vi, 6. 
 
78 MORE JOY 
 
 gets disgust. Unrestricted activity and gratifi- 
 cation of the sensual instincts does not add to the 
 sum of joy, but ruins both joy and the man; it 
 sins not only against morality but against hy- 
 giene, which is to-day sometimes regarded as the 
 Supreme standard. <A life ‘‘beyond good and 
 evil’’—to use Nietzsche’s phrase,—unscrupulous 
 poaching, complete loosing of the wild, natural 
 instincts, whose advocate, protector and prophet 
 Nietzsche was unwillingly degraded into becom- 
 ing by his less worthy disciples, the freeing of 
 ‘‘the beast of prey within man, the fair, raven- 
 ing, blond beast, lusting for prey and conquest,’’ 
 —all this does not enrich, gladden, deepen, nor 
 sweeten life. It delivers life over to the most 
 wretched languor, to the hospital, the madhouse, 
 to suicide,—‘‘those graves of lust’’® so numer- 
 ous in the world to-day. 
 
 Such is the lesson of experience. It can al- 
 most be demonstrated statistically, although the 
 great, sinful, deceitful world will not believe it, 
 nor admit it. Austere Christian morality, the 
 commandment of self-conquest, temperance, 
 mortification, moderation, fasting, do not inter- 
 fere with happiness. They are really no more 
 hostile to joy than the gardener is hostile to the 
 
 2 Numbers xi, 34. 
 
JOY AND CHRISTIANITY 79 
 
 rose, when in spring and autumn he cuts and 
 trims the bush. 
 
 Foerster * gives two excellent quotations from 
 Tolstoi and Matthias Claudius: ‘‘Neither the 
 Christian nor the heathen,’’ says Tolstoi, ‘‘can 
 _ start the work of perfection anywhere except at 
 the beginning, namely, in the practice of temper- 
 ance. .. . Temperance is the first stage of a good 
 life and it can be reached only step by step. 
 Temperance is emancipation from one’s lusts. 
 But man has many. lusts, and to wage effectual 
 war, he must begin with the fundamentals, glut- 
 tony, sloth, sensuality.’’ And Matthias Claud- 
 ius observes: ‘*Many men condemn fasting, but 
 it should not be wholly condemned. We too 
 readily condemn what we are unwilling to do our- 
 selves. Abuse, of course, may creep in any- 
 where. They tell us that to be always moderate 
 is better than to fast at times; and this may be 
 quite true; but since the majority of men are not 
 always moderate, it is a good thing, now and then, 
 to show who is master in the house.”’ 
 
 Even Goethe realized that nothing but the 
 Spirit of austerity and sacrifice can provide the 
 proper basis for a healthy, happy, cheerful life. 
 He declared this in the well-known verses: 
 
 10 Lebensfiihring, 45 f. 
 
80 MORE JOY 
 
 If thou hast not part 
 In death as well as birth, 
 A sorry guest thou art 
 Upon the gloomy earth." 
 
 Yes! man must die in order to grow. He must 
 renounce selfishness, for it makes him poorer, 
 not richer, and especially poorer in joy. ‘‘Noth- 
 ing shuts in a life and shuts out satisfaction and 
 joy like the self-considering temper and the self- 
 centered aim. Such a life, though it may seem 
 to itself self-developing, is in fact self-deceived. 
 Instead of growing richer in its resources, it finds 
 itself growing poorer. The more it cultivates 
 itself, the more sterile it grows; the more it ac- 
 cumulates, the less it has; the more it saves, the 
 more it 1s lost.’’ * 
 
 It is unreasonable and even absurd to demand 
 unrestricted freedom as a condition of joy. Rus- 
 kin is clear and true on this point: ‘‘For wise 
 laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not 
 chains, but chain mail—strength and defence, 
 though something also of an incumbrance. And 
 this necessity of restraint, remember, is just as 
 honorable to man as the necessity of labor. You 
 
 11 The authenticity of these lines has recently been questioned 
 (Goethe-Jahrbuch, ix, 329). 
 
 12 Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Ohristian Character, p. 206, 
 
JOY AND CHRISTIANITY 81 
 
 hear every day greater numbers of foolish people 
 speaking about liberty, as if it were such an hon- 
 orable thing: so far from being that, it is, on the 
 whole, and in the broadest sense, dishonorable, 
 and an attribute of the lower creatures. No hu- 
 man being, however great, or powerful, was ever 
 so free asafish. There is always something that 
 he must, or must not do; while the fish may do 
 whatever he likes. . . . ‘You will find, on fairly 
 thinking of it, that it is his Restraint which is 
 honorable to man, not his Liberty; ... And 
 throughout the world, of the two abstract things, 
 liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more 
 honorable. It is true, indeed, that in these and 
 all other matters you never can reason finally 
 from the abstraction, for both liberty and re- 
 straint are good when they are nobly chosen, and 
 both are bad when they are basely chosen; but 
 of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which charac- 
 terizes the higher creature, and betters the lower 
 creature: and, from the ministering of the arch- 
 angel to the labor of the insect,—from the pois- 
 ing of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of 
 dust,—the power and glory of all creatures, and 
 all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their 
 freedom. The Sun has no liberty—a dead leaf 
 has much. The dust of which you are formed 
 
89 MORE JOY 
 
 has no liberty. Its liberty will come—with its 
 corruption.’’** ... ‘‘T have hardly patience to 
 hold my pen and go on writing, as I remember (I 
 would that it were possible for a few consecutive 
 instants to forget) the infinite follies of modern 
 thought in this matter, centered in the notion 
 that liberty is good for a man, irrespectively of 
 the use he is likely to make of it. Folly unfath- 
 omable! unspeakable! unendurable to look in the 
 full face of, as the laugh of a cretin. ‘You will 
 send your child, will you, into a room where a 
 table is loaded with sweet wine and fruit—some 
 poisoned, some not?—you will say to him, 
 ‘Choose freely, my little child! It is so good 
 for you to have freedom of choice: it forms your 
 character—your individuality! If you take the 
 wrong cup, or the wrong berry, you will die be- 
 fore the day is over, but you will have acquired 
 the dignity of a Free child!’ ’’* 
 
 When will men grow wise enough to perceive 
 that duty, command, obedience, are not enemies 
 and hindrances but guardians and protectors of 
 true freedom and bringers of true joy? 
 
 In modern times Christianity is denounced as 
 a destroyer of joy, mainly because it rigorously 
 
 18 The Two Paths, Lect. V, iii. 
 14 Queen of the Air, iii, 151. 
 
JOY AND CHRISTIANITY 83 
 
 and strictly fences in and holds down the sexual 
 life and thus precludes many ‘‘possibilities of 
 happiness’’ and seals up many sources of enjoy- 
 ment. There are pupils of Nietzsche who, going 
 beyond their master, demand absolute freedom 
 for sexual love and even want to have it liberated 
 from the yoke of monogamy and every moral 
 law. 
 
 Max Zerbst has recently constructed ‘‘a phi- 
 losophy of joy,’’ built upon the senseless claim 
 that joy and pleasure should be independent of 
 all moral laws and all institutions,—because in- 
 stitutions, such as the State, the Church, the 
 school, and the moral law, are the great dis- 
 turbers of man’s inner balance. This ‘‘philoso- 
 phy”’ is dedicated to Aristippus of Cyrene and 
 concludes with a hymn to Pleasure. It asserts 
 that pain is always evil; that pleasure is the one 
 precious thing in life, the sole source of vital en- 
 ergy, man’s chief liberator and redeemer, and 
 his highest good. But instead of showing how 
 pleasure can be heightened and deepened so as 
 to eliminate all pain and to permeate and bless 
 the whole of life, Zerbst finds himself shudder- 
 ing with nameless horror at the first forebodings 
 of the new ‘‘era of pleasure’’ whose coming he 
 has heralded in Bacchie style. 
 
84. MORE JOY. 
 
 H. W. Foerster * has given a manly and down- 
 right answer to the wretched and unbalanced 
 worshippers of pleasure, the male and female ad- 
 vocates of free-love who support the absolute dic- 
 tatorship of Eros. His answer applies equally 
 well to those more serious people who image that 
 in these matters of sex, strict order and discipline 
 may have been necessary in former times but that 
 modern man must have the courage to act freely 
 and independently. To give free rein to sexual- 
 ity and eroticism does not really produce joy, but 
 merely sacrifices the spiritual self to the sensual. 
 In this matter, ‘‘the grand old commandments 
 and the mighty old ideals’’ of Christianity, the 
 religious sense and the power of grace, are quite 
 indispensable, and all the more indispensable, 
 because modern men are not stronger but weaker 
 in character and will-power. It is only by means 
 of the helps just mentioned that the sexual im- 
 pulse can be checked and controlled so as to be 
 a blessing instead of a fearful curse. If Chris- 
 tianity is reproached with having stifled natural 
 instincts and lessened human joy, the answer 
 may well be ‘*Christianity does not stifle the nat- 
 ural instincts, but regulates, purifies and en- 
 
 15 Marriage and the Sea-Problem, Translated by Meyrick Booth, 
 New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company. 
 
JOY AND CHRISTIANITY 85 
 
 nobles them. You, yourselves, on the other hand, 
 strangle the will, the higher spiritual self, by 
 smothering it with flesh.’’ 
 
 Teachers who seriously think of regulating the 
 reproductive instinct without the aid of the Com- 
 mandments or other religious helps, says Foer- 
 ster, are, like engineers who would dam up a 
 mighty river by playing upon flutes. Some day, 
 when it is too late, they will see the flood of filth 
 go pouring over the dikes. With good reason 
 Foerster warns against the fashionable mania 
 for enlightenment, which does not exorcise the 
 danger it professes to fear but invokes it. In- 
 calculable evils result from prematurely, impru- 
 dently, or needlessly directing the attention to 
 sexual matters. That is going to the same ex- 
 treme as if we attempted to instruct a family 
 in the danger of contagion by introducing germs 
 into the home. It is not so much enlightenment 
 of the intellect that is needed, as strengthening 
 and training of the character and will, in order 
 that there may be at hand a power, a master, to 
 watch over the developing sex-instinct, to set it 
 in its place, and if necessary, to bind it with 
 chains.** All this is demanded in the interest of 
 joy itself. For the pleasures of erotic passion 
 
 16 Pestalozzi. 
 
86 MORE JOY 
 
 are real destroyers of joy. Love is indeed a 
 source of joy; but a source which must be walled 
 in and protected from infection. It must be led 
 from nature’s lower levels to the heights of 
 the soul. 
 
IX 
 THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 ‘The world,’’ writes Father A. M. Weiss, 
 O. P., ‘‘has always felt sure that the Christian 
 life is “alan and disagreeable. The first Chris- 
 tians encountered this reproach from those who 
 knew their deeds and characteristics only by 
 hearsay. That the notion is false we need 
 scarcely say. Any man, personally acquainted 
 with those who are Christians by conviction, can 
 bear witness that he has never met so sincere a 
 welcome, such unaffected courtesy, such innocent 
 cheerfulness as in familiar intercourse with truly 
 Christian spirits. Even our avowed enemies 
 concede this fact which, indeed, is so evident that 
 the stiff, affected piety characteristic of a spu- 
 rious religion, never stops complaining about it. 
 
 . If these censors had become acquainted with 
 Christianity in its true form, that is to say, when 
 earnestly lived up to, they would better under- 
 stand the source of that happiness, that childlike 
 
 1 Minuc. Felix, Octav., 12. 
 87 
 
88 MORE JOY 
 
 delight in nature, in a word, that frank, cheerful 
 spirit, which is the characteristic of every class 
 and every period ruled by faith. ... Every- 
 where and always it has been observed that true 
 exactitude and earnestness in the service of God, 
 are rewarded with serenity of soul and happi- 
 ness. Chrysostom remarked it among the natu- 
 rally gloomy Phceenicians and Syrians; the 
 Jesuits observed it among the ferocious Indians 
 of Paraguay. To-day, according to a keen ob- 
 server, A. von Hiibner, travelers of every creed 
 note that when the Chinese are converted to 
 Christianity, the very expression of the features 
 alters; and although the average Chinaman dis- 
 plays most offensively his unbelief, irony, or sul- 
 len indifference, yet the visitor to any Catholic 
 Church in China will be joyfully surprised at 
 the unwonted look of trust, reverence, and holi- 
 ness on the faces there.’’ ? 
 
 For those who believe in the Christian faith, 
 and live up to their belief, the bounds of enjoy- 
 ment are set by duty, by obedience to the Com- 
 mandments, by the rules of physical and spiritual 
 health, by love of God and one’s neighbor. 
 Within these bounds all legitimate sources of joy 
 flow in fuller and purer streams than in the 
 
 2 Apologie des Christentums, ii, 3rd ed., 824 ff. 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 89 
 
 world. Within these bounds prevails St. Paul’s 
 law of liberty, ‘‘ All things are yours,’’* instead 
 of the narrow Jewish law, ‘*Touch not, taste not, 
 handle not.’’* Moreover the Christian has first 
 claim on the rich harvest of joy gathered from 
 the fields of the earth, even in this present life, 
 —namely, the joys offered by nature, by the 
 home, by society, by art, not excepting food and 
 drink. The Christian has the first claim to these 
 things, because ‘‘for the faithful above all God 
 hath created them,’’°® and the Christian knows 
 how to partake of them with thanksgiving to the 
 glory of God,® and to sanctify them by the word 
 of God and prayer.’ He is skilled in the art of 
 adding to every cup of joy a drop of eternity, of 
 grace, of heavenly bliss, and makes joy a true 
 elixir of life, so that both body and soul may 
 
 share the enjoyment, and thus heighten the value / 
 
 and promote the purpose of life. 
 
 Even with regard to purely natural pleasures, 
 it holds good that ‘‘godliness is profitable to all 
 things, having promise not only of the life that 
 now is, and of that which is to come.’’* ‘‘Keep 
 a good conscience and thou shalt always have 
 
 8] Corinthians, iii, 22. 6 I Corinthians x, 30-31. 
 
 4 Colossians ii, 21. 7I Timothy iv, 5. 
 5I Timothy iv, 3. 8 Ibid., iv, 8. 
 
 w ~ 
 
 > 
 
 y 
 
90 MORE JOY 
 
 joy’’ is the simple yet sound advice of The Fol- 
 lowing of Christ;°® and that advice is confirmed 
 by experience, ‘‘If there be joy in the world, cer- 
 tainly the man whose heart is pure enjoys it.’’ ” 
 Moreover, there are open to the Christian 
 whole kingdoms of joy which are inaccessible 
 to the worldling and the sinner. Faith, the state 
 of grace, prayer, lift us up into the sunshine and 
 into the presence of God; they weave a blue sky 
 that stretches over the whole extent of life; they 
 establish and maintain a uniform cheerfulness 
 which suffering and trouble cannot disturb. 
 Who can number, or analyze, or describe, the 
 joys of prayer? St. Bernard says, “‘God, be- 
 ing tranquil, tranquilizes all and to see Him rest- 
 ing is to be at rest.’’*4_ This rest, produced by 
 prayer, is the prerequisite and foundation of the 
 soul’s joy. In this peaceful realm there blooms 
 a flora of joy, so abundant, so richly and variously 
 colored, that it cannot be described or classified. 
 Indeed, there is a deeper significance than is 
 commonly supposed in the counsel of St. James: 
 “Is any of you sad? Let him pray.’’ St, 
 Chrysostom calls prayer ‘‘a refuge in every 
 sorrow, a principle of constant pleasure, the 
 
 9IT, 6. 1. 11 In Cantic., Serm. 23, n. 16. 
 10 Tbid., II, 4. 2. 12 §t. James v, 13. 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 91 
 
 mother of philosophy.’’** St. Nilus calls it a 
 ‘‘charm against sadness and depression of 
 soul.’”’** And Lagarde says that piety is the 
 sound health of the soul. 
 
 What a good spirit prevails in the house where 
 family prayer is the custom. At least once each 
 morning and evening, this brings together the 
 members scattered here and there, during the rest 
 of the day; it maintains the sentiment of unity; 
 it creates the breathing spots and intervals of 
 repose so badly needed in these strenuous times. 
 Pray and time stands still.” Family prayer lifts 
 the household up into a higher world. ‘‘It isa 
 key by day and a lock by night.’’ It resolves dis- 
 cords with the utmost simplicity, relieves strain, 
 purifies the atmosphere of the home, sanctifies 
 domestic joy and invests the father of the family 
 with priestly dignity. The family prayer and 
 hymn make the sweetest music ever heard upon 
 earth and they unite each particular household 
 to the whole blessed family of God. 
 
 True, the Christian law of life is stern and 
 austere, but, as in the Ark of the Covenant, jars 
 of sweet manna stand next to the Tables of the 
 
 18 Contra Anom., 7, 7. 
 
 14 De Orat., c. 16. 
 15 A, Freybe, Das deutsche Haus und seine Sitte, i (1910), 125. 
 
92 MORE JOY 
 
 Law. Throughout the ecclesiastical year the life 
 of the Christian is filled to overflowing with joys 
 of the noblest kind. The sacraments are inti- 
 mately related to joy. They restore it when 
 lost; they nourish and increase it when present; 
 they ennoble and sanctify it, if it is merely nat- 
 ural. Confession is a relief for life’s grief and 
 weariness, a safety-valve for the terrible pres- 
 sure of the sense of guilt. The Sacrament of the 
 Altar opens up an infinite realm of mystical joys. 
 The House of God and the worship of God are 
 rich in sublime poetry, in heart-stirring joy. 
 Here the Christian people find their heavenly 
 home, their spiritual drama and concert and art- 
 exhibition. 
 
 ‘To what delight,’’ writes Grupp, ‘‘is the pious 
 soul introduced by a worthy communion! Piere- 
 ing through all earthly veils, she perceives the 
 great mystery and sees the heavens opened. One 
 who has experienced such joy can never again 
 be utterly unhappy or unbelieving. The Greeks 
 were wont to say that no one who had looked upon 
 the statue of Olympian Jove could ever again 
 be entirely miserable. How much more truly 
 may this be said of the Christian who has ex- 
 perienced the presence of God in prayer.’’ #* 
 
 16 Jensettsreligion (1910), 166. 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 93 
 
 Of old, privileges which came from no over- 
 lord but were due simply to God and the sun, were 
 called ‘*Sun-Rights.’’ 7 In the same sense, Sun- 
 day may be called the people’s ‘‘Sun-Right.”’ 
 What rights and what joys are lacking in the in- 
 _ dividual life when Sunday counts as nothing, 
 when servile work burdens the Lord’s Day or 
 debauchery dishonors it! The day is made.a day 
 of real joy through .a wonderful combination of 
 the natural and supernatural pleasures con- 
 tributed by godly rest, the loosening of labor’s 
 yoke, the united worship of God, the sermon at 
 High Mass, the outing in the fields and woods, 
 and the hours of quiet enjoyment at the family 
 hearth. In the ‘‘Hymelstras,’’ ** Brother Ste- 
 phen gives a charming description of the father 
 of a family taking ‘‘his little folk’”’ to the sermon 
 and afterwards asking them what they have 
 heard, supplementing their observations with his 
 own. ‘Then he gets his little drink and sings 
 his good little song, ‘‘and thus he and his little 
 flock were happy in the Lord.”’ 
 
 In his Book of Childhood, Bogumil Goltz 
 has described the fascination of Sunday for the 
 child-mind: ‘‘Ah! on this day nothing was the 
 same as on school-days and work-days. We felt 
 
 17 A. Freybe, op. cit., 132. 18 Augsburg, 1484, 
 
94 MORE JOY 
 
 the difference in the air we breathed and the soil 
 we trod; we drank it in with the very water. The 
 sunbeams flashed it into the soul; the sparrows 
 twittered it among the notes of the church organ; 
 the trees told it to one another with rustling 
 leaves. Before sunrise, in the gray dawn, the 
 coming hours of happiness were borne on the 
 wings of the morning wind to this chosen day. 
 O Lord, My God, then in very truth it was Sun- 
 day,—Sunday through the whole day, Sunday in 
 every hour and minute, in every twinkling of an 
 eye, in every flash of a sunbeam, in every throb 
 of the pulse, in every drop of blood, in all the 
 body and all the soul. One could hear and see 
 nothing, feel nothing, be aware of nothing, will 
 nothing, think nothing, but just that it was Sun- 
 day, the sacred day. All that one looked at or 
 experienced, was different from on other days,— 
 the same and yet not the same, for it was illu- 
 mined, hallowed, and invested with the mysteri- 
 ous radiance of Sunday.”’ 
 
 Every festive season has its own peculiar joys. 
 Not even during solemn Advent, nor in the peni- 
 tential season of Lent, is joy lacking. How full 
 of joy is the message renewed each year by the 
 Christmas angels and again by the Easter Alle- 
 Inia. To pray means to relieve one’s heart, to bid 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 95 
 
 care begone, to breathe out misery and distress, 
 to breathe in the pure mountain air and the en- 
 ergy of another world. Intercourse with the 
 saints enlivens the heart, just like conversation 
 with the noblest men. A childlike relationship 
 with the Mother of God imparts and preserves 
 in every period of life that childlike happiness 
 which only a mother’s presence and a mother’s 
 love bestow; so with good reason Mary is called 
 Causa nostrae laetitiae, ‘Cause of Our Joy.” 
 Each one of the Christian virtues has its own 
 content of joy; each is a little garden harboring 
 flowers of every form and color and fragrance. 
 The flowers of hope, in particular, have this 
 Special quality that they survive the roughest 
 weather and become all the stronger and more 
 fragrant amid the most violent storms. 
 
 In truth, there is no soil so rich as religion in 
 springs of health, none so well supplied with 
 fresh, sweet water. In whatever spot we dig 
 down, bright clear streams come gushing forth. 
 One realizes the meaning of the prophet’s words: 
 ‘They shall fear and be troubled for all the good 
 things and for all the peace that I will make for 
 them.’’*® Many perhaps will be too highly 
 ‘‘eultured”’ to perceive and enjoy these quiet de- 
 
 19 Jeremias xxxiii, 9. 
 
96 MORE JOY 
 
 lights; but the good, plain people will enjoy 
 them all the more for their simplicity; the poor 
 Christian working-man and working-woman 
 will absorb them all the more gratefully. True, 
 as well as beautiful, are the words of that noble 
 convert Elizabeth Gnauck-Kiihne: ‘‘Who un- 
 derstands the working-woman? Who bothers 
 about her welfare? Let us answer briefly, — 
 The Catholic Church, first and before all others. 
 . .. When she summons to High Mass, she be- 
 decks herself like a loving mother in order to be 
 beautiful to her children. She is very fair and 
 despises no earthly adornment. If the work- 
 ing-woman holds this mother’s hand fast in her 
 own, then, at least once every seven days she will 
 have the delightful experience of spending one 
 happy hour, and for the time being her wheel of 
 Ixion will stop whirling. Her senses, dulled by 
 dust and noise and filth, will be aroused, and her 
 soul will rest again in God. The world has shut 
 out the working-woman from all that is fair in 
 nature and art. The Catholic Church vested 
 splendidly for her sake, soothes her life—her 
 poor, bare, prosaic life,—with a breath of beauty 
 and lofty poetry. And although this poetry 
 and this beauty are perhaps not analyzed, they 
 are deeply appreciated.’’ 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 97 
 
 Worldly folk cannot understand such joy. 
 When they hear it spoken of, they answer with 
 that notorious silly laugh of theirs, and look like 
 blind men who hear someone speaking of colors. 
 Yet religious joys are really precious; and more- 
 over, they may be acquired by any soul of faith 
 and good-will. They are strong and mighty 
 realities. They give the sole explanation of the 
 fact that the number of happy, contented, joyous 
 persons is a hundredfold greater among faithful 
 Christians, than among the most highly privi- 
 leged classes of worldlings, who regard amuse- 
 ment as the only occupation and the chief con- 
 cern of life. We know how much gilded misery 
 exists among these people; we have heard certain 
 startling admissions and confessions made by 
 them. On many tombs might fittingly be placed 
 the epitaph Dingelstedt composed for himself: 
 
 He had in life much happiness, 
 Yet happy he has never been. 
 
 Worldly men possess and secure many joys; 
 still they are without joy. The fact is these joys 
 have no real value; they are froth and show that 
 quickly surfeit, but never satisfy, a man. 
 Worldly joys are like all other worldly goods. 
 ‘* Possessed, they are a burden; loved, they are a 
 
98 MORE JOY 
 
 defilement; lost, they are a torment.’’* St. 
 Ignatius of Loyola said: ‘‘AIl the honey that 
 can be gathered from the blossoms of the world 
 does not contain as much sweetness as the gall 
 and vinegar of our Savior.’’ 
 
 The world, itself,—so sceptical about joys 
 which it cannot see, nor touch, nor eat, nor drink, 
 —yet comes under their benign influence. Per- 
 sons who possess these joys in filness become 
 makers of joy and bringers of joy to everyone 
 around them, and are thus real benefactors of all 
 mankind. How joyless life would be were it not 
 for these sunny souls, who are so happy them- 
 selves and radiate happiness to others. We meet 
 them everywhere, sometimes even in beggars’ 
 rags, or in childish forms, more often in peasant 
 dress and in priestly or religious garb than in 
 silk and satin garments, more often in the 
 homely hut than in the splendid salon, more often 
 in the country than in the city. Upon closer 
 acquaintance we see that the constant serenity of 
 their lives and the overflowing joy which they im- 
 part to others, must be the reflection of their own 
 simple, homely, hearty faith and piety and sin- 
 cerity. There is something angelic about them; 
 
 20 Bona, quae possessa onerant, amata inquinant, amissa cruciant. 
 St. Bernard, Ep. 103. 
 
THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN 99 
 
 they radiate light and beneficent warmth. 
 Neither the coarsest mind nor the gloomiest heart 
 can resist their influence. 
 
 When they approach and offer aid, the suffer- 
 ers smile, the savage grow tame, curses and blas- 
 phemies are silenced, unhappiness is banished 
 and its ravages are checked by a mightier power. 
 They have the magic gift of lifting the weight 
 from the hearts of their fellowmen by a soft 
 word and a bright look, of finding a balm for 
 every wound, and, above all, of compounding out 
 of their own souls’ suffering and distress, the 
 medicines and draughts of joy that others need. 
 As Hilty says, ‘‘Truly spontaneous goodness 
 of heart is not the fruit of philosophy and cul- 
 ture. To produce it is the undeniable and ex- 
 clusive privilege of Christianity, and this is the 
 living proof, throughout the centuries, of Chris- 
 tianity’s divine origin. Even to-day, the attempt 
 to find a substitute for the Christian religion 
 must fail, because nothing else can possibly give 
 birth to a like cheerfulness and kindness.”’ 7? 
 
 Bless them! those sunny souls, with their 
 kindly eyes and their hearts of gold, true bene- 
 factors of humanity. Would that they were a 
 thousand times more numerous, then the problem 
 
 21 Glick, 251 £. 
 
100 MORE JOY 
 
 of joy would be finally solved. But meanwhile, 
 how can their number be increased? Why, of 
 course, by your joining them. And how is that 
 to be done? We can only answer: ‘‘Seek ye 
 therefore first the kingdom of God, and his jus- 
 tice, and all these things (including joy) shall be 
 added unto you.’’®? Be more faithful in the 
 performance of your duty, especially your reli- 
 gious duty, and joy will come spontaneously. If 
 we wish to have flowers, we must plant and water 
 them. This does not imply that we cannot make 
 a direct effort to learn and to exercise Joyousness 
 and friendliness. In fact, to study with especial 
 care this fair aspect of Christianity and to prac- 
 tice cheerfulness, is a proceeding which, at the 
 present time, seems to be particularly expedient 
 and meritorious. 
 
 22 §t. Matthew vi, 33. 
 
xX 
 JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 
 
 There would certainly be no lack of material 
 for a whole theology of joy; and the fundamental 
 chapter, most interesting of all, would be the bib- 
 ical. Any concordance will make plain the im- 
 portance attached to joy in Holy Scripture. The 
 Synonyms of joy are among those chief words of 
 the Bible which recur hundreds and hundreds of 
 times,—a significant fact in a book using no idle 
 or unnecessary words. Holy Scripture thus be- 
 comes a sort of ‘‘paradise of pleasure,’’! where 
 we may find the joy that we have vainly sought, 
 or perhaps have lost, in the world. 
 
 JOY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Like a rich vein of silver, joy runs through the 
 writings of the Old Testament and through the 
 life that it describes. The Hebrew language,— 
 although its vocabulary is poor in comparison 
 with the classical and modern tongues,—has no 
 
 1 Genesis, iii, 23. 
 
 101 
 
102 MORE JOY 
 
 less than twelve verbs which mean ‘‘to rejoice,”’ 
 ‘‘to be happy.’’* The good Israelite is saved 
 from the danger of undervaluing or distorting 
 the idea of joy and the human desire for it, by 
 his knowledge that the deepest, purest fountain 
 of joy is the throne of God, the Divine Essence. 
 As God Himself rejoices ‘‘in His works,’’? ‘‘in 
 Jerusalem,’’* and over Sion ‘‘with gladness,’’> 
 so does the just man ‘‘rejoice in the Lord,’’ * and 
 ‘‘delight in the Lord’’* and ‘‘rejoice before 
 God.’’® 
 
 True, the Old Testament is the covenant of fear 
 and the people are kept fearful by God’s judg- 
 ments and by the thunderings of the prophets. 
 Yet this fear does not exclude joy; for the Old 
 Testament is also the covenant of hope which 
 reconciles fear and joy,—so that the Psalmist 
 can say: ‘‘Rejoice with trembling,’’® and: 
 ‘‘Let my heart rejoice that it may fear thy 
 name.’’*® Tear and joy live together like sisters 
 and play with each other like two little lambs. 
 Joy in God is the privilege and sweetest reward 
 
 2 Die Freude in den Schriften des Alten Bundes, von A. Wiinsche, 
 Weimar, 1896. 5. 
 
 3 Psalms ciii, 31. 7 Psalms xxxvi, 4. 
 4Isaias Ixv, 19. 8 Psalms, \xvii, 4. 
 5 Sophonias iii, 17. 9 Psalms ii, 11. 
 
 6 Psalms xiii, 11. 10 Psalme Ixxxv, 11. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 103 
 
 of the fear of God: ‘‘Oh, how great is the multi- 
 tude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which thou hast 
 hidden for them that fear thee.’’*t Unworthy 
 members of the covenant, who do not fear God, 
 but desert Him to serve idols, are expressly de- 
 barred from joy: ‘‘Thus saith the Lord God: 
 Behold, my servants shall eat, and you shall be 
 hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, and you 
 shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall re- 
 joice, and you shall be confounded; behold, my 
 servants shall praise for joyfulness of heart, and 
 you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl 
 for grief of spirit.’’” 
 
 Even in grievous trouble and affliction the God- 
 fearing children of Israel look confidently for 
 the guidance and providence of God, sure that 
 the joy of deliverance shall encompass them soon 
 again; and that ‘‘the meek shall increase their 
 joy in the Lord, and the poor men shall rejoice 
 in the Holy One of Israel.’’** Providence ar- 
 ranges a kindly balancing of sad and happy pe- 
 riods, of suffering and consolation: ‘We have 
 rejoiced for the days in which thou hast humbled 
 us; for the years in which we have seen evils;’’ ** 
 ‘‘ According to the multitude of my sorrows in my 
 
 11 Psalms xxx, 20. 18 [saias xxix, 19. 
 12 Jsatas lxv, 13 ff. 14 Psalms Ixxxix, 15. » 
 
104 MORE JOY 
 
 heart, thy comforts have given joy to my 
 soul. 7/7? 
 
 So also the consciousness of belonging to the 
 chosen people was for the Israelites an ever-flow- 
 ing joy. ‘‘Neither is there any other nation so 
 great, that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is 
 present to all our petitions. For what other na- 
 tion is there so renowned that hath ceremonies, 
 and just judgments, and all the law?’’** The 
 Law was indeed a strict disciplinarian, but also 
 a good and wise ‘‘pedagogue’”’ *’ leading to Christ, 
 not merely by punishments but also by joys. In 
 it the people were given a source of wisdom ex- 
 alting them high above all other nations, which 
 He alone could open that knoweth all things,— 
 ‘*He that prepared the earth for evermore. ... 
 He that sendeth forth light and it goeth; and hath 
 called it, and it obeyeth him with trembling. 
 And the stars have given light in their watches, 
 and rejoiced: ‘They were called and they said: 
 Here we are; and with cheerfulness they have 
 shined forth to him that made them.’’* To this 
 wise and holy Law, the Old Testament dedicates 
 the 118th Psalm, that majestic hymn whose dom- 
 inant tone is joy. The good Israelite looks on 
 
 15 Psalms xciii, 19. 17 Galatians iii, 24. 
 16 Deuteronomy, iv, 7 f. 18 Baruch iii, 32 ff. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 105 
 
 these commandments as the joy of his heart,” 
 he meditates on them because he has loved them,” 
 and delights in them ‘‘as in all riches,’’ 7* ‘‘as one 
 that hath found great spoil.’’ °° 
 
 The Temple was the pride, the boast, the joy, 
 of the whole people and of each individual Is- 
 raelite. How exuberantly this joy breaks out 
 in the well-known ‘‘ Psalms of the Temple!’’ We 
 must meditate upon them thoroughly, if we would 
 appreciate what a joyful place the Temple was 
 for the pious Israelite and how truly God there 
 fulfilled His promise made through the prophet; 
 ‘“‘T will bring them into my holy mount, and will 
 make them joyful in my house of prayer.’’* 
 The singing of the words, ‘‘We shall go into the 
 house of the Lord,’’** was a message of joy al- 
 ways, but particularly so on great festivals. A 
 special law ordained that there should then be 
 rejoicing and feasting.> The Feast of the Tab- 
 ernacles was celebrated for seven days.*® The 
 climax of this feast was the ceremony of drawing 
 the water. At the morning and evening sacrifice 
 the priest lifted some water out of the Pool of 
 Siloe in a golden pitcher, carried it through the 
 
 19y, 111. 28 Isaiag lvi, 7. 
 20y,. 47. 24 Psalms exxi, 1. 
 21iv. 14. 25 Deuteronomy xii, 7; xiv, 26. 
 
 22 vy. 162, 26 Deuteronomy xvi, 13. 
 
106 MORE JOY 
 
 Water Gate and poured it, mixed with wine, into 
 a basin at the altar, amid such general rejoicing 
 that the saying arose, ‘‘ He that hath not seen the 
 joy on the feast of the Drawing of Water hath 
 never seen any joy.’’ To this Our Savior re- 
 ferred, when He cried out: ‘‘If any man thirst, 
 let him come to me and drink!’’?*_ He thus re- 
 vealed Himself as the only one who can give the 
 living water of true joy. 
 
 The highest note of joy in the Old Testament 
 is struck by the prophets when they look away 
 from the guilt and misery of the present towards 
 the Messianic future and, with eyes enlightened 
 by the spirit of God, perceive the Redeemer and 
 the work of His grace. They cannot find images 
 and words exultant enough to express their de- 
 light and happiness. And certainly for every 
 faithful Israelite, the Messianic hope was the 
 Sweetest gift of joy in his life and a foretaste of 
 the joy of the New Testament. The purest and 
 most soulful echo of this joy in the Old Testa- 
 ment is, at the same time, its first echo in the 
 New: The Magnificat. 
 
 Let it be noted too, how the Old Testament 
 gives expression to an exultant love of nature in- 
 comparably superior to that of the classical peo- 
 
 27 St, John vii, 37. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 107 
 
 ples in depth and purity, as well as in spiritual 
 and poetic value. Radiant with the sunshine of 
 faith and the moonlight of Messianic hope, re- 
 vealing and reflecting the beauty and goodness 
 of the Creator, permeated with His breath, shar- 
 ing man’s expectation of the Messiah, nature 
 was infinitely closer to the Israelite than to the 
 pagan. To the former she had much more to 
 say. She shared his sorrow and his joy; and she 
 let him share in the joys which God bestowed 
 upon her, the luminous traces of His creative 
 Hand and His omnipresence. How close the 
 musical song-loving people of Israel kept to na- 
 ture, and what a kindly, cheering, sympathetic 
 mother and friend and dispenser of joy she was 
 to them, may best be seen in the constant personi- 
 fications of nature woven through the Psalms and 
 the Prophetic Books. 
 
 Even ‘‘Thabor and Hermon shall rejoice’’ in 
 the name of the Lord; ** ‘‘the fir-trees also have 
 rejoiced ...and the cedars of Libanus;’’* 
 ‘the hills shall be girded about with joy .. . and 
 the vales shall shout, yea, they shall sing.’ * 
 The heavens rejoice, the earth is glad, the sea 1s 
 moved, the fields are joyful, the trees of the woods 
 
 28 Psalms Ixxxviii, 13. 30 Psalms I\xiv, 13 f. 
 29 Isaias xiv, 8. 
 
108 MORE JOY 
 
 rejoice before the face of the Lord;?! the sun, 
 ‘fas a bridegroom coming out of his bride-cham- 
 ber, hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way.’’ *? 
 According to the prophet, ‘‘the land that was 
 desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the 
 wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like 
 the lily. It shall-bud forth and blossom, and 
 Shall rejoice with joy and praise; the glory of 
 Libanus is given to it; the beauty of Carmel, and 
 Saron, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and 
 the beauty of our God.’’?*? Thus nature too, 
 breathes the sunny warmth of joy in God and ra- 
 diates this joy forth again into the souls of the 
 faithful. 
 
 All in all, the people of God under the Old 
 Testament ought to have been joyful people. 
 And so they were, as long as apostasy and infi- 
 delity did not invalidate their claim. ‘Sing joy- 
 fully to God, all the earth: serve ye the Lord with 
 gladness. Come in before his presence with ex- 
 ceeding great joy,’’ °* was a recommendation then 
 in force. The exhortation: ‘‘Be glad in the 
 Lord, and rejoice, ye just, and glory, all ye right 
 of heart’’*’ is ever repeated. ‘And let the just 
 
 31 Psalms xev, 11f., 84 Psalms exix, 2. 
 
 82 Psalms xviii, 6. 35 Psalms xxxi, 11. 
 33 Isaias xxxv, 1 f. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 109 
 
 feast, and rejoice before God; and be delighted 
 with gladness.’’** In a time of great sadness 
 Nehemias exhorted the people: ‘‘Be not sad; 
 for the joy of the Lord is our strength.”’** Of 
 Tsrael, the Psalmist says: ‘‘ Happy is that peo- 
 ple whose God is the Lord’’** and again: 
 ‘‘Blessed is the people that knoweth jubilation. 
 They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy 
 countenance; and in thy name they shall rejoice 
 all the day, and in thy justice they shall be ex- 
 alted.’’ °° 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT AND JOY. 
 
 The New Testament is, of course, the Testa- 
 ment of joy in a far higher degree than the Old. 
 The New Testament is welcomed to earth by the 
 Virgin Mother, in her little home, with her heart’s 
 Magnificat, the most beautiful of Messianic 
 canticles, more holy and joyful than anything 
 since the days of Paradise. It is publicly an- 
 nounced by the angels on Christmas night as a 
 ‘Coreat joy that shall be to all the people.’’ ® 
 
 The bearer and the centre of New Testament 
 joy is the Messiah, the God-Man. Jesus and joy 
 
 —that, indeed, is a mystery of which it is hard to 
 
 86 Psalms Ixvii, 4. 39 Psalms Ixxxviii, 16 f. 
 37 IJ Esdras viii, 10. 40 St. Luke ii, 10. 
 38 Psalms exliii, 15. 
 
110 MORE JOY 
 
 speak. Who will fathom or measure the nature 
 and the depth of the God-Man’s joy? It is a 
 wonderful union of divine happiness,—insepa- 
 rable from His Person, never lost even in His 
 darkest hours,—with all the joy possible to a 
 pure, sinless, human heart. For He has become 
 hike unto us in all things, even in joy, and has 
 needed it and made use of it, just as food and 
 drink. 
 
 Even childish joy was not unknown to Him. 
 It radiated from His eyes to His mother and His 
 foster-father, to the shepherds and the three wise 
 men. It smiled up from His face at Simeon and 
 Anna, making their hearts rejoice. The eyes 
 and features of the Blessed Child of Nazareth 
 were illumined with a reflection both of divine 
 bliss and of a child’s holy happiness. True, the 
 shadow of Calvary and the Cross already lay over 
 his young life and upon the souls of Mary and 
 Joseph; and the foreknowledge, the anticipated 
 pain, of the passion was like a fiery garment 
 which the Redeemer wore from childhood. Yet 
 despite sadness, poverty, and want, despite dark 
 foreknowledge and tragic forebodings, the life 
 of the Holy Family was not wanting in those 
 joys which send their fragrance forth from the 
 homes of the poor to the good hearts round about. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 111 
 
 One of the apocryphal gospels relates that the 
 people of Nazareth gave the Child Jesus the name 
 of ‘‘Gentleness.’’ They had a saying, ‘“‘Let us 
 go to Gentleness, to become happy!’’ This is 
 perfectly credible; for in the sunshine of His 
 nature everything must have been illumined with 
 
 joy. 
 
 To Him even the thought of the passion was ~ 
 not mere pain, but also joy, something which He | 
 
 seized and embraced with joyful eagerness, with 
 
 nae 
 
 all the enthusiasm of a youth’s noble soul. What | 
 
 a garden of joy nature must have been to Him! 
 Never has the eye of any other youth looked upon 
 the life and growth of nature with so clear an 
 understanding, such deep-piercing keenness of 
 vision, so ardent alove. On Nazareth’s hills and 
 fields was woven into our Savior’s life a myste- 
 rious and peculiar relation to nature. In that re- 
 lation the love of the Creator who made all things 
 was combined with the love of the God-Man who 
 came to redeem even nature from the curse of 
 sin. We shall see how later, as a teacher, He 
 turned to good account what He had seen and ex- 
 perienced of nature in His early years. 
 Although His vocation to be Redeemer and 
 Victim weighed heavily upon Him during all His 
 public life and ministry; although His war with 
 
112 MORE JOY 
 
 the priests and the unbelieving Jews forced Him 
 to sharpen His revelations with threat and pun- 
 ishment and made His eyes flash wrath instead 
 of joy; and although, despite all the customary 
 kindliness and mildness of our Savior’s face, 
 there was never merriment or laughter there,— 
 yet His inner joy in God never left Him but was 
 always shining forth. ‘‘He that sent me is with 
 me, and He hath not left me alone.’’ 44 To offer 
 men the joys of truth and grace was His food. 
 ‘“‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent 
 me.’’ ** Whenever He found sensitive hearts, 
 He offered these gifts with all friendliness and 
 joyousness, 
 
 Unquestionably His disposition was anything 
 but forbidding and gloomy. If at one look and 
 one word of His, hard, rugged men left fishing- 
 nets and custom-house tables, homes and families, 
 to go after Him; if women left their households 
 to follow and serve Him; if the last of the 
 prophets leaped for joy at the sound of His 
 voice; ** if even the crowd round about, although 
 confused in mind and fickle of will, were yet at 
 times aroused to such enthusiasm as to want to 
 make Him king by force; if the children too, felt 
 
 41 8t. John viii, 29; xvi, 32. 48 St. John iii, 29. 
 42 §t, John iv, 34. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 113 
 
 drawn to Him and pressed about Him,—all this 
 leads us to conclude that the power of attracting, 
 like the power of healing, which went out from 
 Him, was essentially a power of joy, of that joy 
 which is the fragrance and the aroma of love. 
 No gloomy pessimism can be perceived in His 
 doctrine or His work. He fulfilled the proph- 
 ecy: ‘He shall not be sad, nor troublesome.’’ * 
 He is the heavenly sower who steps across the 
 fields, alert, hopeful, happy, sowing the seed with 
 an arm that swings wide and free. He likes best 
 to tarry in the lovely country by the Lake of 
 Genesareth. When He wishes to be alone, He 
 climbs to the mountain heights, as if to breathe 
 the air of home. With that joy in nature already 
 noted, He gathers His parables and figures from 
 the fields and hills, or draws them from His sur- 
 roundings. Generally, a quiet, peaceful cheer- 
 fulness pervades His parables and His little 
 sketches and descriptions of nature and of human 
 life. He does not, like the prophets, select the 
 majestic scenes, the mighty phenomena, the ca- 
 tastrophes, the thunderous voices of nature. He 
 chooses the quiet, small, ordinary, simple, 
 friendly things. The hen and her chickens, the 
 birds that fly care-free from branch to branch, 
 
 44 Isaias xlii, 4. 
 
114 MORE JOY 
 
 the lilies in their splendid garments, the mustard- 
 tree with its feathered tenants, the reeds of the 
 Jordan, the pearls of the sea, the simple dove and 
 the prudent serpent, the field with soil so vary- 
 ing, the growing of the grain, ‘‘first the blade, 
 then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the 
 ear,’’*° the vine laden with precious fruit, or 
 bleeding from the sharp knife of the vine- 
 dresser: just such plain, little, unnoticed, nat- 
 ural objects are, in His opinion, best adapted 
 to be figures of what is supreme and eternal. 
 Thus in the ‘‘Our Father’’ He fills the simplest 
 words with the weightiest content; and, in the 
 Kucharist, He hides His own nature in the plain 
 form of bread. 
 
 His reverent treatment of nature, His associ- 
 ating of nature in the teaching of eternal truth, 
 and the immediate service of God and the work 
 of salvation, has again taught men reverence for 
 nature and enjoyment of nature even in its in- 
 Significant and common forms. It has awak- 
 ened the Christian love of nature, unlocked a 
 thousand sources of joy, and infinitely enriched 
 the joy content of the ordinary life. Here again 
 we See the proof that Christ is not the negation 
 but the supreme affirmation of life. In Him is 
 not ‘*Yea and Nay,’’ but only ‘‘Yea.’’ * 
 
 45 §t. Mark iv, 28. 48 IT Corinthians i, 19. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 115 
 
 How happy and full of joy was our Savior’s 
 association with His disciples! It is significant 
 that His first journey in their company was to a 
 wedding, and that at a wedding He performed 
 His first miracle. The Messiah is certainly no 
 foe of happiness, but rather the one to whom men 
 may venture to apply when the wine of joy gives 
 out. Instead of the water of merely natural joy, 
 which only pleases the palate, He bestows the 
 wine of that higher joy which infuses new life 
 into the whole being; and the Virgin Mother 
 too, graciously appears as mediatrix of Joy. 
 When defending His disciples against the phar- 
 isaical reproach of not fasting, Our Savior com- 
 pares His life and theirs to a wedding: ‘‘Can 
 the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as 
 the bridegroom is with them? But the days will 
 come when the bridegroom shall be taken away 
 from them, and then they shall fast.’’ 
 
 How His eyes must have brightened when, at 
 the return of the disciples from their first mis- 
 Sion journey, ‘‘He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost, 
 and said: I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of 
 heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden these 
 things from the wise and prudent, and hast re- 
 vealed them to little ones. Yea, Father, for so 
 
 47 §t. Matthew ix, 15. 
 
116 MORE JOY 
 
 it hath seemed good in thy sight.’’ ** Then, for 
 the first time, the disciples must have rejoiced in 
 their innermost souls at their holy vocation. 
 True, only three chosen ones enjoyed the happi- 
 ness of Tabor, and it passed quickly despite 
 Peter’s attempt to prolong it. Yet all the dis- 
 ciples were permanently partners in His Joy. 
 In the final hours of their life together, He 
 comforts them, before His passion: ‘‘Let not 
 your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.’’ * 
 He promises that their sorrow shall be changed 
 into joy and speaks certain things to them, ‘‘that 
 my joy may be in you, and your joy may be 
 filled.’’?°° He prays ‘‘that they may have my 
 joy filled in themselves.’’° The forty days after 
 Easter were a real May-time, a lovely spring; 
 and in the hearts of the disciples, a joy then 
 ripened which, through the descent of the Holy 
 Ghost, became their inalienable possession. 
 The joy of salvation; the joy of the Savior, 
 whether bleeding in victorious battle against the 
 legions of evil, or risen again amid Easter 
 Alleluias, or gloriously ascended to Heaven and 
 reigning there; the joy of the Holy Ghost; the 
 vision of perfect future joy, the reward of 
 
 48 St. Luke x, 21. 50 St. John xv, 11. 
 49 St. John xiv, 27. 61 St. John xvii, 13. 
 
JOY AND HOLY SCRIPTURE 117 
 
 heaven *?—all this remained as a precious legacy 
 to the disciples, and has become the portion of 
 everyone who is united to the Savior in faith and 
 love. The inner experience of the Apostle tes- 
 tifies that ‘‘the Kingdom of God is not meat and 
 drink; but justice and peace and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost.’’°? He names joy second among the 
 fruits of the spirit.°* He proclaims as the Chris- 
 tian law of life: ‘‘Rejoice in the Lord always; 
 again, I say, rejoice,’’°® and, ‘‘Let the peace of 
 Christ rejoice in your hearts.’’°* When the first 
 Christian communities were organized, ‘‘break- 
 ing bread from house to house, they took their 
 meat with gladness and simplicity of heart.’’ 
 All the trouble, danger and affliction which came 
 upon the Christians in times of persecution 
 could not cause anything more than a quasi-sad- 
 ness in the midst of real permanent joy, ‘‘as 
 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.’’** During 
 centuries of the most frightful and bloody per- 
 secution, amid pain and torment, in flames and 
 funeral-pyres, in rackings and scourgings, in 
 the darkest depths of dungeons, this indestruct- 
 ible joy has always kept up its exultant song. 
 
 52 §t. Matthew xxv, 21; I St. Peter i, 6-8. 
 
 53 Romans xiv, 17. 56 Colossians iii, 15. 
 
 54 Galatians v, 22. 57 Acts ii, 46. 
 
 55 Philippuns iv, 4. 58 II Corinthians vi, 10. 
 
XI 
 JOY AND HOLINESS 
 
 The halo, that mark of particular honor with 
 which art adorns the heads of the saints, is a 
 symbol of their heavenly glory; but it also re- 
 minds us of the halo of joyousness and kindliness 
 encircling their features even during mortal 
 life. It is because of an utter misunderstanding 
 that worldlings are unable to conceive of a saint 
 without the attributes of sadness, pessimism and 
 melancholy. As a matter of fact, the essential 
 characteristic of a saint is joyfulness. 
 
 In old legends, and occasionally in life, we 
 meet with ‘‘whimsical saints’’; but, either they 
 are not saints at all, or else their oddity has a 
 gracious side. In no case should unfriendly, 
 ill-tempered oddity be adinired or imitated. 
 The saints themselves have spoken very 
 strongly against melancholy gloom. St. Fran- 
 cis of Assisi, calls it the Babylonian malady, 
 and St. Catherine of Siena, says that it is brought 
 
 on by Satan who, when he sees that he cannot 
 118 
 
JOY AND HOLINESS 119 
 
 tempt the soul to sensuality, which destroys con- 
 stancy, and renders the heart narrow, weak and 
 cowardly, endeavors to excite trouble, disgust, 
 sadness and scruples of conscience. M. Ohier 
 says that sadness inclines the soul to desire sen- 
 sible consolations which, although they appear to 
 come from God, are in reality born of sensuality 
 and self-deception. St. Teresa tells us plainly: 
 “T fear nothing so much as to see my daughters 
 lose this joy of the soul, for I know, to my cost, 
 what a discontented religious is like.’’* 
 
 It cannot be expected or required that this 
 cheerful, friendly quality should be equally 
 prominent and attractive in the lives of all the 
 saints. Natural disposition, temperament, and 
 the like, play an important part. But joy can 
 never be entirely lacking in any real saint, even 1n 
 the most austere ascetic or the strictest preacher 
 of penance. It comes into view like the first ray 
 or fore-gleam of the saintly halo and the heavenly 
 glory. In this respect, too, the saints must show 
 themselves to be the disciples and the images of 
 Christ, so that ‘‘the goodness and kindness of 
 God our Savior’’? may appear in them as it 
 
 1Henri Joly, The Psychology of the Saimts, English Translation, 
 
 London and New York, 1902, p. 173. 
 2 Titus iii, 4. 
 
Leo MORE JOY 
 
 appeared in His own human nature. An essen- 
 tial element of holiness, therefore, is the hearty, 
 practical, tireless effort to give joy to others, to 
 comfort the afflicted, and to throw sunshine upon 
 every need of body and soul. This beneficent 
 external activity makes the saints look like 
 ‘‘royal administrators of affairs.”’ 
 
 Fundamentally, holiness cannot mean any- 
 thing else but a reshaping and uplifting of 
 earthly life into life with God, in God, for God,— 
 true and real, although always imperfect and 
 subject to earthly limitations. It is effected by 
 means of permanent attention to God’s pres- 
 ence, constant performance of His will, and 
 steady intercourse with Him in prayer. With 
 it comes a true and real, even though imperfect, 
 participation in God’s glory and blessedness, and 
 an inflowing and overflowing of these into the hu- 
 man heart and life, not in a full stream, but drop 
 by drop. The result is that wonderful gentle- 
 ness and patience, that peace and steadfastness, 
 that uniform joyousness, that permanent, even 
 temper and disposition, which shines out of the 
 eyes, lights up the face, puts music in the voice, 
 and, like a bright blue sky, stretches over the 
 whole of life, imparting joy to everyone. 
 
 Thus happiness and holiness go together. St. 
 
JOY AND HOLINESS 121 
 
 Augustine* teaches that the greatest possible 
 happiness comes from the possession of truth. 
 St. Catherine of Siena represents God as utter- 
 ing the following words with regard to souls that 
 have arrived at perfection: ‘‘. . . Then this soul 
 chants a delightful canticle, playing 1ts own ac- 
 companiment upon an instrument whose strings 
 have been so well tuned by prudence that they 
 give out a holy harmony to the glory and honor 
 of My name. .. . The perfect are pleasing even 
 to the world itself, whether it will or not; for the 
 wicked cannot keep from hearing the sweetness 
 of this harmony. Many even are so captivated 
 by it that they abandon death to return to life. 
 All of My saints have thus captivated souls. 
 This harmony was first heard when My Well- 
 Beloved Word, clothing Himself with your hu- 
 manity and uniting it to His Divinity, gave forth 
 from the Cross this ineffable music which capti- 
 vated the human race. .. . All of you who pro- 
 duce these harmonies are the disciples of this 
 Good Master. It is by means of His sweet 
 melody that the glorious Apostles captivated so 
 many souls when all over the world they sowed 
 this word which they had learned from My Well- 
 Beloved Son. It is to the same harmony that 
 3 De Lib. Arbitr. L. II, ec. 13, n. 35. 
 
122 MORE JOY 
 
 the martyrs, the confessors, the doctors, and the 
 virgins owe the same victories.’’ * 
 
 ‘The characteristic of all those who have at- 
 tained to perfect love of God, is an exceptional 
 and imperturbable happiness, a cheerfulness so 
 surprising, so permanent, so frank and childlike, 
 that the prejudiced children of this world are 
 tempted to get vexed at it.... Whoever en- 
 counters souls of this kind, perceives from their 
 very appearance that their condition does not de- 
 pend on the world around them but originates in 
 their own spiritual depths. Their minds are 
 not easily upset by storms, for their lives are 
 built upon God who is inaccessible to the dis- 
 turbing influence of the elements. They have 
 naught to fear from God; they are at peace with 
 themselves. Why then, should they not be 
 happy 9 978 
 
 The legends and biographies of many saints 
 draw especial attention to their brighter side and 
 record telling instances of their joyousness and 
 friendliness. We are now going to construct a 
 little garden of joy out of short selections from 
 these. 
 
 4 Dialogue de Sainte Catherine de Sienne, traduit de L’Italien par 
 E. Cartier, Paris, 1855, c. 147. 
 
 5 Weiss, Apologie, III2 831. Cf. S. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., 
 2a, 2%, q. 28, a. 1. 
 
OE 
 A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 
 
 At the head of this list of saints must be placed 
 the one whom we reverence particularly as Queen 
 of All Saints. When, with the Church, we greet 
 Mary as ‘‘Cause of our Joy’’ and ‘‘Comforter 
 of the Afflicted,’’ this is no exaggeration; we are 
 simply saying what to us is perfectly clear and 
 true. From the very fact of her absolute sinless- 
 ness, and her dignity as Mother of God, we may 
 deduce her possession of the most wonderful kind 
 of joy. Like a crystal fountain, springing out of 
 unfathomed depths, the Magnificat rises jubilant 
 to heaven. That Mary is also ‘‘Mother Most 
 Sorrowful,’’ in no way lessens her joy; it only 
 renders her all the more capable of being ‘*Com- 
 forter of the Afflicted’? and ‘‘Cause of Joy’’ to 
 poor mankind. ‘The many delicate, pure, warm 
 joys woven into the Christian’s life through 
 childlike intercourse with our Blessed Mother 
 cannot be imagined by one who neither knows nor 
 cares anything about her. 
 
 * 
 123 
 
124 MORE JOY 
 
 Note the counsel of the Shepherd of Hermas 
 in the second century.? 
 
 ‘Put away,’’ said he, ‘‘grief from yourself, 
 for this is a sister of doubt and bitterness... . 
 Do you not perceive that grief is more evil than 
 all the spirits, and is most terrible to the servants 
 of God, and corrupts man beyond ail the spirits, 
 and wears out the Holy Spirit? ... Therefore 
 put on joyfulness, which always is agreeable and 
 acceptable to God, and rejoice in it. For every 
 cheerful man does good deeds and has good 
 thoughts, and despises grief; but the mournful 
 man always acts wickedly. . . . Cleanse yourself 
 from this wicked grief, and you shall live to God; 
 and all shall live to God who cast away from 
 themselves grief and put on all joyfulness.”’ 
 
 * 
 
 Speaking of the solitaries of the Egyptian 
 Thebaid, Rufinus tells us: ‘‘They were always 
 cheerful and full of such spiritual joy as few have 
 experienced upon earth. None was sad, and if 
 one ever appeared so, at once the holy Abbot 
 Apollonius asked for the cause. He often told 
 them that a man who placed his salvation in God 
 and his hope in heaven could not be sad. Pagans 
 
 1 Mand. x, 2, 3. English translation by Kirsopp Lake, The Apos- 
 tolic Fathers, vol. II, London and New York, 1913, pp. 115 f. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 125 
 
 might have cause to mourn, Jews to weep and 
 lament, sinners to be troubled; but the just should 
 be glad and cheerful.’’ Salvation in God and 
 hope in heaven! It would be impossible to sum 
 up more concisely the main sources of Christian 
 ~ cheerfulness. 
 
 The same St. Apollonius, who founded a mon- 
 astery of five hundred monks near Heliopolis, 
 often spoke of the dangerous consequences of 
 sadness and recommended that spiritual joy 
 which must be joined with the tears of penance, 
 —the joy which springs from love and without 
 which the glow of devotion in the soul is soon ex- 
 tinguished. He himself possessed this joyous- 
 ness in the highest degree, and his look of glad- 
 ness was the sign by which strangers recognized 
 him. How much pedagogical wisdom and what 
 a sound conception of true penance and true piety 
 his recommendation shows. The stronger and 
 truer our sorrow for sin, the more necessary and 
 the better justified will be our cheerfulness born 
 of the love of God. 
 
 Even in the last hours of his extremely morti- 
 fied life, St. Pachomius displayed the same radi- 
 ant features, the same gay, cheerful look that 
 were habitual with him. And concerning a soli- 
 tary of the Scythian Desert, we read that, even 
 
126 MORE JOY 
 
 after his brethren supposed him to be already 
 dead, he opened his mouth again and thrice 
 laughed heartily for joy at having lived and died 
 as God had appointed for him.? 
 
 St. Anthony the Great, called ‘‘Star of the 
 Desert’’ and ‘‘Father of Monks,’’ who died 
 about 356 A.D., at the age of one hundred 
 and five years, is represented by his biographer, 
 St. Athanasius, as so cheerful looking, that 
 strangers could always recognize him even in a 
 crowd.® 
 
 % 
 
 St. Basil the Great (+ 379 A. D.), according 
 to St. Gregory Nazianzen, lived so ascetic a life 
 that he was without flesh and almost without 
 blood; and, in his own words, he no longer 
 had a body. Yet he was far from being 
 sad or melancholy. His gentleness and pa- 
 tience were literally inexhaustible. His un- 
 varying mildness amazed the pagan Libanius. 
 When the Prefect Modestus tried to force him 
 into communion with the Arians by menacing 
 him with confiscation, banishment, torture, and 
 death, and Basil only despised these threats, the 
 Prefect said: ‘‘No one has ever before spoken 
 
 2 Weiss, Apologie, III 2 835. 
 8 Vita 8. Antoniti M, Acta Sanctorum, die XVII, Ian., ec. xvi, n. 89. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE § 127 
 
 so boldly to Modestus.’’ St. Basil answered: 
 ‘*Perhaps you have never before had to deal with 
 a Christian Bishop. Usually we Bishops are 
 the mildest of all men; but when religion is at 
 stake, we have God alone before our eyes and de- 
 Spise everything else; fire, sword, wild beasts, 
 iron tongs, then become a delight to us.”’ 
 
 In St. Martin, Bishop of Tours (+ about 400 
 A. D.), the faith and the power of Eliseus seemed 
 to be renewed. His uninterrupted communion 
 with God in prayer was no hindrance to his avail- 
 ing himself of every opportunity to make jokes 
 that were both amusing and edifying.’ 
 
 % 
 
 Among the writings of St. Chrysostom (+ 407 
 A.D.) are seventeen letters to the deaconess 
 Olympia. This noble and cultured virgin ex- 
 perienced great depression and sadness, not only 
 because of her own great sufferings and persecu- 
 tions, but much more because of the frightful 
 storms that had broken upon the Church and her 
 spiritual father Chrysostom. In these letters, 
 written by the Saint amid the unspeakable suf- 
 ferings and privations of exile and during, or 
 after, severe illness, he labors with tireless pa- 
 
 4Sulpic. Sever., Dial. II, 10. 
 
128 MORE JOY 
 
 tience and perseverance to heal her troubled soul. 
 He strives to deliver her from sadness, which is 
 a grave malady of souls, an inexpressible tor- 
 ment, a worm-gnawing at the mind, a secret 
 fever, worse than the cruelest tyrant; and also to 
 inspire her with deep, abiding cheerfulness.’ 
 He never tires of repeating that piety depends 
 less upon external circumstances than upon one’s 
 attitude of mind. Nothing could be more touch- 
 ing than the way in which from Christian teach- 
 ings, the example of our Savior and the Apostles, 
 and his own pains and trials, he prepares a balm 
 which with soft, tender hands he lays upon the 
 wounded spirit. Then again, with the sternness 
 of a physician, he reproves Olympia for having 
 pleased the devil by fostering sadness and gloom- 
 iness.° And finally he sings triumphantly of 
 victory over sadness which has been conquered 
 by joy. 
 
 How harmful sadness is and how necessary joy 
 is to the Christian, has hardly ever been more 
 emphatically declared and more thoroughly ex- 
 plained than in these touching letters whose 
 power to console and gladden can be tested by 
 
 many a sick soul even to-day. 
 *% 
 
 5 Letters, 3, n. 2. 6 Letters, 14, n. 4. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 129 
 
 St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola (+ 431), united 
 to his keen practical wisdom a charming spright- 
 liness which enchanted everyone acquainted with 
 him and even now smiles out at us from his writ- 
 
 ings. 
 ee 
 
 St. Deicolus, born in Ireland in the sixth cen- 
 tury, was a disciple of St. Columba, whom he ac- 
 companied to England and France. He became 
 Abbot of the Monastery of Ltiders. It is said 
 that the holy joy of his soul was reflected so 
 brightly in his face that it affected all who saw 
 him. Even his teacher and master, Columba, 
 wondered and once asked him how it happened 
 that he was always so cheerful and contented. 
 Deicolus answered simply: ‘‘It comes from the 
 thought that nothing can rob me of my God.’’ 
 Thus he indicated plainly and profoundly the 
 source of his joy, the foundation of his constancy 
 and unfailing confidence. 
 
 * 
 
 Of St. Romuald (+ 1027), the founder of the 
 austere order of Camaldoli, his biographer, St. 
 Peter Damian, says, in old age his cheerfulness 
 still remained so simple and childlike that no one, 
 even those whose hearts were full of bitterness, 
 
130 MORE JOY 
 
 could see him without being joyfully dis- 
 posed. 
 & 
 
 It is said of St. Bernard (1091-1153) that his 
 inexpressible sweetness gave his extremely pale 
 and emaciated features an angelic beauty which 
 attracted everybody and greatly contributed to 
 his extraordinary popularity. He used to de- 
 clare that nothing could ever be done by men who 
 did not guide others in the spirit of kindness. 
 According to Mohler, his writings of convincing 
 clearness, of finished form, of melodious and 
 fascinating eloquence, flowed from his soul like 
 a limpid stream to refresh and heal. They 
 seemed to be an emanation of his own spiritual 
 power and sweetness. A bishop has said that 
 kindness, if able to preach sermons or write 
 books, would express itself just like St. Bern- 
 ard. He loved nature and used to learn from 
 the earth, the trees, the fields, the flowers and the 
 grass. ‘Believe one who has tried,’’ he writes, 
 ‘‘vou Shall find a fuller satisfaction in the woods 
 than in books. The trees and the rocks will 
 teach you that which you cannot hear from mas- 
 ters.77.* 
 
 7Letter 106. Life and Works of St. Bernard (ed. Mabillon), 
 Translated by Samuel J. Earles, London, 1889. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE § 131 
 
 His kindness extended even to brute beasts. 
 At sight of a hare chased by hounds, or of a poor 
 little bird pursued by birds of prey, his heart 
 grew heavy. He could not keep from making 
 the sign of the cross in the air to rescue the in- 
 nocent little creatures, and his blessing always 
 brought them good fortune. He used to say, ‘‘If 
 mercy were a sin, I believe I could not keep from 
 committing it.’’ 
 
 ¥ 
 
 St. Dominic (1170-1221), amid his apostolic 
 labors, manifested so imperturbable a cheerful- 
 ness that all believed they saw a heavenly ra- 
 diance upon his face. The day he dedicated to 
 joy; for the night he kept the tears and flagel- 
 lations with which he besought God’s mercy upon 
 the misery of the world. 
 
 * 
 
 How could anyone speak of holy joy and of 
 the joy of the holy, without knowing and naming 
 St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), poor ‘‘ Brother 
 Hver-Glad,’’ master of joy, and especially of joy 
 in suffering, the one whom a non-Catholic ® has 
 recently called the most fortunate man that ever 
 lived, the true ‘‘ Happy Hans’’! His joyfulness 
 
 8 Julius Hart in the Berlin Tag, 1905, Nr. 627. 
 
132 MORE JOY 
 
 was a natural gift. Hven before his conversion, 
 when during the war against Perugia, he spent 
 a year in prison, he astonished his companions 
 with his constant cheerfulness and incessant sing- 
 ing. Throughout his life of poverty and exter- 
 nal hardship he was always rich in joy. For 
 him the strains of pain and joy commingled; yea, 
 the deepest pain to him was a source of the high- 
 est joy. He himself affirmed this in a remark- 
 able dialogue with Brother Leo which we here 
 insert. 
 
 “One day, as St. Francis was going with 
 Brother Leo from Perugia to Santa Maria degli 
 Angioli, in the winter, and suffering a great deal 
 from the cold, he called to Brother Leo, who 
 was walking on before him, and said to him: 
 ‘Brother Leo, if it were to please God that the 
 Brothers Minor should give, in all lands, a great 
 example of holiness and edification, write down, 
 and carefully observe, that this would not be a 
 cause for perfect joy.’ <A little farther on, St. 
 Francis called to him a second time: ‘O Brother 
 Leo, if the Brothers Minor were to make the lame 
 to walk, if they could make straight the crooked, 
 chase away demons, restore sight to the blind, 
 give hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and, 
 what is even a far greater work, raise the dead 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 133 
 
 after four days, write that this would not be a 
 cause for perfect joy.’ Shortly after, he cried 
 out again: ‘O Brother Leo, if the Brothers Minor 
 knew all languages; if they were versed in all 
 science; if they could explain all Scriptures; if 
 they had the gift of prophecy, and could reveal, 
 not only all future things, but likewise the se- 
 crets of all consciences and all souls, write that 
 this would not be a cause for perfect joy.’ After 
 proceeding a few steps farther, he cried out again 
 with a loud voice: ‘O Brother Leo, little Lamb 
 of God! if the Brothers Minor could speak with 
 the tongues of angels; if they could explain the 
 course of the stars; if they knew the virtues of 
 all plants; if all the treasures of the earth were 
 revealed to them; if they were acquainted with 
 the various qualities of all birds, of all fish, of all 
 animals, of men, of trees, of stones, of roots, and 
 of waters,—write that this would not be a cause 
 for perfect joy.’ Shortly after, he cried out 
 again: ‘O Brother Leo, if the Brothers Minor 
 had the gift of preaching so as to convert all 
 infidels to the faith of Christ, write that this 
 would not be a cause for perfect joy.’ Now this 
 discourse having lasted for the space of two 
 miles, Brother Leo wondered much within him- 
 self; and, questioning the saint, he said: 
 
134 MORE JOY 
 
 ‘Father, I pray thee teach me where to find cause 
 for perfect joy.’ St. Francis answered: Ef, 
 when we shall arrive at Santa Maria degli An- 
 gioli, all drenched with rain and trembling with 
 cold, all covered with mud and exhausted from 
 hunger; if, when we knock at the convent-gate, 
 the porter should come angrily and ask us who 
 we are; 1f, after we have told him that we are two 
 of his brothers, he should answer angrily, ‘“What 
 you say is not the truth; you are but two impos- 
 tors going about to deceive the world, and take 
 the alms of the poor; begone I say ;’’ if he refuses 
 to open to us, and leaves us outside, exposed to 
 the snow and rain, suffering from cold and hun- 
 ger till night arrives,—then, if we accept such 
 injustice, such cruelty, and such contempt with 
 patience, without being ruffled, and without mur- 
 muring, believing with humility and charity that 
 the porter really knows us, and that it is God who 
 makes him speak thus against us,—O Brother 
 Leo, write down that this is a cause for perfect 
 joy. And if we knock again, and the porter 
 comes out in anger to send us away, as if we were 
 vile impostors, with oaths and blows, and saying, 
 ‘‘Begone, miserable robbers! go to the hospital, 
 for you shall neither eat nor sleep here!’’; if he 
 takes hold of a knotted stick, and, seizing us by 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 135 
 
 the cowl, throws us on the ground; if we bear 
 all these injuries with patience and joy, thinking 
 of the sufferings of our blessed Lord, O Brother 
 Leo, write that here, finally is cause for perfect 
 joy. And now, Brother, listen to the conclusion. 
 Above all the graces and all the gifts of the Holy 
 Spirit which Christ grants to His friends, is the 
 grace of overcoming oneself, and accepting will- 
 ingly, out of love to Christ, sufferings, injuries, 
 discomforts, and contempt.’ ’’® 
 
 Constant cheerfulness and friendliness in God 
 were in fact the chief characteristics of St. Fran- 
 cis and the main sources of his influence. 
 
 * 10 
 
 Francis cried out: ‘‘We Friars, Minor, 
 what are we other than God’s singers and play- 
 ers, who seek to draw hearts upwards and to fill 
 them with spiritual joy?’’ To play good people 
 into heaven, to sing before every one’s door about 
 the beauty and delight of serving the Lord—this 
 Francis had tried personally in Assisi, and he 
 
 9 The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi, English Translation, 
 London, 1887, ch. viii. 
 
 10The rest of the description down to page 149 is not from 
 Bishop Keppler’s text, but is a series of passages quoted directly 
 from the English translation of a source upon which he largely de- 
 pends, Saint Francis of Assisi; A Biography, by Johannes Jérgen- 
 sen. Translated from the Danish by T. O’Conor Sloane, Longmans, 
 Green, & Co., New York and London, 1913, passim, pp. 178-333. (Tr.) 
 
136 MORE JOY 
 
 assigned the same troubadour’s ways to his 
 Brothers. ‘‘Do you not know, dearest Brother,’’ 
 he asked Brother Giles, ‘‘that holy contrition 
 and holy humility and holy charity and holy joy 
 make the soul good and happy?’’ There were 
 many who in St. Francis of Assisi’s time did not 
 know this, and therefore God’s singers, jocula- 
 tores Dei, went out into the world to sing this 
 into the hearts of men. 
 
 Francis’ work as lawgiver was only occasional. 
 At a Chapter it was told him that many of the 
 Brothers tormented themselves with penitential 
 shirts, iron rings and the like on the naked body. 
 He forbade at once the use of such ascetic things 
 by the Brothers. Another time he had the fol- 
 lowing regulation put into writing: ‘‘Let the 
 Brothers take care that they do not present the 
 appearance of hypocrites, with dark and east- 
 down mien, but that they show themselves glad 
 in the Lord, cheerful and worthy of love, and 
 agreeable.”’ 
 
 Against such and all other trials and tempta- 
 tions Francis over and over again advised his 
 Brothers to use three remedies—the first was 
 prayer, the second was obedience, such that one 
 willingly did another’s will, the third was the 
 evangelical joy in the Lord, which drives away 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE § 137 
 
 all evil and dark thoughts. In these three pre- 
 cepts Francis set the best example to his Broth- 
 ers. 
 
 The third means for obtaining peace, which 
 Francis pointed out to his disciples, was constant 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 ‘Let those who belong to the devil hang their 
 heads—we ought to be glad and rejoice in the 
 Lord,’’ said he. Melancholy was ‘‘the sin of 
 Babylon,’’ because it led back to the abandoned 
 Babylon of the world. ‘‘When the soul is 
 troubled, lonely and darkened, then it turns easily 
 to the outer comfort. and to the empty enjoyments 
 of the world.’’ Therefore Francis repeated over 
 and over again the words of the Apostle: ‘'Re- 
 joice always!’’ He never wanted to see dark 
 faces or sour visages—his Brothers should not be 
 mournful hypocrites, but glad children of light. 
 To those who asked how this was possible, he an- 
 swered, ‘‘Spiritual joy arises from purity of the 
 heart and perseverance in prayer!’’ Only sin 
 and torpidity are able to extinguish or darken the 
 light in the heart. ‘*‘When the soul is cold,”’ said 
 Francis, ‘‘and gradually becomes untrue to grace, 
 then it must be flesh and blood that are seeking 
 their own!”’ 
 
 In recompense for this complete renunciation, 
 
138 MORE JOY 
 
 Francis accepted also perfect joy. There were 
 times and hours when there was a perfect song 
 within his soul, and he would begin at last to hum 
 the melody he heard within himself, hum it in 
 French as in the old days when he went out with 
 Brother Giles to announce the Gospel. Clearer 
 and clearer would the melody sound to him, and 
 stronger and stronger did it rise in him,— 
 next he would snatch up a couple of pieces of 
 wood or two boughs, place one to his chin as if it 
 were a violin, and draw the other one across it 
 as the bow is used in playing the violin. Louder 
 and louder would he sing, more and more ea- 
 gerly did he carry out his imitation playing 
 whose melody none but himself could hear, while 
 he rhythmically rocked his body back and forth 
 with the tune. Finally his feelings would over- 
 come him, and letting the violin and bow fall he 
 would burst into scalding tears, and sink into his 
 Own soul as into a great wave. 
 
 On the thirtieth of September, Francis with 
 Brother Leo left Mount Alverna ... heard 
 Mass early in the morning with his Brothers in 
 the little chapel, and gave them a last admonition. 
 Then he took leave of each one in turn—of 
 Masseo, Angelo, Silvestro, Illuminato. ‘‘Live 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 189 
 
 in peace, dearest sons, and farewell! My body is 
 to be separated from you, but my heart remains 
 with you. I go forth with Brother Little Lamb 
 of God to Portiuncula, and I come back here no 
 more! Farewell, Sacred Mountain: farewell, 
 Mount Alverna: farewell, thou Angel Mountain! 
 Farewell, dearest Brother Falcon, who used to 
 wake me with thy screams, thanks for thy care of 
 me! Farewell, thou great stone, beneath which 
 I used to pray; thee I shall see no more! Fare- 
 well, Santa Maria’s Church—to thee, Mother of 
 Eternal Word, I commend these my sons.’’ 
 Whilst the Brothers who remained behind broke 
 into lamentations, Francis went forth for the last 
 time from the mountain, where so great a thing 
 had befallen him. . . . He stopped on the top of 
 Mount Casella, whence the last view of La Verna 
 is to be had, and he dismounted and knelt down. 
 And with his glance directed to the distant La 
 Verna, that far away lifted its ridge up under 
 the heavy autumn clouds, he made the sign of the 
 Cross over it and broke out into a last farewell, 
 a last thanksgiving and a last blessing. 
 ‘‘Marewell, thou mountain of God, thou holy 
 mountain, Mons coagulatus, mons pinguts, mons 
 in quo beneplacitum est Deo habitare! Farewell, 
 
140 MORE JOY 
 
 Mount Alverna God the Father, God the Son, 
 God the Holy Ghost, bless thee. Live in peace, 
 but I shall never see thee more.’’ 
 
 It was in the summer of 1225, and the blinding 
 Italian sun had evidently been bad for Francis’ 
 eyes. or a time he was quite blind and was in- 
 cidentally plagued by a swarm of field mice, who 
 probably had their home in the straw walls of the 
 hut, and who eventually ran over his face, so that 
 he had no peace by day or night. Apparently 
 never before had Francis been more depressed 
 and unfortunate. And yet it was precisely in 
 this wretched sickness, in the midst of the dark- 
 ness of blindness and of the plague of mice, that 
 he composed his wonderful masterpiece, Canti- 
 cum fratris solis, the Canticle of our Brother 
 Sun. 
 
 To understand the Sun Song we must under- 
 stand Francis’ relations to nature. N othing 
 would be more unjust than to call him a pantheist. 
 He never confounded himself or God with na- 
 ture, and the pantheist’s alternations of wild or- 
 gies and pessimistic melancholy was quite foreign 
 tohim. Francis never, like Shelley, wished to be 
 one with the universe; neither did he, with Wer- 
 ther or Turgenieff, shudder as feeling himself 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 141 
 
 abandoned to the blind inevitableness of things 
 and to nature’s ‘‘everlastingly ruminating mon- 
 sters.’’ Trancis’ standpoint as to the conception 
 of nature is entirely and only the first article of 
 faith—he believed in a Father who was also a 
 creator. 
 
 And out of this common relationship with the 
 one and same Father he saw in all living beings, 
 yes, in all that is created, only brothers and sis- 
 ters. In the kingdom of the heavenly Father 
 there are many mansions, but only one family. 
 This thought is not Greek, and is not German, it 
 is true Hebraic and therefore truly Christian. 
 The song of praise which Ananias, Azarias, and 
 Misael sang in the fiery furnace of the Babylon- 
 ian tyrant, and which has gone down to the 
 Church, as it were an inheritance from the syna- 
 gogue, contains the following: 
 
 **All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and 
 exalt him above all for ever. 
 
 O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye heavens, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the 
 Lord: 
 
 O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: ... 
 
142 MORE JOY 
 
 O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye fire and heat, bless the Lord: .. . 
 
 O ye cold and heat, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye ice and snow, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye nights and days, bless the Lord: .. . 
 
 O ye light and darkness, bless the Lord: .. . 
 
 O ye lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O let the earth bless the Lord; let it praise and exalt 
 him above all for ever. 
 
 O ye mountains and hills, bless the Lord: .. . 
 
 O all ye things that spring up in the earth, bless th 
 Borde 2) | 
 
 O ye fountains, bless the Lord: .. . 
 
 O ye seas and rivers, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless the 
 Bord; Wye. 
 
 O ye fowls of the air, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O all ye beasts and cattle, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye sons of men, bless the Lord: .. . 
 
 O let Israel bless the Lord: let them praise and exalt 
 him above all for ever. 
 
 O ye priests of the Lord, bless the Lord: . . . 
 
 O ye servants of the Lord, bless the Lord: . . . 
 
 O ye spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord: ... 
 
 O ye holy and humble of heart, bless the Lord: .. . 
 
 Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven, and worthy 
 of praise and exalted above for ever.’’ 
 
 There is no tone missing in this Symphony of 
 all creatures, where all sing together in the great 
 song of praise from cherubim to atom. Morning 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 143 
 
 after morning, year after year, Francis, alone 
 or with the Brothers, had sung out of their Bre- 
 viaries daily this hymn of all creatures to the 
 Creator. The poetry of it had won him early; 
 in 1213 he raised a little chapel between S. Gemini 
 and Porcaria, and had sentences such as these 
 painted on the antependium of the altar: ‘All 
 who fear the Lord, praise Him! Praise the 
 Lord, heaven and earth! Praise Him, all riv- 
 ers! All creatures, praise the Lord! All birds 
 of heaven, praise the Lord!’’ Francis’ preach- 
 ing to the birds at Bevagna is based on the same 
 ideas: the birds are obliged to praise and bless 
 their good Creator, who has cared so well for 
 them; for all beings it is undoubted happiness to 
 exist, and it is their simple, filial duty to thank 
 their Father for life. 
 
 Francis’ feelings about nature gave him a pre- 
 dilection for all that justified such an optimism. 
 He turned with special joy to all the lightsome, 
 beautiful and bright in his surroundings—to the 
 light and fire, the pure running water, flowers and 
 birds. This feeling about nature was half sym- 
 bolic—Francis loved the water because it sym- 
 bolized the sacred penitence by which the soul 
 is purified, and because Baptism is effected by 
 water. ‘l'herefore he had such great reverence 
 
144 MORE JOY 
 
 for water that, when he washed his hands, 
 he turned so that the drops which fell could not 
 be trod under foot. Over stones and rocky 
 ground he went with special carefulness, while 
 he thought of him who is called the chief corner- 
 stone. The Brother who cut wood in the forest 
 he ordered to leave a part of the tree standing, so 
 that there might be some hope of its putting forth 
 branches again—in honor of the Cross of Christ. 
 He had the gardener arrange a bed where flowers 
 would grow—to remind the Brothers of Him who 
 is the Lily of Sharon. 
 
 But he possessed an entirely direct love of na- 
 ture. Fire and light seemed to him so beautiful 
 that he never could endure having a candle ex- 
 tinguished or a lamp put out. There was to be 
 a place in the convent garden, not only for the 
 kitchen vegetables, but also for the sweet-smelling 
 herbs and for ‘‘our brothers the Flowers,”’ so 
 that every one who observed their beauty would 
 be induced to praise God. He tenderly bent over 
 the young of ‘‘our brothers the Robins’’ in Grec- 
 cio, and in Siena built nests for turtle-doves. If 
 he saw an earthworm lying on the road and twist- 
 ing about helplessly, he would take it up and 
 carry it to the side, so that it would not be 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 145 
 
 crushed. In winter he put honey into the hives 
 for the bees to feed on. 
 
 Hivery being was for Francis a direct word 
 from God. Like all pious souls he realized in 
 the highest degree the worth of all things and had 
 _ reverence for them as for something precious and 
 holy. He understood God’s presence among his 
 creatures; when he felt the immovable firmness 
 and strength of the cliffs and rocks, he directly 
 felt that God is strong and to be trusted. The 
 sight of a flower in the silence of the early morn- 
 ing or of the mouth of a little bird confidently 
 opened revealed to him the pure beauty of God 
 and his purity and the endless tenderness of the 
 Creator. 
 
 This feeling infused Francis with a constant 
 Joy in God, an uninterrupted tendency to thank- 
 fulness. In these thanks all beings were to par- 
 ticipate and were to appear to have pleasure 
 therein. “Our Creator be praised, Brother 
 Pheasant,’’ thus Francis addressed the rare bird, 
 which a well-wisher had sent him, and the pheas- 
 ant stayed with Francis and did not want to be 
 with anyone else. ‘‘Sing the praise of God, Sis- 
 ter Cicada,’’ he exclaimed under the olive trees 
 at Portiuncula, and Sister Cicada sang until 
 
146 MORE JOY 
 
 Francis bade it be silent. The wild animals 
 often kept him company; for example, a hare on 
 an island in Lake Thrasimene, a wild rabbit at 
 Greccio. Near Siena he was surrounded by a 
 flock of sheep; the gentle animals gathered 
 around him and bleated, as if they wanted to tell 
 him something. Sailing on Lake Rieti he was 
 presented with a living fish; he put it into the 
 water, and for a long time it followed the boat. 
 A bird which was captured in the same place and 
 given to him would not leave him until he explic- 
 itly commanded it to. 
 
 But above all things Francis was thankful for 
 the sun—the sun and the fire. ‘‘In the morn- 
 ing,’’ he was wont to say, ‘‘when the sun rises, all 
 men ought to praise God, who created it for our 
 use, for all things are made visible byit. But in 
 the evening, when it is night, all men ought to 
 praise God for Brother Fire, which gives our eyes 
 light at night. For we are all like the blind, but 
 God gives our eyes light by means of these two 
 brothers. ’’ 
 
 The Sun Song had its origin in this idea. In 
 his hut in San Damiano Francis lay like a blind 
 man and could endure neither sunshine nor the 
 light of a fire. And one night his sufferings were 
 so great that he called out to God, ‘‘Lord help 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 147 
 
 me so that I can bear my sickness with pa- 
 tience!’’ 
 
 Then in spirit it was answered him: ‘‘ Behold 
 me, Brother; would you not be very glad if some 
 one for these sufferings of thine gave thee so 
 - great a treasure that the whole world in com- 
 parison therewith is worth nothing?’ And 
 Francis answered, ‘‘Yes.’’ But the voice went 
 on, ‘‘ Then be glad, Francis, and sing in your sick- 
 ness and weakness, for the kingdom of heaven be- 
 longeth to thee!’’ 
 
 But Francis arose early the next morning and 
 said to the Brothers who sat about him: ‘‘If the 
 Emperor had given me the whole Roman king- 
 dom, should I not be greatly rejoiced? But now 
 the Lord, even while I am living here below, has 
 promised me the kingdom of heaven, and there- 
 fore it is proper that I should rejoice in my trials 
 and thank God the Father and Son and Holy 
 Ghost. And therefore I will in his honor and 
 for your comfort and the edification of our neigh- 
 bors compose a new song of praise about the crea- 
 tures of the Lord whom we daily make use of, 
 and without whom we could scarcely live, and 
 whom we hevertheless so often misuse and 
 thereby offend the Creator. And we are con- 
 stantly ungrateful and do not think of the grace 
 
148 MORE JOY 
 
 and beneficence which every day is shown us, and 
 we do not thank the Lord, our Creator and the 
 Giver of all good things, as we ought to do.”’ 
 
 And Francis sat down and thought. A mo- 
 ment after he broke out in the first words of 
 the Sun Song, Altissimo, onnipotente, bon Sig- 
 nore, ** Highest, almighty, good Lord!”’ 
 
 But when the song was composed in full, his 
 heart was full of comfort and joy. And he 
 wished straightway that Brother Pacificus should 
 take some other Brothers with him and go out 
 into the world. And wherever they found them- 
 Selves they were to stop and sing the new song of 
 praise, and then as servants of God they should 
 ask for compensation from their hearers, and the 
 compensation should be that they who listened — 
 should be converted and become good Christians. 
 But the Sun Song itself is this: 
 
 *“Most high omnipotent good Lord, 
 Thine are the praises, the glory, the honor, and all bene- 
 diction. 
 To thee alone, Most High, do they belong, 
 And no man is worthy to mention thee. 
 Praised be thou, my Lord, with all thy creatures, 
 Especially the honored Brother Sun, 
 Who makes the day and illumines us through thee. 
 And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor 
 Bears the signification of thee, Most High One. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 149 
 
 Praised be thou, my Lord, for Sister Moon and the stars, 
 
 Thou hast formed them in heaven clear and precious and 
 beautiful. 
 
 Praised be thou, my Lord, for Brother Wind, 
 
 And for the air and cloudy and clear and every weather, 
 
 By which thou givest sustenance to thy creatures. 
 
 Praised be thou, my Lord, for Sister Water, 
 
 Which is very useful and humble and precious and 
 chaste. 
 
 Praised be thou, my Lord, for Brother Fire, 
 
 By whom thou lightest the night, 
 
 And he is beautiful and jocund and robust and strong. 
 Praised be thou, my Lord, for our sister Mother Earth, 
 Who sustains and governs us, 
 And produces various fruits with colored flowers and 
 herbage. 
 Praise and bless my Lord and give him thanks 
 And serve him with great humility.’’ 
 **Praised be thou, O Lord, for those who give pardon for 
 thy love and endure infirmity and tribulation, 
 Blessed those who endure in peace, who will be, Most High, 
 crowned by thee.’’ 4 
 % 
 
 Brother Giles, one of the Poverello’s first dis- 
 ciples, was always bright and cheerful, and when 
 anyone spoke to him of God, he replied in a 
 manner which betokened the great joy reigning 
 
 11 He composed the last two verses later in order to make peace be- 
 
 tween the podestd and the Bishop of Assisi, who were in open strife; 
 and he actomplished his purpose. (Tr.) 
 
150 MORE JOY 
 
 in his heart. Once he asked one of the Broth- 
 ers: “‘Hast thou a good heart?’’ and when the 
 Brother answered: ‘‘I do not know,’’ Giles 
 said: ‘‘Holy contrition, holy humility and holy 
 joyfulness make the heart holy and good.” 
 
 % 
 
 St. Clare (1194-1235), the most famous spirit- 
 ual daughter of St. Francis, and Foundress of 
 the Franciscan Nuns, in her imperturbable 
 gladness and happiness resembled and indeed, 
 equaled the Seraphic Father. When, during a 
 grave illness, they spoke to her of patience, she 
 answered with amazement that, from the time 
 she had given herself to God, she had never had 
 an opportunity to practise patience. ‘‘What 
 thanks I owe God! Since with the help of His 
 servant Francis I learned the bitter taste of His 
 cup of suffering, I have not found anything in 
 life capable of disturbing me.”’ 
 
 % 
 
 St. Elizabeth of Thuringia (1207-1231) on the 
 very night when she had lost everything and had 
 been expelled from her castle, ordered a Te Deum 
 to be publicly sung in the Franciscan Church. 
 _ Of pious persons who wore sad faces she said, 
 ‘They look as if they wanted to frighten God: we 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 151 
 
 ought to give God what we have with joy and 
 happiness. ’’ 
 
 ¥ 
 
 It is said of St. William (Archbishop of 
 - Bourges, 1200-1209) that his wonderful simplic- 
 ity was united to very deep insight, and his 
 cheerful countenance always reflected his inner 
 peace. Despite his austere habit of life, he 
 never lost that holy joyousness which is virtue’s 
 fairest adornment. 
 
 * 
 
 John Ruysbroeck (+ 1381), the famous 
 mystic, who ranks next to Gerard Groote and 
 Tauler, writes: ‘‘If you took all the pleasures 
 of the world and made them into one and show- 
 ered the whole of it upon one man, it would be 
 nothing compared to the joy of which I speak; 
 for in this case, God with all His purity, flows 
 into the depths of us, and the soul not only is filled 
 
 but overflows.’’ ?? 
 % 
 
 God accustomed Blessed Henry Suso (+ 1365) 
 to expect that as soon as a pain left him another 
 would take its place. Thus God treated him al- 
 
 12 Rusbrock L’Admirable (Quvres Choisies). Traduit par Ernest 
 Hello, Paris, 1869. (L’ornement des noces spirituelles, I, p. 9.) 
 
152 MORE JOY 
 
 ways, except once when he was left in peace, al- 
 though not for long. ‘‘During this season of in- 
 action he came to a nunnery, and, being asked by 
 his spiritual children how things went with him, 
 he replied:—I fear they are going very ill with 
 me at present, and for this reason. It is now 
 four weeks since anyone has attacked me in my 
 person or my good name, quite unlike what used 
 to happen to me; so that I fear lest God has for- 
 gotten me. Now he had not sat long with them 
 at the grate when there came a brother of the 
 Order, who called him out, and said:—I was a 
 little while ago at a castle, and the lord of it asked 
 after you, where you were, and he did this very 
 savagely. And then he lifted up his hands, and 
 swore before every one that wherever he found 
 you, he would run a sword through you. The 
 Same thing was also done by several fierce sol- 
 diers, his kinsmen, and they have been search- 
 ing for you in different monasteries round about 
 in order to execute their evil designs upon you. 
 Be warned, therefore, and take care of yourself, 
 as you love your life.”’ . . . ‘‘When the Servitor 
 heard this tale, he replied :—Praised be God, and 
 hastening back immediately to the grate, said to 
 his daughters :—Be of good cheer, my children. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 153 
 
 God has been mindful of me, and has not forgot- 
 
 teneme) 2) 
 ¥ 
 
 Suso himself bears witness to the fact that he 
 ever had a tender heart: ‘‘All who ever came 
 to me in sorrow, or aggrieved, always received 
 some good counsel from me, which made them 
 leave me joyful and consoled; for I wept with 
 those who wept, and I sorrowed with those who 
 were in sorrow, until, like a mother, I brought 
 them round again. No one ever caused me any 
 suffering however great, but if he only smiled 
 kindly on me afterwards, it was all past and over 
 in God’s name, as if it had never been. O Lord, 
 J will say no more about mankind, for I could 
 not even see or hear the needs and sorrows of all 
 the little birds and beasts and other creatures of 
 God without being pierced to the heart thereby, 
 and I used to pray the kind Lord of all to help 
 
 them.” ¥ 
 * 
 
 Suso bids us listen to the sweet music played 
 on the stretched cords of the man who suffers for 
 13 Life of Blessed Henry Suso, Translated by Thomas Francis 
 
 Knox, London, 1865, p. 133. 
 14 Jbid., p. 137. 
 
154 ‘MORE JOY 
 
 God. How grand it sounds! How sweetly it 
 rings out. What is it that seems most beautiful 
 to the Blessed Trinity? It is a man who in poy- 
 erty, shame, and misery, in sickness and spiritual 
 destitution, amid all kinds of bitterness, inner 
 and outer, and,—hardest of all,—under the yoke 
 of obedience, can and does praise God heartily 
 and gives thanks to Him with joy.” 
 
 % 
 
 Master Eckhart (+ 1327) recommends us to 
 greet every pain in these words: Welcome, my 
 one dear, trusted friend! I should hardly have 
 expected thee here, nor have hoped to see thee. 
 I bow to thee with all submissiveness.* 
 
 * 
 
 St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1880) loved na- 
 ture and understood its sweet harmonies. When 
 she saw a flowering meadow, she said to her com- 
 panions with holy delight: ‘‘Do you not see how 
 all these things adore God and speak of God? 
 These red flowers show us so plainly the red 
 wounds of Jesus Christ.’’ In the spring time 
 she sat down at the edge of the wood to listen to 
 the singing of the birds and to catch all the mys- 
 
 i5 P. Fr. H. 8. Denifie, Das geistliche Leben. Eine Blumenlese aus 
 
 den Mystikern des XIV Jahrhunderts.2 Freiburg, 1879, 311, 433. 
 16 [bid., 182. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 155 
 
 terious voices of living and sentient nature. The 
 wind in the woods and the wild melodies of storm 
 and water on the heights of the Apennines, were 
 gathered up by her soul into a sigh and a prayer. 
 One day, after having looked long at an ant-hill, 
 -ghe said: ‘These little creatures, like me, have 
 come forth from the holy mind of God; they, 
 with the buds and the blossoms, have been ealled 
 into existence by Him who created the angels.”’ 
 Like all of Siena’s daughters, she took great de- 
 light in music and, while doing needlework with 
 her companions, sang pious folk-songs in honor 
 of Christ and His Mother, pronouncing their 
 holy names with such charm that the sweet 
 sound lingered long in the ears of her listeners. 
 Her glance and words gave out a pure fragrance 
 that seemed to come from an angel rather than 
 from a human being; and her face was always 
 serene and happy. 
 
 St. Bernardine (1380-1444), Siena’s most fa- 
 mous son, born in the year of St. Catherine’s 
 death, was a missionary and a zealous preacher 
 of penance to his countrymen. Even during his 
 childhood his playfellows used to say: ‘“‘When 
 Bernardine comes, weariness goes.’? And not 
 only when he was a boy, but also when monk and 
 
156 MORE JOY 
 
 missionary, he was ever brimming over with 
 genuine Sienese cheerfulness. Alneas Sylvius 
 relates that his face was always cheerful, except 
 when some public scandal weighed upon him. 
 One of the brethren testifies that he was always 
 gay, always laughing and jesting. This rather 
 scandalized another brother, who later begged 
 forgiveness before Bernardine’s dead body 
 when he saw the wonders that happened there. 
 * 
 
 ‘I tell you in truth,’’ said The Friend of God 
 (+ after 1419), ‘‘I also was once a man of the 
 world, rich and universally beloved, and hence 
 I am familiar with the common worldly joys, so 
 prolific of evil. But I have also had a taste of 
 God’s grace and know how confidentially God 
 deals with His friends here in this world. And 
 I can say with truth that I myself have often in 
 a single brief hour received from God more con- 
 solation and joy than if I had at the same instant 
 all the consolations and all the joys the world can 
 give. And I truly affirm that if the consolation 
 and joy of the world were to continue until the 
 end of time, yet in comparison with that one brief 
 hour of divine consolation, they would be like a 
 drop of water compared with the whole ocean.’? 7 
 
 17 Denifle, op. cit., 395, 
 
 a EL eee ee 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 157 
 
 The book Of Spiritual Poverty,’* written by 
 an unknown mystic and falsely ascribed to Tau- 
 ler, speaks as follows: ‘‘Good souls experience 
 more delight and joy in a single day than all 
 sinners ever experience. Their labor is pleas- 
 -anter than the sinner’s repose—which is little 
 enough, for, although ever working and never 
 resting, he gets no result from his work. But 
 good men are always at rest,—not that they sit 
 idle, but their work itself is rest. They have 
 what Solomon sought in all things, rest. But 
 the sinner in all things has unrest. Let him eat, 
 or drink, or sleep, or watch, all is painful. Do 
 what he will, his heart never grows happy. 
 
 ‘“Men who are truly upright have within them 
 the source of all bliss and joy; and no sadness 
 ean enter into them, for the Eternal Word, the 
 source of bliss and joy to all the angels and saints, 
 penetrates them as it does the saints of heaven. 
 
 ‘‘Nothing gives more life to the soul than suf- 
 fering. It destroys all that is perishable therein, 
 and when all that can die is dead, then life re- 
 mains there alone; and thus the greatest joy is 
 born of the greatest suffering. 
 
 ‘“Pain expels pain. When a man has gone 
 
 18 Published by Denifle, Munich, 1877. 
 19 Ecclesiasticus xxiv, ll. 
 
158 MORE JOY 
 
 through all suffering, then he is immune from 
 further suffering and lives peacefully in Christ, 
 that is to say, in true joy and repose of heart. 
 But he who flies pain, will never be free of pain.’’ 
 
 % 
 
 Notwithstanding his great mortification, St. 
 Bonaventure (1221-1274) had upon his face a 
 confident, cheerful light which could come only 
 from interior peace. He wrote, ‘‘The best sign 
 of indwelling grace is spiritual joy’’;” and 
 again, ‘‘'The heart that is free and joyful with 
 good-will is better disposed for the reception of 
 grace than the heart that is fettered with sad- 
 ness and bitterness; for the Holy Ghost is the 
 love and good-will and joy of the Father and the 
 Son; and like naturally loves like.’’ 7? 
 
 He died at the Second Council of Lyons and 
 the Acts of the Council contain this record: 
 ‘The Lord gave him a charm so fascinating that 
 all who saw him fell in love with him at once.’’ 
 
 * 
 
 St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury (+ 
 1242), compared the afflictions of life to a milk 
 prepared by God for the nourishment of the soul. 
 
 20 Spec. Discipl., p. 1, ¢. 2. 
 21 De Prof. Relig., L. Il, c. 77 (al. 76). 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 159 
 
 “Their bitterness,’ said he, ‘‘is mingled with 
 much sweetness and resembles wild honey given 
 to feed the soul in the desert of this world.’’ 
 
 *% 
 
 The serenity and calmness of St. Louis of 
 France (+ 1270) underwent a fiery test, when he 
 lay dangerously ill, a prisoner among the Sara- 
 cens in the Holy Land. Even then, however, 
 peace never abandoned his soul for a moment; 
 and his face wore so sweet a calm that the Sara- 
 cens with amazement acknowledged him to be 
 the bravest Christian they had ever seen. 
 
 % 
 
 Blessed John Colombini (-+ 1367)—first a rich 
 patrician and merchant of Siena, then a penitent, 
 a preacher of penance, and the founder of the 
 Jesuates—while traveling from place to place 
 trained his disciples to enjoy nature in God. 
 ‘Oh, you dear poor men of God!’’ said he, 
 preaching in a woodland meadow carpeted with 
 flowers, ‘‘how strictly we are bound to give 
 thanks to God. Just think! We are allowed to 
 live, to walk about in this beautiful warm sun- 
 shine, to see the clear blue sky and to breathe 
 the fresh air. Look at the fair flowers so radi- 
 ant and lovely in the bright sunshine,—white, 
 
160 MORE JOY 
 
 golden, orange, blue. If you were to destroy 
 one of them, no artist in the whole world could 
 restore it. T’ake one in your hand. See how 
 finely the violet veins branch through the white 
 calyx; how fair and rich and pure it allis!... 
 O wondrous world! O beauteous world! O 
 great, lovely, mysterious world! O Life! O 
 Happiness! O Bliss! O Paradise!’’ 
 Suddenly, while still speaking, he sank down 
 upon the grass and lay there as if lifeless. Then 
 his disciples scattered over the flowering mead- 
 ows and each brown figure gathered up many 
 flowers. To the very farthest edge of the 
 meadow they went, plucking, and plucking, and 
 plucking again; then, returning to their master, 
 they covered him over with their load of spring 
 blossoms. First they covered all his face with a 
 great heap of anemones and crocuses. Next they 
 hid his brown cowl under masses of snow-white 
 daisies. Then they buried his hands and feet in 
 hills of blossoms until, at last, he was all flowers, 
 and nothing could be seen but a gorgeous and 
 fragrant range of flowery mountains. When 
 after a long time Colombini awakened from his 
 trance and opened his eyes, he found himself 
 looking straight into the pure white and glowing 
 red calices of the flowers, and with a laugh of de- 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 161 
 
 light he cautiously raised himself up. Then he 
 embraced his disciples, gratefully pressing their 
 hands, and with song, the little troop went for- 
 ward on their wanderings. Even after a long 
 stretch of road had been traversed, white anem- 
 ‘ones and daisies could still be seen hanging in 
 the folds of Colombini’s patched brown robe. 
 Jorgensen tells this other charming incident: 
 Colombini had left his wife, Biagia, and sent her 
 in her loneliness this comforting message: ‘‘I 
 beg of thee, live not in sadness, but in joy. If 
 there is any place that gives thee joy, then go 
 thither, and enjoy thyself, so that it be in the 
 Lord. Be always cheerful! The more cheerful 
 we are, the easier it is to serve God. Christ re- 
 joices in us; we should also rejoice in Him. Let 
 us shun sadness and bitterness of heart which is 
 a snare of the devil, and let us celebrate in our 
 souls one long festival for Jesus Christ and for 
 
 all mankind.”’’ 2? 
 3% 
 
 It is said that St. Teresa (+ 1582) possessed 
 a charming gayety, which made her admired and 
 loved by everyone who came near her. When- 
 ever possible, she exhorted others to practise this 
 
 22 Das heilige Feuer, eme Legende aus dem alten Siena, Mainz, 
 1903. 
 
162 MORE JOY 
 
 sweet, uniform happiness, and urged them to go 
 forward with peace and joy in the path of prayer. 
 
 She said: ‘*We should strive to be cheerful 
 and unconstrained; for there are people who 
 think it is all over with devotion if they relax 
 themselves ever so little.’’?* She had an in- 
 ner aversion for what she called the road of fear, 
 —especially for the road of servile fear,—in the 
 service of the Lord. In the Monastery of St. 
 Joseph at Avila may still be seen a little flute 
 and drum upon which she used to play like a child 
 on holidays. 
 
 * 
 
 St. Philip Neri (1515-1595) whose wit, origi- 
 nality, and charming simplicity won Goethe’s 
 sympathetic interest, was all things to all men in 
 Rome, from the Pope down to the children in the 
 streets. He knew how to be scholarly with schol- 
 ars; but he liked better to be childlike with chil- 
 dren. On beautiful spring days he used to take 
 the young people to the famous Tasso oak in the 
 garden of St. Onofrio and lead their games. 
 Children always had access to him and were at 
 liberty to shout and romp about the house. 
 
 23 §t. Teresa of Jesus: The Life, Relations, Maxims and Founda- 
 
 tions Written by the Saint, Edited by John J. Burke, C.S.P., New 
 York, 1911, ch. xiii, 1. 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 163 
 
 When people wondered how he could stand it, 
 he said, ‘‘I should be glad even to let them chop 
 wood on my back, if they only kept free from 
 sin.”’ There is more pedagogical wisdom in this 
 method than most people perceive. Of St. Phil- 
 ip’s sayings and rules of conduct the following 
 are noteworthy: ‘‘The true way to make prog- 
 ress in virtue is to preserve holy joyousness.’’ 
 ‘‘A cheerful mind strengthens the heart and 
 makes one steadfast in good conduct; hence the 
 servant of God must always be good-humored.’’ 
 ‘‘Charity with happiness, or charity with resig- 
 nation, should be our motto always.’’ ‘‘In the 
 spiritual life it is much easier to lead the cheerful 
 than the sad.’’ 
 ° ae 
 
 St. Felix of Cantalizio (1515-1587), a Capu- 
 chin Friar, was known all over Rome, where for 
 over forty years he went about the streets gath- 
 ering alms. He always had a happy face, and the 
 phrase, “‘Deo Gratias,’’ was ever on his lips, not 
 only in return for gifts, but also in return for 
 contempt, ridicule, and abuse. On this account 
 he came to be named ‘Brother Deogratias.’’ 
 When anyone mocked or insulted him, he used to 
 answer, ‘‘May God make a saint of thee!’’ 
 
 * 
 
164 MORE JOY 
 
 St. Andrew Avellini (1521-1608) censured a 
 self-centred and sad life, for ‘‘the soul is not 
 pure and clear when the face is gloomy and the 
 look mournful.”’ 
 
 % 
 
 St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was as much 
 a friend of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost as 
 he was an enemy of sadness. To a soul that had 
 let itself be possessed by sadness, he said: 
 ‘‘Stand fast in peace and nourish your soul with 
 the sweetness of heavenly love, for without it the 
 heart has no life and life no blessedness. Yield 
 not at all to sadness, for it is an enemy of piety. 
 Why should anything trouble the servant of Him 
 who will be our everlasting joy? Nothing 
 should be capable of annoying or angering you, 
 except sin. And even sorrow for sin must finally 
 give way to holy consolation and sweet joy.’’ 
 He used to say, ‘‘A saint who is sorrowful is a 
 Sorry saint.’’ 
 
 In one of his sermons he declares: ‘‘Man is 
 for joy, and joy is for man; it alone can make 
 man happy. I think that joy is not joy at all, 
 unless it is in a man’s possession. The human 
 heart is so dependent upon joy that, without joy, 
 it cannot find rest; and joy is true joy only inso- 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 165 
 
 far as it is possessed by the heart of man. God 
 has created joy for the happiness of man and He 
 has promised it surely and has bound Himself 
 to bestow it, not because it is merited in any wise, 
 but out of pure goodness and mercy.”’ 
 
 ‘‘Live happily,’’ he says in one of his letters, 
 ‘‘the Lord sees thee and watches over thee with 
 love and tenderness.’’ And to a superioress he 
 writes: ‘‘*Live in holy joy with your daughters ; : 
 by sincere kindness and loving advances, mani- 
 fest your motherly heart, so that they may hasten 
 joyously to you.”’ 
 
 The more St. Francis suffered, says his friend, 
 Bishop Le Camus of Belley,** the quieter he be- 
 came,—like the palm tree which roots itself 
 deeper the more it is swayed by the wind. Like 
 Samson, he looked for honey in the lion’s mouth; 
 and he found peace in battle. Like the three 
 children in the fiery furnace, he could draw dew 
 out of the flames. He discovered roses amid 
 thorns, pearls in the ocean’s depths, oil within 
 rock and sweetness in the bitterest of bitter 
 things. Storms always blew him into some 
 haven. From his very enemies he seized hap- 
 
 24The Bishop’s work has been published in English—The Spirit 
 
 of St. Francis de Sales. By Jean Pierre Le Camus, Bishop of Bel- 
 ley. Translated by J. S., London, 1910. 
 
166 MORE JOY 
 
 piness and, like Jonas, he found safety in the 
 whale’s belly. | 
 He himself said once: ‘‘For some time my 
 quiet has been disturbed by opposition and secret 
 persecution on all sides; but this gives me a 
 peace unsurpassably sweet and lovely. It as- 
 sures me of the approaching union of my soul 
 with God, which I frankly admit to be not merely 
 the chief, but the only, ambition and desire of 
 my heart.’’ 
 - “Sometimes I tremble for fear that Ged; is giv- 
 ing me my Heaven now, here below; for I really 
 do not know what misfortune means. J never 
 saw the face of poverty. Such sufferings as I 
 have experienced were nothing but little scratches 
 that hardly broke the skin. The calumnies cast 
 upon me were crosses light as air, whose memory 
 died with the sound of the voice that spoke them. 
 How insignificant were all the accidents that 
 have befallen me. On the other hand God has 
 loaded me with many temporal and spiritual 
 gifts, which I see before me at this moment.’’ 
 For the preserving of joy and peace, it is im- 
 portant to heed the saint’s warning that we 
 should deal as lovingly and tenderly with our 
 own stumblings as with our neighbor’s falls; 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE § 167 
 
 that we should be patient not only with others, 
 but also with ourselves. 
 % 
 
 St. Germaine Cousin of Toulouse (1579-1601), 
 a shepherd-girl, was persecuted by her step- 
 mother. Yet, when she gathered flowers in the 
 meadows, when she looked at the silvery waters 
 of the brook, at the broad fields, or at the ripen- 
 ing grain, when she picked up and petted a little 
 bird fallen out of its nest, she found in all these 
 things an occasion to adore the goodness and wis- 
 dom and power of the Creator. She admired 
 with a pure heart whatever she saw in her soli- 
 tude, from the plants quietly growing and adorn- 
 ing themselves with blossoms to the dazzling sun; 
 and everything aroused in her a holy joy.” 
 
 * 
 
 St. John Berchmans, the Jesuit (1599-1625), 
 possessed such exceptional cheerfulness that he 
 was called ‘‘Saint Ever-Joyful”’ and was beloved 
 of all. 
 
 St. Vincent de Paul (1576-1660), in the midst 
 of contradictions, lost nothing of his customary 
 
 25 Edelsteine aus reicher Schatzkammer. Sammlung aus den 
 Schriften von Alban Stolz. Von H. Wagner, Freiburg, 1905, 260. 
 
168 MORE JOY 
 
 cheerfulness. His soul remained always the 
 Same and never gave way to gloom. He resigned 
 himself to every dispensation of Providence joy- 
 fully and patiently; it was all the same to him 
 whether he gave glory to God by bodily suffering 
 or by activity and work. 
 
 % 
 
 It is recorded of many saints that the joy inun- 
 dating their hearts during communion with God, 
 became so abundant and overflowing that they 
 themselves begged God to diminish it lest they 
 should succumb. 
 
 St. Francis Xavier (+ 1552) on such occasions 
 prayed: ‘It is enough, O Lord; it is enough. 
 Lord, do not give me so much consolation in this 
 life.’? From the island of Moro, a wild desert 
 place, where he was in need of everything, he 
 wrote to St. Ignatius: ‘‘These dangers and these 
 voluntary toils, undertaken in the service of God, 
 are an inexhaustible treasury of benedictions to 
 me. Truly this is just the country to make me 
 lose my eyesight in a few years’ time, so frequent 
 are the streams of sweet tears of joy called forth 
 by a superabundance of divine comfort; nor do I 
 remember ever to have experienced so much of 
 
A GALLERY OF JOYFUL PEOPLE 169 
 
 this in any other place; nor have I ever suffered 
 less from my labors than I do here.’’ *° 
 
 St. Philip Neri, too, at these floodtides of joy 
 used to pray: ‘‘Itis enough, Lord; itis enough; 
 I beg Thee, check the torrent of Thy consolations. 
 Depart from me, O Lord, depart from me. Iam 
 a mortal man, unable to support such an overflow 
 of heavenly bliss. I die, O my God, if Thou dost 
 not hasten to my help.’’ 
 
 *% 
 
 Abrcham of Santa Clara (1644-1709) says in 
 a sermon: ‘‘Melancholy is the devil’s own 
 nurse; gayety is God’s housekeeper. God does 
 not like melancholy people. They are next of 
 kin to death, for Melancholy is Death’s sister. I 
 hike pleasant people; they have a sure mark of 
 God’s presence with them and in them. The 
 man with a good conscience will always be 
 happy; he will be tranquil on all occasions, secure 
 in all dangers, comfortable in all hardships. He 
 will laugh in all circumstances, sing at every- 
 thing, and always be gay.’’ 
 
 * 
 
 Blessed Crescentia of Kaufbeuren (1682- 
 
 1744) was especially happy and contented when 
 
 26 Life of St. Francis Xavier. From the Italian of D. Bartoli and 
 J. P. Maffei, New York, 1889, p. 230 f, 
 
170 MORE JOY 
 
 she received evil in return for good, ingratitude 
 for affection, rudeness and insult for benefits. 
 She felt that then she had made a twofold gain, 
 because to the opportunity of practising active 
 love was added the opportunity of practising pas- 
 sive love by suffering. To her sisters she said: 
 ‘“We must do as the bees which suck only honey 
 out of everything, whereas the spiders extract 
 poison.”’ 
 % 
 
 Pius X, although brought up in poverty, was al- 
 ways cheerful and happy in his boyhood. Later, 
 as a poor curate, and then as a pastor, he lost none 
 of his good humor. When he was rector of the 
 Seminary of Treviso, they used to say: ‘‘No 
 place is more pleasant than where Sarto is.’’ 
 As bishop and also as patriarch, he always had 
 a happy spirit and radiated the sunshine of good 
 cheer. Perhaps the cares of the papacy have 
 banished cheerfulness and jollity, but in his good- 
 ness and friendliness the old happiness still some- 
 times flashes out. 
 
XITTL 
 MORE JOY 
 
 Men, Brothers, what shall we do? If this 
 question does not suggest itself to the readers of 
 the foregoing considerations, I have written in 
 vain. But if, as I hope, this question is raised 
 by many a noble heart solicitous about joy, then 
 the answer must surely be made in the words of 
 St. Peter on Pentecost: ‘‘Do penance... and 
 you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.’’* 
 —that is, true joy will become your portion. 
 Here again, as above, the true motto of progress 
 is ‘‘Go Back!’’ Not back to the old times when 
 there were no machines, no factories, no railways 
 nor telegraphs nor power houses, no coffee nor 
 newspapers; but back to religion, to Christian- 
 ity, to the spirit of faith, to a serious view of life, 
 to abstinence and self-conquest, to honesty, loy- 
 alty, love,—to all those higher things so scorn- 
 fully regarded by modern men, vain of their cul- 
 ture and insane on the subject of education. 
 
 1 Acts ii, 38. 
 171 
 
172 MORE JOY 
 
 Men have paid for their blunders by being al- 
 most totally deprived of joy. Nothing but a re- 
 turn to a true estimate, a conscientious apprecia- 
 tion of these higher goods and forces can again 
 quicken the dying pulse of life’s joy. 
 
 Leave us in peace who champion Christianity, 
 faith, morality. You have need of us, for you 
 have need of joy, and we are the purveyors of 
 joy. To attack us is not only foolish, but fatal 
 to joy. Leave us alone, if not for the sake of the 
 Salvation of souls, which means nothing to you, 
 at least for the sake of hygiene, which you re- 
 gard as all-important; if not for lofty, eternal 
 motives, to which you are indifferent, then for 
 the sake of joy, which you cannot belittle. If 
 you have no taste for religious, spiritual joys and 
 can no longer summon sufficient energy of mind 
 and will to return to the spirit of faith and to 
 Christian conduct, yourselves, at least leave the 
 people alone and leave them their joy. Away, 
 with your adulterated, poisonous, artificial wine 
 of Joy; it makes men dizzy and sick at heart and 
 less happy than before. Keep it for yourselves 
 and drink yourselves into fever with it, if you 
 wish, but let the people have their joy and keep 
 it. You cannot make them happy ;—we can. 
 
 We who although divided in faith, are united 
 
MORE JOY 173 
 
 in accepting Christ as the Son of God, our Savior 
 and Redeemer, and are anxious to lead men to 
 Him and make them happy in Him, let us put a 
 stop to our senseless fratricidal war. Were 
 there no other motive, then merely for the sake 
 of joy, we ought to end it. The energy and time 
 it consumes are lost to joy; and the war itself is 
 so directly destructive of joy that it should be 
 terminated speedily at any cost. 
 
 In a general way we have actually beheld and 
 in further detail we may calculate what bitter- 
 ness, coldness, estrangement, suffering, and sor- 
 row have been introduced into the world during 
 recent years by this religious war. Let us end 
 it, or it will prove the disgrace of the century. 
 We can certainly end it,—not however, by clam- 
 ors and investigations which only pour oil on the 
 fire, nor by asking, ‘‘Who began it?’’ but by de- 
 manding, ‘‘Who will stop it?’’; not by denying 
 our faith and neglecting our duty, but by never 
 despising or attacking our neighbors because of 
 their faith or their fulfilment of duty; not by 
 surrendering our rights and abandoning our 
 point of view, but by never encroaching upon the 
 rights of our brethren; not by letting our relig- 
 ious zeal grow cold through association with men 
 of other beliefs, but by recognizing and emulat- 
 
174 MORE JOY 
 
 ing their zeal; not by tolerating people of dif- 
 ferent creeds, but rather by loving them. How 
 much joy could be added to life by such a means! 
 
 This is true on a large scale and in a general 
 way. ‘To the individual, suffering for want of 
 joy and sincerely asking, ‘‘ What shall I do?’’, we 
 answer: ‘‘Seek not joy, after the manner of the 
 world, in dance-halls and saloons, in alcohol, in 
 filthy sin, in lewdness and ambition. You will 
 never find it there.’’ Every unclean worldly joy 
 must be paid for by the renunciation of a true 
 joy. St. Bernard says that no kind of misery is 
 worse than false joy. Seek joy where it can be 
 found,—in the narrow path of duty, on the high- 
 way of Christian conduct, in the mountain air 
 of faith, in the sunshine of love, in the healthy 
 atmosphere of hard work. ‘‘Only do your 
 work,’’ says Goethe, ‘‘and joy will come of it- 
 self.’”’ Thus you will find joy. You need not 
 take this on faith. If you wish, you may at once 
 experience it; you may yourself test and enjoy it, 
 
XTV 
 LITTLE JOYS 
 
 We cannot afford to wait until mankind has 
 again returned to a reasonable, sound, Christian 
 conception of life and Christian conduct, and has 
 thus spontaneously acquired the joy it needs. 
 Joy itself will accelerate this return, will be 
 a remedy effecting and quickening the cure. 
 There is so much that can and should be done to 
 produce and diffuse joy. Everyone has an op- 
 portunity to help by sowing good seed and plant- 
 ing sturdy shoots in his own little garden and in 
 the garden of many another. 
 
 This opportunity comes from the fact that the 
 deficit of joy need not, and indeed cannot, be met 
 by the large offerings of the few. It calls for 
 the small offerings of the many. It is not a mat- 
 ter of boisterous festivals, brilliant fireworks, and 
 regimental band-concerts; nor of streams of alco- 
 hol and million-dollar palaces for entertainment 
 and amusement; nor even of popular comedies 
 
 and jokes that provoke roars of laughter. Those 
 175 
 
176 MORE JOY 
 
 noisy things act for the instant, momentarily 
 quickening life’s pulse, but not enlarging its con- 
 tent of joy. A hundred little joys are worth a 
 thousand times more than one big joy—as a gen- 
 tle rain soaks deeper into the earth than a cloud- 
 burst. Moreover, little joys involve but small 
 danger of abuse and of transformation into suf- 
 fering. In a great joy these are constant dan- 
 gers. Nothing is harder to stand than a succes- 
 sion of perfectly happy days. 
 “Whether the well is big or small, 
 Thou needest not to care at all; 
 
 From either comes refreshment sure, 
 If it holds water good and pure.’’ 
 
 Little joys! For these one requires neither 
 riches, nor rank, nor honor, nor fame. Increase 
 of the gold capital does not always imply increase 
 of the joy capital. The wealthy man has many 
 more joy-destroyers than the poor man. When 
 our needs are few, joy is assured; it becomes an 
 impossibility, if we are insatiable. Thriftiness, 
 when free from avarice, is joy’s best friend. 
 
 The little joys! He who, instead of despising, 
 knows how to appreciate and to use them, will 
 never lack for joy. The field of life is never so 
 stony and hard that it does not yield each day 
 some little blossoms of joy. But often these are 
 
LITTLE JOYS 177 
 
 invisible to the pessimist; or they are trampled 
 rudely under foot by ill humor and vexation, and 
 the sick heart, instead of getting refreshment 
 from them, consumes itself in feverish longing 
 for great joys which are rare, for great prizes 
 that are never won, for the kind of luck that 
 makes a man a Croesus overnight—in story- 
 books. Small wonder that a heart like this 
 never attains its aim. It is always unhappy, not 
 because there is actually no joy in life, but be- 
 cause little joys are not appreciated, and the vio- 
 let blooming beside the way is passed by un- 
 noticed. 
 
 If thy life is very dark, is this not perhaps ow- 
 ing to the fact that all the blinds are drawn? 
 Many a man is so hardened and calloused by ego- 
 tism, that no light from above, no warm ray from 
 without, can penetrate his soul. To those who 
 think their supposed merits are never suf- 
 ficiently rewarded with gold or honor or joy, 
 Carlyle addresses these blunt words: 
 
 ‘‘T tell thee, Blockhead, it all comes of thy 
 vanity, of what thou fanciest those same deserts 
 of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be 
 hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt feel it hap- 
 piness to be only shot; fancy that thou deservest 
 to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to 
 
178 MORE JOY 
 
 die in hemp. ... Make thy claim of wages a 
 zero; then thou hast the world under thy feet. 
 Well did the wisest of our time write: ‘It is only 
 with Renunciation (Hntsagen) that Life, prop- 
 erly speaking, can be said to begin.’ ’’? 
 
 Sunny natures—and all Christians should be 
 children of the sun—rejoice at each ray of light, 
 whether it shines down out of the clear sky of 
 happiness, or glows for an instant through the 
 mist of laborious life, or breaks out from amid 
 dark clouds of poverty. How many motives 
 for rejoicing, such people have every day! If 
 healthy, they do not take this stolidly as if it had 
 to be so; they rejoice at the blessing and realize 
 its worth. They do not look on little disturb- 
 ances of health as if they were tragedies; nor do 
 they let a little nervousness put them out of 
 humor. With strong resolution and quiet pa- 
 tience, they break off the tip of each poisoned ar- 
 row. liven in really grave illness, they are not 
 wholly without joy. First of all, they have faith, 
 hope and charity to keep them company; and 
 they busy themselves even in the sick-room, lay- 
 ing out very fragrant flowers into a little garden 
 of joy. 
 
 They are not continually fretting because 
 
 18artor Resartus, Bk. II, ch. 9. 
 
LITTLE JOYS 179 
 
 thorns always accompany roses, but rejoicing 
 that roses are to be found amid the thorns. They 
 do not complain that two nights enclose each 
 day, but are glad that two days enclose each 
 night. Practice makes them masters of the 
 art of rejoicing; they are explorers, landscape 
 artists, in the world of joy. <A beautiful tree, a 
 quiet vale, hills and woods, the song of the birds, 
 the marching of the clouds, conversation with 
 simple and noble souls, bring to them truer, fuller 
 joy than others get from long journeys, wonder- 
 ful scenery, boisterous gatherings and amuse- 
 ments. How many joys they find daily and 
 hourly in prayer, in faith, in good thoughts. 
 They know how to get at the friendly side of 
 everything. No cloud isso black that they cannot 
 find its silver lining. Out of a thousand individ- 
 ual pleasures, natural and supernatural, they 
 store up a permanent reserve fund of joy on 
 which they can live, if for a longer or shorter 
 period, their individual joys give out. This re- 
 serve fund yields them a sort of interest by means 
 of which they easily tide over the numberless in- 
 conveniences, troubles and annoyances which are 
 insuperable to many persons, that is, to the kind 
 of persons who keep tight hold of noxious plants 
 and deliberately suck poison out of them, instead 
 
180 MORE JOY 
 
 of throwing them away and drawing little drops 
 of honey out of the blossoms of joy. 
 
 In advanced old age, which is rarely free from 
 special trials, this reservoir feeds the clear 
 springs that bubble up joyfully whenever thought 
 digs into the soil of the past. 
 
 In medicine the efficacy of minute doses is com- 
 ing to be more and more recognized; and in the 
 spiritual art of healing, minute joys are of es- 
 pecial importance. 
 
 ‘‘What from thee little joys doth take, 
 From thee takes great delight, 
 
 A thousand narrow by-paths make 
 The road to heaven’s height.’’ 7° 
 
 2K. M. Arndt. 
 
XV 
 JOY AND GRATITUDE 
 
 ‘Always to be happy is an art, and not a very 
 difficult one. It consists merely of training one’s 
 self to perceive, appreciate, and thankfully util- 
 ize little joys. The eye and the heart must be 
 kept open, otherwise thousands of joys will never 
 be noticed and, of course, will yield nothing. We 
 must not let our hearts get abnormally hardened 
 or enlarged, as will surely happen if we give free 
 rein to the desire for sensual joy, the search for 
 sensual gratification. To indulge this hunger 
 and feverish thirst will so deaden the apprecia- 
 tion of spiritual joy that nothing but an immod- 
 erate amount of sensuous pleasure will ever sat- 
 isfy us. Self-control has to keep a firm hand on 
 the heart, regulate its cravings and desires, and 
 train it to be content with little joys. 
 
 An excellent practical means to this end is 
 the cultivation of gratitude and the practice of 
 thanksgiving. Indeed, if we develop in ourselves 
 the sense of gratitude, and for all the good things 
 daily bestowed on us give hearty thanks to the 
 
 181 
 
182 MORE JOY 
 
 Heavenly Father from whom comes every best 
 gift,’ then we shall never again be without joy, 
 for along the path of life we shall discover new 
 joys constantly blossoming and perceive peren- 
 nial joys previously unnoticed. What a man 
 prizes, he is grateful for; and what he sincerely 
 gives thanks for, he knows how to value and es- 
 teem. 
 
 True and profound is Foerster’s statement: 
 ‘“Whenever the social structure creaks and 
 groans, and the joints begin to loosen, this is un- 
 doubtedly the result of a want of gratitude some- 
 where.’”’? We may add: If there is so great a 
 lack of joy in human life to-day this is owing to 
 the fact that thankfulness has in great measure 
 been excluded from many hearts, having been 
 wilfully and deliberately drowned in the floods 
 of bitter discontent. Thankfulness and joy are 
 near of kin; and ingratitude is the root of much 
 unhappiness. St. Paul, the Apostle, a keen psy- 
 chologist, well knew what he was saying when to 
 his earnest exhortation, ‘‘Rejoice in the Lord 
 always; again, I say, rejoice,’’ he immediately 
 added an exhortation to ‘‘prayer and supplica- 
 tion with thanksgiving.’’? 
 
 1 §t. James i, 17. 3 Philippians iv. 6. 
 2 Jugendlehre, 380. 
 
XVI 
 JOY AND EDUCATION 
 
 To utilize little joys is particularly 1mpor- 
 tant and effective in the lives of children. Chil- 
 dren are so delicately organized in soul and body 
 that great joys, extraordinary pleasures, costly 
 presents, are rarely good for them; and never 
 good except when rare. On the other hand, little 
 gifts, little rays of joy, are very necessary for 
 their proper development. The child has nat- 
 urally a fine sense for little joys; but this sense 
 may easily be deadened, as to-day, alas, very 
 often happens. If we but understand and love 
 children, we can really create their joys out of 
 nothing. In this respect the mother is the best 
 gardener of all; she can make the child shout with 
 delight at flowers of joy developed out of a mere 
 nothing, or at least, out of worthless and lifeless 
 matter. The smallest gift, a plaything, a crust 
 of bread, a blossom, accompanied with a glance 
 such as a mother’s eye alone can give, or with a 
 
 word such as comes only from a mother’s lips, 
 183 
 
184 MORE JOY. 
 
 will fill the child with bliss, will make him king 
 of the whole earth, will place him, at least for a 
 moment, at the goal of all his wishes. 
 
 Even the serious nature, the stern strict char- 
 acter, of the authority proper to father and 
 teacher does not exclude opportunities of bring- 
 ing joy into the life of the child. Here also love 
 discovers a thousand ways of manifesting itself 
 and of illuminating the child’s heart with its clear 
 radiance. And these little joys of mind and 
 body, provided for the child by the love of mother 
 or father or teacher, retain their sweetness, 
 charm, and fragrance, into the years of youthful 
 maturity,—and even longer, when the heart is 
 good. 
 
 To-day in our method of teaching,—theoreti- 
 cal, as well as practical,—there still remains this 
 defect, that the significance of joy in the healthy 
 development of the child from the first dawn of 
 consciousness is not sufficiently appreciated; that 
 the great service performed by this friendly aux- 
 ilary in the difficult work of education and train- 
 ing, is much less valued and utilized than it 
 deserves to be. Schiller calls the mother’s lap 
 the holy island where grief and care cannot find 
 the child.’ ‘‘Like the eggs of songbirds and the 
 
 1 Hpigr. 73. 
 
JOY AND EDUCATION 185 
 
 newborn nestlings of the dove,’’ says Jean 
 Paul, ‘‘so all at first require just warmth. And 
 what is warmth for the human nestling? Joy- 
 ousness. It brings out the young faculties like 
 rays of morning light; it is the climate in which 
 everything thrives but poison.’’’ 
 
 This means of education is auxiliary to that 
 of correction and discipline, which it should al- 
 ways soften and balance, so as to counteract any 
 hardening or depressing influences. The two 
 so belong together, that strictness without joy 
 accomplishes nothing and joy without strictness 
 causes degeneration and ruin. In dealing with 
 well-behaved children who have been properly 
 trained and refined from their earliest years, this 
 may serve as a rule: Things impressed on the 
 child’s mind and heart, by means of joy, abide 
 longer in memory and sink deeper into the dis- 
 position and the very character, than things 
 impressed painfully by the strokes of the rod,— 
 provided always that the importance of educa- 
 tion and the authority of the educator are not dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 Foerster applies to unfeeling teachers Ca- 
 vour’s saying, ‘‘Any ass can govern with mar- 
 tial law.’’ The higher type of teacher or 
 
 2 Levana. 
 
186 MORE JOY. 
 
 educator, by means of the psycho-physical 
 method, that is with a sunbeam of joy or with a 
 word and a glance, can get as good results as an- 
 other with blows,—and he is likely to get more. 
 The teacher who knows how to impart joy and in- 
 struction at the same time has won the day. Joy 
 is a truer ally and better assistant than the rod 
 could ever be. When we succeed in having the 
 child enjoy prayers, divine worship, work, acts of 
 self-denial and charity, then his education has 
 reached the heights; character will develop spon- 
 taneously thereafter. 
 
 Special attention must be directed to one par- 
 ticular source of joy, of moral and bodily profit, 
 of healthy youthful happiness and gayety, 
 namely, physical exercise,—games, gymnastics, 
 walks and, within reasonable limits, sport. Here 
 we are in youth’s own domain. This source of 
 Joy must be carefully considered in an age when, 
 for many obvious reasons, a weak, stunted, sickly 
 generation is growing up, unable to use its feet, 
 incapable of finding pleasure in long walks and 
 strenuous marches. Much suffering comes from 
 this fact; and youth loses much solid joy on this 
 account. ‘The best of all means for the strength- 
 ening of the organism, is left unused; the best 
 means for imparting a refreshing interest to 
 
JOY AND EDUCATION 187 
 
 life’s journey is ignored; and so the faculty of 
 observing and appreciating nature becomes atro- 
 phied, the body drags on a lazy, sickly existence, 
 and the mental and moral life begins to dry up. 
 It displayed great practical wisdom on the part 
 of Pius X when, in 1905, he threw open the Vati- 
 ean Gardens for the athletic exercises of the 
 Catholic Young Men’s Associations and, with his 
 household, attended the ball games, races, and 
 gymnastic performances of thousands of youths, 
 and bestowed on the victors two hundred gold and 
 silver medals. He also gave them this sound ad- 
 vice: ‘‘ Young people should love outdoor exer- 
 cise: 1t benefits both their bodies and their souls. 
 We feel young again, even at seeing them run and 
 Jump and amuse themselves.’’ In these words 
 there speaks the spirit of St. Philip Neri. It 
 would be well if their practical implications 
 were taken to heart by educators of the young, 
 and especially by the heads of trades unions, ap- 
 prentice associations, and the like; so that both 
 in summer and in winter youthful bands might 
 be led away from saloons and taverns to the 
 woods and fields for drill and exercise, for walks 
 and excursions. That would develop a happy 
 generation of young people. 
 _ Itis told of a saint that once, as he was playing 
 
188 MORE JOY 
 
 ball with his friends, the subject of death was in- 
 troduced, and each one asked the other what 
 should be done if the last moment of life were 
 then suddenly to be announced. The saint an- 
 swered differently from everyone else by saying: 
 ‘‘For my part I would keep on with the ball- 
 game, because I began it for the love of God.’’ 
 St. Charles Borromeo answered in much the same 
 way when asked the same question during a game 
 of chess. 
 
 In their discipline and routine all academies, 
 boarding. schools, and educational establish- 
 ments should certainly utilize the excellent 
 pedagogical instrument of exercise, rich in hy- 
 gienic and moral value and full of irrepressible 
 joy. All such institutions ought to be able to 
 stand the test of happiness. A school which does 
 not make satisfactory provision for the natural, 
 innocent, healthy, light-heartedness of its young 
 inmates, deserves to be closed. If it has not the 
 spirit of happiness, it is without the right spirit, 
 it is without the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Joy should not be lacking even in those refuges 
 of depraved and neglected youth which we call 
 by the horrid modern name of ‘‘reformatories.”’ 
 Admittedly this kind of education is the hardest 
 of all. Heaven and earth are contending for the 
 
JOY AND EDUCATION 189 
 
 possession of these poor creatures, and in the bad 
 cases, hell has its victims already branded in both 
 soul and body and locked in the iron clamps of 
 habit. Firmness and mildness, punishment and 
 severity, natural and supernatural helps and 
 joys must strive with endless patience to loosen 
 the bonds, lift the ban, and break through the 
 triple armor of malice, shamelessness, and-moral 
 helplessness. 
 
 Here also, experience shows that severity alone 
 simply accelerates the hardening process, and 
 that kindliness and joyousness are more effectual 
 than the strictest discipline. Of course, the right 
 method is to combine kindness and strictness, but 
 we must not be too niggardly in fixing the pro- 
 portion of joy. Since it is force alone that keeps 
 the inmates in these houses, and since the nat- 
 ural reaction against force produces distrust, ob- 
 stinacy, hatred, and defiance towards the heads 
 and overseers, therefore no educative result can 
 be obtained unless the feeling of hostility grad- 
 ually changes into trustfulness. Such trustful- 
 ness will be brought about only by much love; 
 and love is manifested most winningly through 
 friendliness and the giving of joy. 
 
 For such manifestation, there is ample oppor- 
 tunity in the routine of the institution. These 
 
190 MORE JOY 
 
 poor creatures, in their sad lives, have, as yet, 
 perhaps, very seldom met true, pure joy. Pos- 
 sibly, from their very childhood, they have known 
 no other means of enjoyment than alcohol and 
 sin. Punishment and misery have swung the 
 rod over them, making them miserable, embitter- 
 ing their lives. Plainly then, in order that the 
 poor little heart may be lifted off the rack of a 
 guilty conscience, raised up out of its fear and 
 terror, and gradually brought back to joy, it must 
 first be taught to breathe freely, to believe in it- 
 self and in men, to expand with a new hope, to 
 take delight again in nature, to seek and to prize 
 the heavenly joys of God’s forgiveness and grace. 
 When its life is again free, when the warm sun- 
 shine of joy again penetrates its soil, many good 
 instincts that have been wrapped in winter sleep, 
 will reawaken, and there will be hope of a fruit- 
 ful education. 
 
 Even through the bolted doors and barred win- 
 dows of prisons and reformatories, the angel of 
 Joy must enter. What a mission there is in such 
 places for natural and supernatural joy. Note 
 the highly interesting information imparted by 
 Foerster: ‘Alongside one of the biggest pris- 
 ons in America, there is now building a gigantic 
 hothouse for all kinds of plants, in order that the 
 
JOY AND EDUCATION 191 
 
 prisoners may learn and practise horticulture. 
 It is an old observation that even the most brutal 
 prisoners undergo a softening influence, if al- 
 lowed to take care of aflower. At first they do it 
 merely to pass the time, but little by little they 
 ~ come to enjoy it; and while they are carefully 
 watering and trimming the plant, pruning its 
 dead leaves, and providing it with sunshine, 
 something within themselves that has long 
 seemed dead comes to life again,—it is Joy in 
 service, joy in the bloom of things, care for oth- 
 ers. 
 
 How instructive an undertaking! How de- 
 serving of our imitation! To succeed in thus 
 planting a slip of joy in one of these outcast lives 
 and to develop it into a tree, is to have saved a 
 soul and to have given back to society a useful 
 member. In these attempts, due consideration 
 should always be given to the spiritual physician 
 of the soul who imparts the most holy and most 
 helpful joys; he must always be allowed free 
 access and wide influence. Sundays and holi- 
 days ought to be essentially different from work- 
 ing days; they should be real days of joy. Divine 
 service should be as solemn as possible and, dur- 
 ing the service, music and singing should inter- 
 
 3 Jugendiehre, 515. 
 
192 MORE JOY: 
 
 rupt the frightful monotony of prison life. 
 Carefully selected reading that will elevate and 
 cheer, should distract the mind from dark 
 thoughts and designs, and a religious picture 
 should shed a friendly ray upon the lonely pris- 
 oner in his cell. 
 
XVII 
 JOY THROUGH JOY 
 
 The foregoing leads us naturally to the most 
 important point of all. Noble Christian souls 
 find no greater joy than that of giving joy to oth- 
 ers. In this both self-interest and charity are 
 consulted and reconciled. No higher pleasures 
 can be contrived, no sweeter ones enjoyed, than 
 those which we invent for others and enjoy with 
 them. The gifts of joy we bestow upon others 
 are given back to us again with interest, and 
 raised in value. 
 
 What is happiness? To make others happy. 
 What is joy? To give joy to others. If this 
 were the firm conviction of a vast number, and if 
 it became deeply rooted through pleasant expe- 
 rience of its truth, unquestionably, the entire 
 deficit of joy would be very quickly made up and 
 joy itself would grow greater and greater. That 
 would rid us of many an enemy of joy and would, 
 at least partially, settle the social problem. It 
 
 would save us from the most prevalent error and 
 193 
 
194 MORE JOY 
 
 the worst sin of the age, that reckless egotism 
 which represents itself as a principle of progress, 
 although in fact it is a most unfortunate rever- 
 sal,—a sort of miserable weakling that poses as 
 a hero and calls sympathy and pity unmanly. 
 Such a conviction would infuse a great warm 
 stream of love into our chilled social life. It 
 would teach us the art of adding little nosegays 
 of love to our gifts and alms, instead of giving © 
 a few things and upbraiding much, as the son of 
 Sirach says." It would make us skilful in the 
 art of quietly sowing little seeds of joy in the 
 lives of our relatives and of all with whom we 
 come in contact; and also, in the art of introduc- 
 ing joy into the sick room, the hospital, and the 
 asylum; and finally, in the art of preparing for 
 the people joys that are free from alcohol,—an 
 activity much more important than the prepara- 
 tion of non-alcoholic beverages, since it is usually 
 the soul’s unsatisfied craving for joy, and not 
 physical thirst that drives the victims of in- 
 temperance to the slaughter. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the invention of joys 
 would be far more of a blessing to mankind than 
 many technical improvements; and in this field 
 anyone can be an inventor. Such we really be- 
 
 1 Heclesiasticus xx, 15. 
 
JOY THROUGH JOY 195 
 
 come, the moment we boldly step outside the nar- 
 row circle of selfishness and get accustomed first 
 to think of others besides ourselves, and then of 
 others more than of ourselves. 'T'o do this, we 
 need not be rich or learned; one thing only is nec- 
 essary, namely, that we be truly and heartily 
 kind. ‘This kindness, this cordial desire to please 
 others, quickly imparts a brightness to the face, a 
 soft light to the eyes, a music to the voice, so 
 that wherever we go we take with us real joy. 
 
 If the intention of pleasing others were to rule 
 our tongues, to inspire our speech and conversa- 
 tion, what a blessing that would be! How much 
 empty gossip and idle chatter would be done 
 away with! How greatly conversation would 
 be elevated and refined. Then, the little tongue, 
 capable of utterly destroying joy, would become 
 joy’s most noble and powerful organ. Instead 
 of squirting poison into human lives, instead of 
 twisting an unsuspecting neighbor’s words into 
 invisible snares to draw him to his ruin, instead 
 of bandying angry, deceitful, or lewd phrases, the 
 tongue would then work real miracles and create 
 whole new worlds of joy. For fortunately, joy 
 is even more infectious than melancholy; and a 
 friendly, cheerful word at the right moment may 
 prove the door to salvation. 
 
196 MORE JOY 
 
 It is surely true, as Foerster says, that the 
 most dangerous weakness of our age is its tend- 
 ency to overrate the practical efficiency of 
 sternness and harshness,—police-methods, in a 
 word,—and to underrate the practical efficiency 
 of courtesy and generosity. In the following 
 weighty observations he indicates the value of 
 friendliness as a social and industrial factor: 
 ‘‘Often in the list of industrial advertisements we 
 see the notice— Wanted, an energetic engineer.’ 
 Unfortunately, this is not meant to refer to the 
 type of man who is strong enough and brave 
 enough to unite perfect kindness and personal 
 modesty with inexorable firmness of management. 
 It means a man energetic in a barking, biting, 
 sheep-dog way, which involves the degradation 
 of the wage-earner and the complete destruction 
 of all real joy in labor and service. Let us not 
 forget that a great deal of bitterness is due to the 
 fact that men have a deep need of joy in obeying. 
 They get angry at a brutal foreman, not because 
 he curtails their freedom, but because he makes 
 joyful obedience impossible for them and re- 
 mains blind to the fact that they will obey orders 
 only as men and not as beasts. ... Just as one 
 insulting word can often cause an individual or 
 a whole group to rebel, so likewise a single word 
 
JOY THROUGH JOY 197 
 
 of appreciation or even a respectful tone, com- 
 bined with the strictest discipline, can effect 
 miracles of devotedness and of joy. Dostojew- 
 ski, speaking of the effect of kindness in the Si- 
 berian prisons, says: ‘I have met kindly, good- 
 natured officers and have noticed the influence 
 they exercised. A few friendly words, and at 
 once the prisoner morally revived. They were 
 as delighted as children and like children they 
 began to love.’ ’’? 
 
 In the art of giving joy to others, special ef- 
 ficacy must be conceded to friendship, which, as 
 a noble author says, came upon earth at seeing 
 the first man suffer, in order to comfort him, to 
 dry his tears, to protect him, to help him carry 
 life’s burdens, to weep at his death and to assure 
 him of a faithful remembrance.® 
 
 2 Christentum und Klassenkampf, Ziirich, 1908, pp. 163 ff. 
 
 3A. M. Liittwitz, Wo ist das Glick? Aphorismen, Freiburg, 
 1910, 182. 
 
XVIII 
 ART AND JOY 
 
 To find one’s own joy in creating joy for others, 
 —this opens up a whole new world of the noblest, 
 purest, keenest joys, which have great social 
 Significance, because they imply the co-operation 
 of at least two persons, and often of hundreds. 
 Were art dominated by this motive, were its chief 
 purpose to increase the common store of human 
 joyousness, then it might hope to grow strong 
 and young and to renew itself again, for the in- 
 dispensable sympathy between art and the people 
 would spontaneously reappear. That this sym- 
 pathy has been lost is not to be wondered at, when 
 from a safe distance modern art keeps crying 
 out: Odt profanum vulgus et arceo,—‘The 
 common herd I hate and keep away.’’ Brush 
 and chisel are guided by Nietzsche’s ideas of the 
 Superman and the Arrogance of Genius,—ap- 
 parently so full of power, but in reality empty 
 and rotten. The people will never demand any- 
 thing from an art which demands nothing from 
 
 198 
 
ART AND JOY 199 
 
 them,—they have too much character, too much 
 loftiness and dignity to do that. Art has greater 
 need of the people than they have of art. If it 
 ceases to draw vital energy from the people as 
 its soil, it is surely doomed to decay. 
 
 Hence art should consider it an honor to be al- 
 lowed to work for the people. It should find its 
 greatest joy in delighting the popular heart and 
 in using its splendid powers to make up man- 
 kind’s immense deficit of joy. To paint for 
 the sake of painting is an impossible programme. 
 “Art for art’s sake’ is an empty phrase. Ht 
 prodesse volunt et delectare poetae,—‘Poets 
 wish both to profit and please,’’ is an axiom that 
 holds good in every branch of art. An art which 
 asks, but does not give; which demands the blind 
 bestowal of recognition, reward and admiration; 
 which is neither willing nor able to teach, in- 
 struct or delight, has missed its vocation and for- 
 feited its rights, especially in these days when 
 everyone wears the badge of social duty. ‘All 
 literature, art and science,’’ says Ruskin,! ‘‘are 
 vain and worse, if they do not enable you to be 
 glad; and glad justly.’’? 
 
 In an age, called the “Social Age,’’? which 
 thinks itself the discoverer of social duty and so- 
 
 1The Hagle’s Nest, Lect. IX, p. 177. 
 
200 MORE JOY 
 
 cial virtue, it is impossible that an art should 
 flourish which asks nothing of society and re- 
 pudiates all social obligation and co-operation. 
 Art itself is the main loser by this exclusiveness. 
 An art which exists for its own sake is just about 
 as successful as a man who lives for his own sake, 
 —both grow sour, dry up and wither away with 
 egotism, neither possessing nor creating Joy. 
 Having no good aim in life, such art gets no joy 
 from living or creating. It loses all joy, because 
 it has forgotten its noblest mission, namely, to 
 give joy. We can offer no better advice than 
 that it should abandon this cold, chill, lonely, 
 stupid policy, go boldly out of itself and mingle 
 again with the people in friendliness and kindli- 
 ness and love. Let it declare with Antigone: 
 ‘‘T am here to take part in loving, not in hating,”’ 
 —‘‘T am here to relieve, not to intensify misery, 
 to prevent, not to increase suffering.’? Then we 
 shall soon have a popular art, for which the peo- 
 ple will be very, very thankful, one which will 
 provide a corrective for our degenerate art and 
 literature. 
 
 Art should, of course, not confine its attention 
 to the cheerful aspects of life, nor merely enter- 
 tain and amuse. But it should create and pre- 
 sent only what is adapted to make the life of the 
 
ART AND JOY 201 
 
 people freer, safer, loftier, nobler, stronger, 
 and consequently, happier. It should not, for 
 the sake of a few dissolute rakes and “good 
 fellows,’’ alienate and scandalize the multi- 
 tude. It should not dare to offer the people 
 husks of swine as food of joy, nor excite low 
 instincts which inject poison and unhappiness 
 into life. In all its work it must consider the 
 people, keep in touch with them, and do them 
 good. And even if it remembers and observes 
 all this, it will have no call to grow conceited; 
 for it will always be getting from the people 
 more than it can give. It will send a sturdy, liv- 
 ing root down deep into the rich soil of folk-life; 
 and the folk will open up and expose their in- 
 most soul to it and share with it their inexhausti- 
 ble capacity for faith, morality, sound thinking, 
 strong willing, in a word the whole kingdom of 
 genuine poetry, that is theirs by right. 
 
 For God and for the people! This is the motto 
 especially of religious and ecclesiastical art, 
 which should merit the praise bestowed upon 
 Phidias by an old writer: ‘If a man’s soul is 
 heavy-laden and he is so afflicted with the many 
 cares and sufferings of life, that even sweet sleep 
 no longer refreshes him, he will, I think, in the 
 presence of this statue (of Zeus) forget every- 
 
202 MORE JOY 
 
 thing in existence that is burdensome or terri- 
 fying. Such is the work which thou, Phidias, 
 hast conceived and executed; thus splendid is the 
 brightness of thy art.’’? The Christian painter 
 has a model greater, truer, more full of Joy than 
 the Zeus of Phidias. 
 
 2 Dio Chrysostom. 
 
XIX 
 JOY AND THE CARE OF SOULS 
 
 In the eighteenth century the noble-minded 
 Ambroise de Lombez, addressed these words to 
 priests: ‘‘ Above all things, joy belongs to the 
 state and duties of the minister of the Lord, the 
 priest who serves the altar of God; he, of all oth- 
 ers must make himself all things to all men; he, 
 of all others, must avoid the littleness of cow- 
 ardly fear, the caprice of a bad temper, and the 
 gloom of melancholy. It is his special duty to 
 honor religion by the nobility of his conduct; to 
 show by his behavior, even more than by his con- 
 versation, that virtue has nothing savage or harsh 
 about it; and to draw all the world to the prac- 
 tice of it by the sweetness and gentleness of his 
 manners. Hspecially should he endeavor to 
 make timid and anxious souls understand that 
 God has not called them to a state of hard slay- 
 ery, but rather to a holy freedom; that where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and that 
 
 their perplexities and fears stand in the way of 
 203 
 
204 MORE JOY 
 
 that holy liberty.’ The more anxious and fright- 
 ened such souls are, the more do they stand in 
 need of the loving compassion of the priest of 
 God. Let him impress upon them that the spirit 
 of liberty and holy joy is the source of happiness 
 even in this life,?_and that it increases in propor- 
 tion to our progress and virtue, just as when we 
 ascend mountains, the air becomes purer as we 
 mount higher, and our bodies feel lighter and 
 morejabh casey’ > 
 
 We, to whom God has entrusted the beautiful 
 office of caring for souls, are intimately per- 
 suaded that our office includes an obligation to 
 provide joy, and we may apply to ourselves all 
 that is said to teachers, trainers of youth, and 
 leaders of organizations. To help us put it all 
 in practice, we have means, energy and gifts 
 such as no one else possesses. Even our strictly 
 pastoral activities,—teaching, preaching, and ad- 
 ministering the Sacraments,—form a most im- 
 portant, valuable, and in fact indispensable help 
 in saving and enlarging mankind’s store of joy. 
 Even when we preach penance, as our office re- 
 quires, and insist upon renunciation, self-con- 
 quest, temperance and purity, even then, and es- 
 
 17I Corinthians iii. 17. 3 Op. cit., pp. 36-37. 
 2 St. James i, 25. 
 
JOY AND THE CARE OF SOULS ~— 205 
 
 pecially then, we are working on the side of true 
 joy and against its enemies. 
 
 At a time like this we have to be careful lest 
 frequent sad experiences, depressing cares and 
 apprehensions, and all the present wretchedness 
 should influence us unduly to suppress the tone 
 of joy in our preaching, catechizing, and exhort- 
 ing; and lest pessimism should get a grip-on our 
 life and vocation with its ‘‘dead hand’’ which 
 despoils, kills, and sterilizes everything it 
 touches. We have to be careful to maintain that 
 healthy, vivifying optimism which the saints 
 never lost. 
 
 If, although sowing earnestly and zealously, 
 we are yet not reaping a proportionate harvest, 
 we should ask, ‘‘Has the sunshine of joy perhaps 
 been wanting?’’ And if, despite every effort, the 
 relation of pastor and flock is neither close nor 
 cordial, might not a little more joyousness pro- 
 vide what is necessary? Let us remember that 
 we should never uproot evil without at the same 
 time planting good. To uproot evil, hail and 
 storm and thunder are serviceable, and some- 
 times even necessary; but for sowing and plant- 
 ing, it is not a tempest, it is rather much sunshine 
 that we need. 
 
 ‘‘But men are incredibly indifferent and irre- 
 
206 MORE JOY 
 
 sponsive!’’ In that case, let us do as suggested 
 in an Evangelical pastor’s very readable medita- 
 tions on his office: ‘‘The earth stared up at the 
 sun, barren and lifeless. ‘Then I must shine 
 with still more warmth and friendliness,’ was 
 the sun’s response.’’ 
 
 Not only should we joyfully discharge our du- 
 ties, preaching and catechizing with joy, but we 
 must also preach upon the subject of joy and 
 speak about it to the children. The Apostle 
 places joy among the fruits of the Spirit® The 
 Church wishes Sundays and festivals to be days 
 of joy. To present the truths of Christianity to 
 the mind, is very important and necessary; it 
 is also important and necessary to bring home 
 to the heart the possibilities of joy in Christian- 
 ity, in its doctrines, Sacraments, liturgical sea- 
 sons, virtues and graces. These win the heart 
 to Christ and lead it away from worldly and sin- 
 ful joys. 
 
 Noteworthy are the words of Fénélon: “If 
 children (and people in general) come to think 
 that virtue is sad and gloomy, but that freedom 
 and license are pleasant, then all is lost; every 
 
 4 Der Pfarrer. Erlebtes und Erstrebtes, von Lic. Dr. Rittelmayer, 
 
 Pfarrer in Ntirnberg, Ulm, 1909, 30. 
 5 Galatians v, 22. 
 
JOY AND THE CARE OF SOULS — 207 
 
 effort will be in vain.’’ Properly understood, 
 the saying of Nietzsche is true: ‘‘ Virtue has to 
 be free of moral sourness.”’ 
 
 We must be not slack in our efforts to improve 
 religious art and sacred song, to make the House 
 of God and the liturgical functions as beautiful 
 as possible. All this contributes to God’s honor 
 and to the welfare and joy of our people. We 
 must also carefully cultivate the German folk- 
 song in church within liturgical limits; and 
 we must exhort our people to mingle religious 
 songs and other fine songs with their work and 
 recreation at home. <A good song at the right 
 place and time makes one feel free and joyful; 
 it purifies the atmosphere and keeps silly and ob- 
 scene songs away. Lombez says very beauti- 
 fully: ‘‘To live in this world is like the captiv- 
 ity of Babylon to the servants of God; how can 
 they then rejoice? Have they not reason to say, 
 with the Israelites of old: ‘How can we sing 
 the song of the Lord in a strange land?’ Yes; 
 but even that complaint of theirs was a song. 
 The prophet represents to us the people of God, 
 singing that they cannot sing. Certainly there 
 are mournful songs and joyful songs; but some 
 little amount of joy must always accompany the 
 action of singing; no one could ever sing from 
 
208 MORE JOY 
 
 profound melancholy, for that produces nothing 
 but silence and inactivity.’’ ° 
 
 Let us not hesitate to repeat firm exhortations 
 in the pulpit and at catechism. In so doing we 
 shall only be following the example of the Apos- 
 tle who said: ‘*Be not drunk with wine, wherein 
 is luxury; but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit, 
 speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and 
 spiritual canticles, singing and making melody 
 in your hearts to the Lord.’’* ‘‘Is any of you 
 sad? Let him pray. Is he cheerful in mind? 
 Let him sing.’’* Thus we shall be following the 
 example of the early Christians. It is hardly 
 necessary to recall the idyllic description of life 
 in Bethlehem given by Saints Paula and Eusto- 
 chium, the companions of St. Jerome. ‘* Wher- 
 ever thou dost turn, the farmer at his plow is 
 singing Alleluia. The reaper, dripping sweat, 
 consoles himself with Psalms. The vine-dresser, 
 pruning the branches with his hook, sings a verse 
 of David’s. The Psalms are the songs of this 
 country, its only love-songs. This is the way our 
 shepherds pipe; these are the implements of our 
 husbandry.’’ ® 
 
 6 Op. cit., p. 164. 
 
 7 Ephesians v, 18-19. 
 
 8 St. James v, 13. 
 
 9St. Jerome Ep, 46 (al. 17): Paula and Eustochium to Marcella. 
 
JOY AND THE CARE OF SOULS ~ 209 
 
 We shall be imitating the healthy example 
 of the Middle Ages, too. The Capitularies of 
 Charlemagne prescribe that every shepherd, on 
 his way to and from the pasture, shall sing re- 
 ligious songs, so that he may be recognized by 
 all the world as a pious Christian. ‘‘We find in 
 a prayer-book written in 1509: ‘Where two or 
 three are gathered together, let there be singing. 
 Sing during your work in house and field, at 
 _ your seasons of prayer and devotion, in times of 
 joy and in times of sorrow. Good songs are 
 agreeable to God; bad ones are sinful and must 
 be avoided. Singing to the honor of God and 
 His saints—such singing as is heard in Christian 
 ehurches on Sundays and feast-days—the sing- 
 ing of servants and children collected before the 
 worthy heads of families is particularly edifying, 
 and disposes the heart to joy. God loves the 
 cheerful-hearted.’ ’’ 
 
 10 Johannes Janssen, History of the German People at the Close of 
 
 the Middle Ages. Translated by M. A. Mitchell and A. M. Christie, 
 vol. I, pp. 261 f. 
 
xX 
 JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 
 
 Everything must co-operate in reawakening in 
 the soul of our people that love of nature which 
 used to be so lively, so warm, so tender.’ For 
 a long time the love of nature has been regarded 
 as a discovery of the Renaissance, as a thing un- 
 known in the early centuries and during the 
 whole medieval period. That, however, was a 
 hasty judgment, unduly influenced by the view- 
 point of our reading and writing age. A people 
 may have deep appreciation of nature, without 
 saying or printing very much on the subject. As 
 a matter of fact, the moment we enter deeply and 
 sympathetically into the popular life, we find 
 this love of nature in every age. No sooner do 
 we give close attention to the scant remnants of 
 folk-song and artistic poetry, to the sermons and 
 sacred legends, to the scenic background chosen 
 by artists and cloister-builders, to the books of 
 
 1 A. M. Weiss, Die Kunst zu leben, 8th ed., xvi: Die Kunst, mit 
 
 der Natur zu leben, 462. 
 210 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 211 
 
 scholars and peasants, to popular usages and re- 
 ligious customs, than there issues forth from 
 these a song of appreciation and love of nature, 
 rich, clear, and jubilant. Of course there are 
 differences of kind and degree in the develop- 
 ment of the love of nature; but its silver veins 
 may be traced through all the centuries. Hs- 
 pecially in the folk-song its waters have kept 
 fresh as a fountain, even during periods when 
 the pedantic classical poetry had no more spirit 
 or life than a mummy,—as for instance in the 
 seventeenth century, or in the eighteenth, when 
 the poets indulged in tearful sentimentalism and 
 sickly melancholy.? 
 
 The love of nature is not wholly lost. It is 
 still a strong lever, a powerful influence, in the 
 movement and creative activity of art, science 
 and literature, and throughout the whole life of 
 the cultured classes. But in the life of the peo- 
 ple it no longer has the strength and importance 
 it once possessed. Among the people it has been 
 put to sleep, if not killed, by modern culture,— 
 a melancholy and ominous situation. 
 
 ‘“‘To commune and to live with nature,’”’ says 
 Walter, ‘‘is necessary for man, as a matter of 
 
 2A. Biese, Die Entwicklung des Naturgefiihls im Mittelalter und 
 in der Neuzeit, 2 Ausg., Leipzig, 1892, 275 ff. and 295 ff. 
 
212 MORE JOY: 
 
 course. Separated from nature, life becomes 
 unnatural; serious dangers threaten the health 
 of soul and body. Alienation from nature is the 
 result of an exaggerated culture, of unnatural 
 habits of life and work; and conversely, these 
 unfortunate conditions are themselves intensi- 
 fied by separation from nature. Unnatural en- 
 joyments and delights take the place of natural, 
 healthy, innocent pleasures and joys. Food, 
 recreation, all things, assume an artificial, and 
 consequently unhealthy, form. Man undergoes 
 changes of mind and body which are not profit- 
 able to him. Little by little he loses his sure- 
 ness of aim, his vigorous originality, his sound 
 instinct for the things necessary to life and 
 health. Personality, self-contained individual- 
 ity, gradually gives way to a weak, nervous and 
 unsteady type. Men no longer have the living 
 conditions required by nature,—light, air, 
 healthy exercise, suitable nourishment, free view 
 of the beauty and variety of creation. And, 
 even though a one-sided intellectual development 
 is going on at the same time, physical and spirit- 
 ual degeneration will set in.’’? 
 
 Ruskin attributes to a man’s spiritual petti- 
 ness his utter inability to appreciate the beauty 
 
 8 Kélnische Volkszeitung, vom 12 Juli 1908. 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 213 
 
 of the heavens, the purity of water, the life of 
 animals and flowers. This much is certainly 
 true, that nothing so alienates us from nature, 
 nothing so destroys respect and esteem, and con- 
 sequently love for nature, as grossly materialis- 
 tic sentiments and conduct,—intemperance, for 
 instance, and licentiousness and intellectual in- 
 solence and pride. True, the indifference to 
 nature, now so frightfully common, often springs 
 less from a diseased soul than from unhealthy 
 environment and improper education. But it is 
 also true that, whatever its source, the loss of all 
 love of nature diminishes a man’s spiritual and 
 mental worth, and coarsens and saddens the soul 
 of the people; whereas a healthy appreciation of 
 nature ennobles and beautifies life. | 
 “There is growing up,’’? complains Sombart, 
 ‘fa race of men who lack the proper affection for 
 living nature; who never greet the sun, nor dream 
 themselves into the starry heavens; who do not 
 know the voices of the song birds, nor the beauty 
 of winter nights, when the full moon is glisten- 
 ing on the snow-fields. It is a race devoted to 
 watches, umbrellas, overshoes, and electric light 
 —in a word, an artificial race. Even during the 
 four weeks when, for once in the year, the crowds 
 roll out from their rocky gorges into the summer 
 
214. MORE JOY 
 
 resorts, they are not content until even there, on 
 the Digue, on the mountain slopes and on the 
 shores of the Alpine lakes, they feel asphalt un- 
 der their feet.’’ 
 
 Mother Nature! The phrase contains a deep 
 Significance. Nature has indeed an educative 
 function to fulfil with regard to man, and So, 
 mother-like, she is equipped not only with many 
 a means of discipline, but also with joys,—with 
 such glances, words, and tones as a mother uses 
 on her child. When Nature’s educative influ- 
 ence is not exercised in the life of the people or 
 on the individual, then there is something wrong 
 —a mother has been found wanting. 
 
 If this mother is to be what she should be to 
 us, we must respect and love her. ‘‘With awe 
 to tremble is mankind’s best gift,’? Faust tells 
 us. If the soul has never learned, or has for- 
 gotten, how to tremble with awe before the im- 
 mensity and majesty of nature, at the roaring of 
 sea or torrent, at the mighty dramatic proces- 
 sion of the storm clouds, at the deep darkness of 
 forest and cave, then it cannot appreciate the 
 intimate joys of nature. 
 
 “*Nature! great parent! whose unceasing Hand 
 Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, 
 How mighty, how majestic, are thy works! 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 215 
 
 With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul 
 That sees astonished, and astonished sings!’’* 
 
 Nature reveals her deepest mysteries to those 
 who reverently love her, and performs for them 
 many a motherly service. She speaks softly to 
 them, when their hearts are grieved or troubled; 
 she lifts them gently out of the thorns, calls 
 them back again to herself when they are fright- 
 ened or gone astray, and shelters them in the sub- 
 lime stillness of the woods, where the silent trees 
 hold converse with them; or else she wraps them 
 round with storm and tempest, chiding them for 
 being so petty and so fearful, and lends them her 
 strength to do and suffer bravely. HKver the 
 same, yet ever creative, she is always and every- 
 where instructing us about the basis of all life 
 and productivity,—about life’s two poles, per- 
 petual stillness, and constant movement. 
 
 What a tutor she is! Her ability to teach 
 comes from the Creator’s love and wisdom. Her 
 instruction is finely graded, divided into courses 
 according to the seasons, not tiresome nor mo- 
 notonous, always clear, stimulating, enjoyable, 
 spiritually educative. It recommences with the 
 dawn of each new day, when 
 
 4 James Thomson, The Seasons: Winter. 
 
216 MORE JOY 
 
 ‘‘The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, 
 Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, 
 And fleckéd darkness like a drunkard reels 
 From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels: 
 Now ere the sun advance his burning eye, 
 
 The day to cheer and night’s dark dew to dry.’’5 
 
 —and when, as a folk-song says, ‘‘in the morn- 
 ing breeze the branches bow like pious children 
 at prayer.’’ It is secretly interwoven with 
 many a delicate thread in the daily task of each 
 one of us, even when we are breathing a little 
 fresh air, or taking a fleeting glance through the 
 window at meadow and field. It is whispered 
 to the heart in dreams, 
 
 ‘*“When the shadows darken, 
 Stars awake to light, 
 
 And a breath of longing 
 Rustles through the night.’’ ® 
 
 Nature’s most wonderful lesson, however, re- 
 juvenating body and soul, is imparted after the 
 stern nerve-hardening discipline of the winter, 
 when in the spring, an echo of the first Frat vi- 
 brates through her whole kingdom, summoning 
 all energy to work, and every creature to new 
 life; when ‘‘ River and brook are freed from ice 
 by the lovely, life-giving glance of spring, valleys 
 
 5 Romeo and Juliet, II, 3. 6 Goethe. 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 217 
 
 grow green with happy hope and feeble old win- 
 ter flees to his bleak hills.’’ ‘ 
 
 Then, as Venantius Fortunatus sang in the 
 sixth century, all bliss comes back; the flowers 
 burst into bloom on the greensward, smiling with 
 bright eyes; every tree rustles approval with its 
 leaves; and the bird takes up again his song for- 
 gotten during the cold winter. 
 
 It is, therefore, a real misfortune, if blind, dull 
 insensibility completely estranges man from na- 
 ture, depriving him of all the comfort and re- 
 freshment hid in her motherly bosom. That 
 comfort will be given not only in regions dis- 
 tinguished for natural beauty, and not only dur- 
 ing special seasons of the year, but always and 
 everywhere,—on the one condition that man 1s 
 not insensitive. Nature speaks to the senses of 
 everyone; but she speaks to the souls only of those 
 who approach her sympathetically. When the 
 life of nature and the life of the soul are in ac- 
 cord, then real enjoyment of nature begins. 
 Both with ourselves and with others, we can do 
 much to promote progress from sense to soul, 
 from interest in individual life to interest in the 
 life of nature. 
 
 This does not mean that by word and pen and 
 
 7 Faust, 
 
218 MORE JOY 
 
 picture, or by travel, we must make ourselves, 
 our children, or people in general, familiar with 
 unusually beautiful scenes. True, the vast pan- 
 orama of nature, lofty mountains, cataracts, im- 
 mense rivers and seas, will move, inspire, over- 
 power the beholder,—when not seen too early or 
 too often, and thus made dull and tiresome. 
 But an ordinary landscape, with its more or 
 less interesting variety of hill and dale, of wood 
 and field, of meadow-land and murmuring brook, 
 comes closer to a man and eventually may mean 
 more to him. 
 
 Especially serviceable and grateful is it to di- 
 rect attention and sympathy toward the monot- 
 onous and unattractive features of nature, to 
 deserts, for instance, and ‘‘bad weather,’’ and 
 whatever else is commonplace, or unnoticed, or 
 despised. We should watch these things closely 
 and get from them all the beauty, ‘nstruction, 
 and training that they have to give. 
 
 The limitless range of the plains and the bil- 
 lowy harvest-fields; the flowering solitude and 
 Sweet privacy of the heath; the ever shifting 
 scene and the rich play of colors on the hills; 
 the autumn days, cooling and fading and dying 
 so peacefully, so quietly, amid their wavering, 
 trembling mists; the rainy days, when nature 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 219 
 
 seems to break out in tears of pain and grief, 
 when ‘‘the rain beats down violently like a loud 
 answer to an unspoken question;’’* the snow- 
 fields lit up with millions of glittering stars and 
 diamonds, when tree and wood are hung with 
 silver spangles, when all lies cold and rigid and 
 glassy clear, and the earth deep hidden under 
 thick white coverlets of wool is fast. asleep, 
 dreaming and breathing gently like a slumber- 
 ing child; yonder clear spring that gushes forth 
 impetuously into the light from a dark mountain 
 cave, So busy to do good on every side and to give 
 itself away; this lonely tree here, with proud 
 bearing and splendid growth, like the monarch, 
 as in truth it is, of all the region; the forest there, 
 with its secret solemn inner life, nature’s model 
 of a social state; in a word, every land and clime, 
 every hour of the day and season of the year, 
 every wind and every weather,—all have a spe- 
 cial quality, an individual beauty, a message and 
 a healing power for us, if we will but look and 
 listen and open up our hearts a little. 
 
 This sense of little things, this faculty of en- 
 joying little things, is very important. Who- 
 ever has it, finds everywhere in nature flowers of 
 joy ‘“‘with milky stalk and honey’d cup.’? We 
 
 8 Lenau. 
 
220 MORE JOY 
 
 must teach the child to understand, respect, care 
 for and reverence the little things in nature,— 
 the flower, the tree, the spring, the bird. Then 
 gradually his little eyes must be opened to the 
 larger things,—first to his own near surround- 
 ings, fields of grain, running waters, the woods, 
 the noble array of forest giants, the meadows and 
 highlands; then, later, to the ensemble of all these 
 details in a landscape; next, to the way in which 
 this picture at our feet is constantly enriched 
 and enlivened by the daily and hourly display 
 overhead, where on the wonderful blue back- 
 ground, sun, moon and stars, wind and clouds 
 incessantly reveal themselves; and then, finally, 
 to the special beauties of each of Nature’s four 
 moods or ages, that is to say, the seasons of the 
 year. 
 
 Our children have too many worthless toys. 
 Their playthings should be sun and moon and 
 stars, flowers and stones and brooks. Only 
 when the feeling for nature has been so far de- 
 veloped that the child really plays with these, 
 talking and listening and mentally conversing, 
 only then should he be taken on long journeys 
 to foreign lands, upon high mountains and on 
 the sea. And this feeling will be developed, not 
 by bothersome lessons and ponderous instruc- 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 221 
 
 tions and sentimental effusions, but by a prudent 
 directing of the attention, by an occasional 
 kindly, affectionate suggestion, by means of a 
 pilgrim’s staff which for youth is a magic wand. 
 
 The love of nature is most valuable, indispensa- 
 ble, fruitful and rich in joy, when it strikes deep 
 root in the religious soil of the soul. ‘Then, as 
 Alban Stolz says, creation becomes one big Bible, 
 filled with pictures, parables, similitudes and les- 
 sons. The religious view of nature thoroughly 
 permeates the Old Testament; and in the New 
 Testament it is taught by our Savior Himself. 
 To cultivate it and to use it as an aid in teaching, 
 is primarily the business of the preacher and 
 the catechist. From our Savior these may 
 learn delicately to illustrate the loftiest and sub- 
 limest truths with images and pictures drawn 
 from nature and the life of the common people. 
 Be it noted, too, that this is an excellent prac- 
 tical means of making the country people aware 
 of the great superiority of their life spent so close 
 to nature, and hence helps to rid them of the 
 morbid tendency to move to the great cities, 
 where living conditions are foreign, and in fact 
 hostile, to nature. 
 
 A healthy piety readily unites with the love of 
 nature, and a fine feeling for nature can give 
 
222 MORE JOY 
 
 piety much nourishment and energy. Nature- 
 cure should be prescribed in cases of gloomy, un- 
 healthy piety. LLombez speaks severely to mel- 
 ancholy Christians: ‘‘What then! When all 
 nature 1s breaking forth into transports of glad- 
 ness in the sight of its Creator; when the forests 
 and the mountains, when the little hills and the 
 valleys, are dancing with pleasure; when the 
 streams and the rivers, flowing rapidly in their 
 appointed courses, sing the praises of His glory 
 in their soft murmurs, as though they clapped 
 their hands for joy;° shall we, immortal souls, 
 created for joy, shall we alone remain insensible 
 to the gladness of the whole universe? Shall 
 we be the only creatures to keep a gloomy si- 
 lence?’’*® A Christian who did that would be a 
 faithless interpreter of nature, misrepresenting 
 instead of manifesting its true sense. 
 
 Religious enjoyment of nature is a safeguard 
 against that modern exaggerated love for na- 
 ture, which springs from unbelief and impiety, 
 from a pantheistic deification of nature, from 
 morbid, fanatical devotion to nature, from silly 
 attempts to substitute nature-worship for the 
 worship of God and to find in nature the all-suf- 
 ficient remedy for every ill. 
 
 9 Psalms xevii, 8. 10 Op. cit., p. 20. 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 223 
 
 In four weighty verses** the Apostle has 
 drawn with master-hand the outlines of a Chris- 
 tian philosophy of nature, and at the same time 
 set the proper limits to love for nature. Na- 
 ture is not divine, not eternal, not perfect, nor 
 ean it satisfy the human soul; indeed, it is even 
 not sufficient unto itself. Its present condition 
 is abnormal. It is subject to vanity and corrup- 
 tion, and it suffers in consequence of sin. This 
 is proved by the contradictions, the discords, 
 the melancholy, which so often form its dominant 
 note, by the outbursts of grief, the tones of dis- 
 tress, the lamentations which re-echo from coun- 
 try to country. ‘“‘Every creature groaneth and 
 travaileth in pain, even until now.’’ 
 
 Can nature in such condition be anything of a 
 help to man? Surely, yes! By the very fact 
 that she is a fellow-sufferer, she must be sym- 
 pathetic and able to console. But much more 
 than this; for she also shares man’s hope, his as- 
 pirations, his longing to be transformed. She is 
 full of hope and hence, despite her sufferings, 
 she is rich in joy. Her lamentations are also 
 eries of longing; her pains are birth-pangs. The 
 mountains are walls and watch-towers con- 
 structed by misery digging down and aspiration 
 
 11 Romans viii, 19-22. 
 
224 MORE JOY 
 
 building up; and from them nature looks out 
 upon a better future. There is a complaining 
 note in the roaring tempest and the howling 
 wind; but also an ardent desire is vibrating there. 
 Sea and river chant a lamentation for the lost 
 Paradise; but they sing also an Advent refrain, 
 full of longing and of mighty hope. In the sun- 
 set glow, all nature lies dreaming the blessed hope 
 of a coming transfiguration. What still remains 
 to her of harmony, of loveliness, of majesty and 
 nobleness, despite all the ravages of sin—and 
 it is no insignificant remnant—voices a twofold 
 message to the human heart. Both messages 
 speak of joy: one, a reminder of the perfect 
 peace of paradise, as it were, its echo and after- 
 glow; ** the other, a hopeful prophecy of the fu- 
 ture, of the new heaven and the new earth, of the 
 full redemption which will also be the solution of 
 every riddle and contradiction and discord in 
 
 nature. 
 
 i2 For since that night the lily’s leaves are pale, 
 And since that night the willow bows and weeps, 
 The cypress still its dusky garment keeps, 
 With fear the tendrils of the ivy quail. 
 The gentle fragrance of the rose full-blown 
 Is but her longing, but her breathed-out sigh 
 For Paradise and all its glories flown. 
 O’er Lebanon—his rocks with fires rent— 
 There sounds from out that world one only ery 
 Of the last cedar’s top already bent.—Lingg. 
 
JOY AND THE LOVE OF NATURE 225 
 
 That is the mystical aspect of the Christian 
 love for nature. It is found among the Saints 
 and gives them their wonderful familiarity with 
 nature, whose deepest mysteries correspond to 
 those of the human soul: ‘‘The expectation of 
 the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons 
 of God. ... For we know that every creature 
 groaneth and travaileth in pain even till now. 
 And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the 
 first-fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan 
 within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the 
 sons of God, the redemption of our body.’’ * 
 
 13 Romans viii, 19-23. 
 
XXT 
 JOY IN WORK 
 
 Joy in work,—a good phrase! The two things 
 cannot be too closely joined. Once they were 
 completely united. Then the curse of sin pushed 
 itself in between them and laid upon work both 
 sweat and pain; but still did not render the 
 renewal of the old union utterly impossible. 
 Christianity lifted the curse. Our Savior took 
 work by the hand, pressed it to his heart, gave 
 it again a place of honor and wedded it to joy in 
 the home and the workshop of Nazareth. By 
 means of prayer, every Christian can restore to 
 work its former blessedness and joy. 
 
 For various reasons, however, work and joy 
 may often be alien and hostile to each other and 
 one of the chief causes of this is the failure to 
 esteem work properly. This is hard to believe 
 in ‘*T'he Century of Labor,’’? when earnestness 
 and zeal for work are common. We have been 
 censured already for having degraded labor by 
 making it a consequence of sin and burdening it 
 
 with a curse. To censure us for that is to mis- 
 226 
 
JOY IN WORK 227 
 
 understand us thoroughly; since it is not work, 
 but the bitterness of work, that we trace to sin. 
 Our doctrine solves a painful puzzle; it shows 
 how work, so essential and well adapted to man, 
 can be at the same time so bitter, so hard and odi- 
 ous. We say that the curse of sin has left its 
 mark upon work, but we by no means affirm that 
 work itself has become and must remain.a curse. 
 
 The curse is really placed upon work by those 
 who lay heavy and insupportable burdens on 
 men’s shoulders without ever lifting a finger to 
 move them;* who lengthen working hours be- 
 yond the limits of human endurance and, at the 
 same time, lower wages; who see in work nothing 
 but forced effort and accursed necessity ; who dil- 
 igently instil into human labor the poison of ill- 
 will and enmity and revolt, and hope only for an 
 impossible future when work will be pure pleas- 
 ure, and each man will regulate the kind and 
 amount of his labor according to his own taste 
 and comfort. 
 
 All this shows, first of all, the lack of a proper 
 appreciation of work. To esteem work for its 
 own intrinsic worth, to esteem everything that 
 deserves the name of work, to esteem the work of 
 others and one’s own as well,—this is the foun- 
 
 18t. Matthew, xxiii, 4. 
 
228 | MORE JOY 
 
 dation and prerequisite of all enduring joy in 
 labor. What we do not honor, we do not love; 
 and what we do not love, we do not enjoy. 
 
 Honor for every kind of work! In every 
 man’s labor a human will, an immortal soul, ex- 
 ternalizes itself, a man’s heart is throbbing and 
 a man’s blood is circulating. All work is ¢a- 
 pable of being spiritualized and ennobled to the 
 highest degree. We must come at last to recog- 
 nize that it is a sin against both culture and art 
 for the ‘‘upper’’ classes to brand as vulgar and 
 dishonorable whole groups of occupations which 
 are necessary, and in fact indispensable, in the 
 human household. Those persons should rather 
 regard themselves as under personal obligations 
 to all who perform menial offices and services. 
 ‘‘If there were nobody to perform the menial 
 tasks,’’? says Treitschke, ‘‘the higher culture 
 could not exist. We are beginning to perceive 
 that the millions must plough and forge and 
 plane, in order that a few thousands may govern 
 and paint and write verses.’’ ‘‘The thousands’’ 
 then should reward ‘‘the millions’’ not with con- 
 tempt, but with grateful respect. ‘‘Honor the 
 man with a burden!’’ was a phrase of Napoleon 
 the Great. Honor him! He is carrying ours 
 as well. 
 
JOY IN WORK 229 
 
 All this is true from the merely natural stand- 
 point. How great then can the Christian make 
 even his most insignificant task! How precious 
 his work becomes! Work, permeated with 
 prayer, is like the gold standard; it has a fixed, 
 even an eternal, value. Thus earthly deeds as- 
 sume heavenly worth; they become treasures 
 which moths and rust cannot consume, nor 
 thieves dig up and steal; they produce everlast- 
 ing merits which give title to a crown. Per- 
 formed for the honor of God and with the help of 
 the divine power of Grace, they become copies 
 and images of God’s omnipotent activity. ‘‘My 
 Father worketh until now; and I work,’’? said 
 Our Savior. After him the Christian may 
 humbly repeat, ‘‘My Father works, and my 
 Brother, the God-Man, works, and I also work, 
 to the honor of the Father, in the name of the 
 Son, and with the power of the Holy Ghost.”’ 
 
 Nothing hinders us from raising our daily 
 work to this higher plane of dignity and 
 value. Hence there should no longer be ques- 
 tion of compulsory labor; the loud, cheerful 
 ‘*Aye’’ of a man perfectly willing to work pre- 
 vails over the ‘‘Nay”’ of indolent, weary nature. 
 Thus a man becomes free, even if born in labor’s 
 
 2 St. John v, 17. 
 
230 MORE JOY 
 
 chains. He determines the kind and value of 
 his work; and he appropriates its best fruit, the 
 absolutely sure pay which no one can lessen. 
 With his work he is serving not men, not force, 
 nor necessity, nor a gloomy fate, nor a machine, 
 nor the owner of a machine, but the Overlord of 
 all work, his God and Lord and Savior, Christ 
 J esus.* 
 
 So we learn to prize and honor and love work. 
 We know that we never labor in vain, that de- 
 spite all human weakness, misery and imperfec- 
 tion, our work has a value. We know how much 
 we owe to work, and what a benefit is a great 
 serious life task; how work steels the will, trains 
 the faculties, strengthens the whole man; how ex- 
 ternal labor helps us in our inner work with our- 
 selves, promoting moral purity, mental breadth 
 and depth. Often we profit as much by failure 
 as by success,—sometimes even more. In 
 a great sorrow or a terrible crisis, we find that 
 work has a wonderful power of healing. When 
 work is completed, we enjoy inner peace, a pleas- 
 ant fatigue. And not only do we rejoice after 
 work, but we learn to be joyful during our work 
 and even to enjoy the work itself. That is the 
 
 8 Hphesians vi, 5. 
 
JOY IN WORK 231 
 
 true joy of work; and sometimes it breaks out 
 in song. ‘‘Give me the man who sings while 
 at work,’’ says Carlyle. 
 
 Esteem for work teaches also esteem for time 
 and for every working day given us by God. 
 At present this esteem has largely disappeared. 
 Little is thought of losing time, of stealing the 
 time of others, even of ‘‘killing time,’’—a good 
 phrase, for waste of time is really partial de- 
 struction of one’s life. This tendency is a symp- 
 tom of decline, of culture overblown. 
 
 Speaking of his own age, Seneca tells us: 
 ‘‘Some are oppressed with the monotony of al- 
 ways doing and seeing the same thing, and they 
 experience, if not hatred, at least weariness with 
 regard to life. And to feel thus, philosophy 1t- 
 self impelsus. For wesay: How long will this 
 sameness last? I shall awaken and sleep, drink 
 my fill and grow thirsty, get cold and then hot 
 again. There is no end to anything; all things 
 are set in a cycle. Everything flees and, at the 
 same time, pursues: night follows day, and day 
 night: summer gives way to autumn, and au- 
 tumn to winter, and winter softens into spring. 
 All things pass only to return. I neither see nor 
 do anything new. And this, at last, brings on 
 
232 MORE JOY 
 
 nausea. Many there are who find life, not bitter 
 indeed, but utterly empty.”’ * 
 
 Let no one entertain such sentiments, very 
 ‘‘modern’”’ again, just now, yet essentially low 
 and base. What right hast thou to face with 
 peevish, spiteful, ill-natured look, the young day 
 that cometh beaming over the hills, and is greeted 
 joyously by all nature? Why art thou so un- 
 friendly and distrustful? Hadst thou not bet- 
 ter make friends with it, since, in any event, 
 along with it thou hast to go? Ask it what 
 message, what task, it hath for thee. Perhaps 
 it may tell thee to split wood, or to sweep the 
 streets, or to teach children the alphabet, or. 
 to write reports, or to learn lessons by heart. 
 In any case its mission is always an important 
 and most honorable one, for it bringeth thee 
 from the Supreme Lord this order: ‘‘Work 
 to live and to attain the goal of life, to fulfil God’s 
 will, to provide for thine own welfare and to ben- 
 efit thy neighbor; to gain for thyself and others, 
 in time and in eternity, all the blessings contained 
 in work and flowing from work!’’ Is that un- 
 important, or worthless? Can a king or em- 
 peror do more this day? 
 
 Thou dost complain that thy days run along 
 
 4 Bip, 24. 
 
JOY IN WORK 233 
 
 monotonously, that the same duties pass and re- 
 pass with the same leaden step, that the date 
 on the calendar is the only difference between one 
 day and another. ‘Thou longest to see that great 
 day when for once thou mayest show what thou 
 art and what thou canst do. Do not deceive 
 thyself. Whether a day of thy life shall be great 
 or not, depends upon thyself alone. Hach day 
 will be just as important, as full, as holy, as thou 
 willest it to be. Consider this well: each morn- 
 ing is a newborn babe, each day a little life, each 
 evening a sort of lesser death. 
 
 If thou dost from the beginning misuse the day 
 and fill it with nothing but idleness, listlessness, 
 indolence, it will shrink up into a nonentity, it 
 will be crushed between the two millstones of the 
 past and the future, and all because thou hast not 
 had wisdom enough to keep it present by means 
 of work and a drop of eternity. If thou dost 
 use it for the contrary of that purpose for which 
 it was given, then in the balancing of life’s 
 account, it will reappear, not merely as a loss, 
 but as a debt. 
 
 If at early morning thou hast looked the day 
 bravely in the eye and grappled it in manly wise, 
 as Jacob did the angel;* and if, during all the 
 
 5 Genesis, xxxii, 24, 
 
234 MORE JOY 
 
 day, thou hast plodded on simply in the rough 
 furrows of thine accustomed toil, yet carefully, 
 lovingly, joyfully sowing the seeds of thy man- 
 ual or mental labor, and the seeds of good 
 thoughts and good intentions, then truly hath it 
 been as great a day as any in thy life. Honor 
 work and each working day, and one great day 
 will follow another. 
 
 Thus springs up that fountain of joy in work 
 which never runs entirely dry, although some- 
 times perhaps it barely trickles forth. Its 
 quickening, gushing waters bring life, refresh- 
 ment, freedom and happiness into the most dis- 
 mal, monotonous, unsatisfactory kind of labor. 
 Whoever has dug a well of this sort in the depths 
 of his nature and his life, guarding it carefully, 
 replenishing it and keeping it clean, is safe; he 
 will work with joy as long as he is able to work. 
 
 But what when he can work no more? When 
 the faculties of mind and body no longer obey the 
 will to work? When after repeated efforts and 
 attempts, he finally has to surrender and to elim- 
 inate work from his daily routine? What then? 
 
 Frankly, there can then be no further question 
 of Joy in work. Man must now enter the school 
 of suffering and undergo the stern discipline of 
 a beginner, until he slowly rises at first to the up- 
 
JOY IN WORK 235 
 
 per class, where people live in quiet patience, si- 
 lently and tranquilly; and then to the highest 
 class, where one learns the art of making neces- 
 sity a virtue, endurance an activity, and pain 
 itself a living force that produces work of higher 
 order, greater goodness and more merit. 
 
 Then the garden of joy will blossom anew with 
 roses aS fresh and red as if watered with heart’s 
 blood, reminding us of those that adorned the 
 hands and feet and side of the Man of Sorrows. 
 
XXIT 
 JOYS OF THE SOUL 
 
 The senses are ever eager and busy to receive 
 and transmit pleasant impressions. What we 
 call ““joy,’’ however, properly belongs to the soul. 
 Real value attaches only to the joy which presses 
 its way through the region of sense into the proy- 
 ince of the soul; and the most precious joys are 
 those of purely spiritual origin, that is to say, 
 the joys originating from the soul’s communion 
 with the higher world. 
 
 But these soul-joys can be experienced only by 
 him who leads a soul-life, who is wont to with- 
 draw as often as may be from the outer world 
 and activity into the conclave of the inner self, 
 and thus escape from the influence of the external 
 Senses, ‘‘unsense’’ himself as it were, and create 
 an inner independent world, from whose won- 
 derful regions and mysterious depths the springs 
 of life well forth. The ‘‘Islands of the Blessed”? 
 exist only in the quiet ocean of the soul. 
 
 The modern man is in the greatest possible 
 236 
 
JOYS OF THE SOUL 237 
 
 danger of becoming a stranger to his own inte- 
 rior life; and this constitutes one reason of his 
 joylessness. Modern culture does not care about 
 the inner life. Under the dominance of ‘‘as- 
 phalt culture,’’? as Sombart calls it, life has un- 
 dergone a sinister process of externalization. 
 It has become practically street-life, railroad- 
 life, club-life. Father Weiss more severely 
 calls it ‘‘mouse-life,’? spent in other people’s 
 rooms; ‘‘frog-life,’? noisy with the croaking of 
 banquet-rooms and amusement-halls; ‘‘bird- 
 life,’’ flitted away on the railroad, ‘‘sparrow- 
 life’’ spent on the streets. Nowadays everyone 
 reads the newspapers. Necessary as they are 
 and useful as they can be when good, they are 
 not exactly adapted to promote interior concen- 
 tration, since into the smallest hamlet and home 
 they carry the noise of all the world. 
 
 No wonder then, that there is to be noticed in 
 people’s souls a great leveling, wasting, brutaliz- 
 ing process. Beyond question, in both the up- 
 per and the lower classes, many have no real 
 soul-life, no interior life, at all. They are never 
 at home. They forget, and at last they lose, 
 their soul, and hence cannot but be unhappy. 
 The man of this type has been infected with the 
 
 1 Apologie des Christentums,3 IV. 819. 
 
238 MORE JOY 
 
 feverish longing to live outside of himself. He 
 ought to be learning to live within himself, to 
 live into himself, to grow great, strong, happy in 
 himself, and not to be planning to appear on the 
 stage of the world in the heroic role of great 
 man, reformer, liberator, philanthropist. 
 
 Apart from every other consideration, there 
 is much pedagogical wisdom in the Church’s good 
 old rule of life, often scorned, often treated 
 lightly or disobeyed, namely, to pray daily, to 
 examine one’s conscience every night, to receive 
 the Sacraments regularly. Whoever holds to 
 this, escapes at least the most modern form of 
 misery; he does not surrender his soul. He re- 
 tains the faculty of seeing, hearing, feeling and 
 living within, and of experiencing true inner 
 joys. Foraman cannot make his heart light and 
 joyous by emptying it, but only by deepening and 
 broadening it and filling it with good things. 
 
 How many there are who, if they look within, 
 see only darkness. As Foerster puts it, their 
 own interiors are for them the darkest part of 
 the world and there they flounder about in total 
 gloom and fall into errors and illusions that even 
 other people see and laugh at. 
 
 In such darkness nothing good can grow, least 
 of all the healthy flowers of joy. St. Augus- 
 
JOYS OF THE SOUL 239 
 
 tine? teaches that one of the most important 
 duties of life is to keep the eye of the heart 
 sound. This is the exhortation of Our Saviour, 
 too: ‘‘If thy eye be single, thy whole body will 
 be lightsome. Take heed, therefore, that the 
 light which is in thee be not darkness.’’ * 
 
 If this inner kingdom is well lighted, carefully 
 ruled and kept in good order, it provides an ex- 
 cellent soil for all the fine seeds of Joy which 
 the senses will industriously collect and plant 
 there, and for all those others which will be 
 wafted down from the heavens above. Nor will 
 there be lack of deep waters to reflect the stars 
 of heaven, nor of clear streams to penetrate and 
 vivify the whole region. 
 
 _ Such is the blessing of the inner life. It is 
 illustrated by the old tale of the scholarly ecclesi- 
 astic who, in pursuit of his own perfection, 
 sought a spiritual guide and adviser. After 
 much searching, he at last found what he was 
 seeking in the person of a beggar covered with 
 sores before the door of a church. He said to 
 the beggar, ‘‘Good day, Brother!’’ and the an- 
 Swer came, 
 
 2 Tota opera nostra, fratres, in hac vita est sanare oculum cordts, 
 
 Serm. 88, 5. 
 3 St. Luke xi, 34-35. 
 
240 MORE JOY 
 
 ‘*T have never had a bad one.”’ 
 
 ‘Then may God send thee better days!’’ 
 
 ‘‘My lot has always been the best.” 
 
 ‘‘How can that be? You are covered with 
 wounds and sores.’’ 
 
 ‘That is true, but it is the goodness of God 
 that has sent them tome. When the sun shines, I 
 enjoy the sun. When it storms, I enjoy the 
 storm, for God sends it.”’ 
 
 **Who art thou ?’’ 
 
 leam acking,’? 
 
 ‘Where is thy kingdom 2?”’ 
 
 ‘‘My soul is my kingdom and no rebellions 
 ever happen there.”’ 
 
 ‘How camest thou to this supremacy ?”’ 
 
 ‘I sought it in prayer and meditation for a 
 long time until I found it.” 
 
 ‘‘And how didst thou find it?”’ 
 
 ‘I found it as soon as I had rid myself of the 
 external world.”’ 
 
 Seneca says: ‘‘T would have thee never with- 
 out joy. I would have joy born as a child in 
 thy home; and so it is born when it abides within 
 thee.’’* But this inner home has a doorkeeper 
 whose name is ‘‘Silence.’’ In the discipline, the 
 moral code, the asceticism of the Church, silence 
 
 4 Ep. 23. 
 
JOYS OF THE SOUL 241 
 
 has always been looked upon as important; and 
 was so recognized by Pythagoras in his day. At 
 present, silence is no longer honored and is very 
 rarely met. Both Carlyle and F. W. Foerster 
 have tried to restore it to honor again. The lat- 
 ter well says: ‘‘Silence is the beginning of all 
 freedom from the domination of the external 
 world.’’® 
 
 Being the custodian of the inner world, silence 
 is also the guardian of interior joyousness; and 
 nowadays, without the help of silence, one can- 
 not long be sure of joy. Gossip has become a 
 real epidemic in modern life. This is largely 
 the fault of the press which lives in part by tat- 
 tle and gossip. 
 
 How much joy is destroyed by the inevitable 
 gossip spoken and written, so idle and worth- 
 less, so silly and mean and unfeeling and indis- 
 creet, even when free of all evil intention! And 
 how much joy is killed by malicious, poisonous, 
 disgraceful gossip which disregards all restric- 
 tions of privacy and decency, all authority, all 
 friendship, and the innermost sanctuary of the 
 family. And this sort of gossip, printed on 
 cheap paper, lays claim to the title of public 
 opinion! Public nuisance, rather, and public 
 
 5 Lebensfiihrung, 40. 
 
242 MORE JOY 
 
 fraud! Behind the newspaper article stands 
 one man, and he oftentimes a scoundrel. Is he 
 public opinion? He will do his best to mislead 
 opinion and his occasional successes are sad to 
 see. 
 
 Verily, it is high time that all respectable peo- 
 ple should meet the mighty power of gossip with 
 the mightier power of silence, and should restore 
 ‘‘the blessing of closed lips’’ to a society whose 
 peace and confidence have been disturbed. Pious 
 and friendly speech can indeed effect much good 
 and great joy, but there is likewise rich bless- 
 ing and merit in a soulful, respect-compelling, 
 considerate silence. 
 
 Newspapers which feed upon gossip and, un- 
 der the hypocritical pretence of representing 
 public interests, assail the honor and reputation 
 of blameless men who do their duty, should be 
 recognized aS a common danger and banished 
 from every respectable house. Those persons 
 who have been selected as victims by such papers, 
 must not let their joy in life be destroyed 
 thereby. They must shelter their peace and joy 
 under the sacred shadow of tranquil silence. 
 No matter what reproach is cast at them, they — 
 must bury it in the fathomless depths of perfect — 
 Silence, after the example of Him who said: 
 
JOYS OF THE SOUL 243 
 
 ‘But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and as a dumb 
 man not opening his mouth.’’® 
 
 Just here perhaps, it will be necessary to set- 
 tle a doubt. An interior life, fenced round with 
 manly, soul-deep silence, should be the best gar- 
 den of joy. But not seldom the most interior 
 and deepest souls are subject to gloomy melan- 
 choly; and, out of their silent depths, invisible 
 save to the soul itself and to God, there seems 
 to rise not the fresh breeze of joy but the de- 
 pressing mist of sadness. 
 
 The fact must be admitted. The problem de- 
 serves a thorough investigation and explana- 
 tion. But for our present purpose, it is enough 
 to note that this melancholy of noble souls con- 
 ceals in its dark coffers treasures too precious to 
 be exchanged for the happiest moods or for all 
 the joys in the world. Many others get enjoy- 
 ment from these treasures; and the souls in ques- 
 tion themselves possess joys not otherwise ob- 
 tainable, joys as deep, as high, as complete, as 
 glowing, as their pain and woe. 
 
 ‘“‘Our weakness is the lack of interior life. 
 One truly interior soul suffices to give life and 
 strength and inspiration to thousands.’’* 
 
 6 Psalms xxxvii, 14. 
 TA, M. Weiss, Die Kunst zu leben, 175. 
 
XXIII 
 REJOICE! 
 
 Here now, by way of conclusion, is a rule of 
 life of startling simplicity. ‘You ask: ‘‘How 
 ean I raise the level and enlarge the content and 
 insure the continuance of joy in my life? How 
 can I make every day a day of joy?’’ The an- 
 swer is, ‘‘By rejoicing.’’ This seems to be a 
 cheap sort of advice, but it is full of practical 
 wisdom. We can learn love, we can win love, 
 only in one way, by loving; and joy, only by 
 rejoicing. It is far from true that we cannot 
 train, yea, compel, our hearts to love. And it 
 is equally untrue that we cannot make the heart 
 learn joy, practise joy, live in joy. 
 
 We can and we should do this. One can look 
 happy outwardly, even though the heart is bleed- 
 ing. But the will’s power goes much further. 
 Where the will is chosen and recognized as the 
 real ruler of life, it can effectually command the 
 heart to be joyful at times when suffering and 
 
 discomfort and discontent and pessimism might 
 244 
 
REJOICH! 245 
 
 otherwise prevail. Why should it not have this 
 power? Ought we not to be able to do what a 
 stranger’s will could do? And often enough not 
 only the will, but even the mere mood, of another 
 can wholly alter our state of mind, as for in- 
 stance, when an ordinary witticism converts sad- 
 ness into mirth. ; 
 T shall not affirm that the will is always able 
 to do this, nor that it always does it alone, by 
 its own strength. There are times when other 
 and higher aids are required; when the will is no 
 longer able to master the elemental force of sad- 
 ness and depression. But it remains absolutely 
 true that a will trained and chosen to rule, a will 
 not enslaved by passion or emotion, a will in 
 touch with the powers of the other world and 
 accustomed to regulate the weather of the soul 
 for each day and hour,—such a will, in spite of 
 any rising or falling of atmospheric pressure, 
 can make the barometer always point to ‘‘ Fair.’’ 
 Here again, as in so many other cases, we 
 usually underrate the power of the will. It is 
 really able to do far more than we think, more 
 than we rely upon it to do. We underrate its 
 power of achievement, because we do not suffi- 
 ciently exercise and cultivate this faculty. The 
 precepts of Sacred Scripture: ‘Serve ye the 
 
246 MORE JOY 
 
 Lord with gladness’’* and ‘‘Rejoice in the Lord 
 always!’’? are really commands and are possible 
 of fulfilment. There is such a thing as ‘‘a will 
 to rejoice,’’ but it has to be awakened and exer- 
 cised, and, in this way, developed. 
 
 What keeps thee each morning from exhort- 
 ing thy heart to be joyful, and from repeating 
 such exhortation several times a day? Is there 
 lack of material, or occasion, or motive for joy? 
 If thine eye be clear, then on either side of the 
 path of life thou mayest find as many reasons to 
 rejoice as to lament. When, after a refreshing 
 sleep, thou beholdest before thee a new day of 
 life, is that not in itself an occasion of joy? Or, 
 if thou hast passed a sleepless, anxious night, 
 dost thou not rejoice that it is over? If some 
 great anxiety, or some downright misfortune, 
 burdens thy soul, how needful is it that thou 
 shouldst not fix thy gaze on this one dark spot 
 alone, but that the will to rejoice should compel 
 thee to look out through the darkness for a con- 
 soling star. 
 
 A strong, well-trained will becomes inventive 
 in discovering motives and causes of joy; and, 
 as a general rule, effectually sets them off against 
 numerous occasions of sadness. Closely viewed 
 
 1 Psalms xcix, 2. 2 Philippiang iv, 4. 
 
REJOICE! 247 
 
 and properly judged, life is really as rich in joys 
 as in sorrows,—or perhaps, is even richer in joy. 
 But the pupil of the eye is often more sensitive 
 to dark than to light. What is it that prevents 
 men—especially faithful Christians—from re- 
 joicing early and late each day? ‘‘Joy’’ and 
 ‘‘joyful’’ are words spoken in every language 
 and by every voice, by nature, family,. vocation, 
 work, faith, grace, church, prayer, hope, love. 
 But we do not hearken to these voices; we let 
 them be drowned in the noise of the world. 
 
 If we accustom ourselves to listen to them, if 
 we learn to rejoice at what is really joyful and 
 avoid trampling the wayside blossoms clumsily 
 into the ground, then by degrees the heart will 
 acquire a better condition and a sure, peaceful 
 rhythm, so that it will not be disturbed even by 
 what is really unpleasant. Indeed, gradually, 
 we shall learn to bring even unpleasant things 
 into the sunny land of joy, to rejoice in hardship 
 and misfortune, and even at hardship and mis- 
 fortune. For by the light of faith we shall 
 recognize these as the guarantees of everlasting 
 joy, and welcome them as a new point of resem- 
 blance to Our Lord and Master. 
 
 \W hen we have arrived at this stage, the victory 
 is won. The normal, healthy climate of the soul 
 
248 MORE JOY 
 
 prevails, heaven’s azure vault overspans the life 
 of earth, and, even if cloud and storm come, blue 
 sky and sunshine soon return. On the gloom- 
 lest rainy days, there is at least a rainbow; and 
 in the darkest night, one little star brings com- 
 fort to the soul. 
 
 Everyone, therefore, should create his own 
 small world of joy and guard it securely. ‘The 
 habit of looking always on the bright side of 
 things,’’ says Hume, ‘‘is worth more than a large 
 income.’’ Ruskin’s advice is, ‘‘Make your- 
 Selves nests of pleasant thoughts. Those are 
 nests on the sea indeed, but safe beyond all oth- 
 ers; only they need much art in the building. 
 None of us yet know, for none of us have yet 
 been taught in early youth, what fairy palaces 
 we may build of beautiful thought—proof 
 against all adversity. Bright fancies, satisfied 
 memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, 
 treasure-houses of precious and restful thoughts, 
 which care cannot disturb, nor pain make 
 gloomy, nor poverty take away from us—houses 
 built without hands for our souls to live in.’’? 
 
 It is important that by means of a healthy op- 
 timism, a fine sense of joy and a strong will to 
 rejoice, our daily human need of happiness may 
 
 3 The Hagle’s Nest, ch. ix: “The Story of the Halcyon,” 204, 
 
REJOICE! 249 
 
 be daily satisfied. If our joys are little, they 
 will be all the more numerous, and we shall never 
 fall into a bankruptcy of joy with all its sad 
 consequences. Then, the normal appetite for 
 joy, being satisfied, will never degenerate into 
 that fierce greed which bolts down even the husks 
 of swine and cannot be appeased except with 
 streams of alcohol. Then there will be no need 
 of special places of amusement, of noisy revels, 
 of excesses to whip jaded nature into joy;—we 
 shall always be content. 
 
 The more this art of rejoicing enters and takes 
 root in the religious field, and above all, the 
 closer it allies itself with gratitude to God, the 
 less need we fear that continued joy will injure 
 the austere Christian ideal of life and conduct. 
 Far from promoting frivolity, joy will perform 
 a valuable service for the religious life. An in- 
 erease of joyfulness and gratitude might indeed 
 work upon ordinary, dull, thankless, drowsy 
 Christianity like the winds and storms of spring. 
 Joy in holy faith and sincere gratitude for the 
 possession of this supreme good, would scatter 
 whole clouds of silly doubt, and give free breath 
 to many a bosom weighed down, as if under a 
 mountain, by the foolish notion that for cultured 
 and scientific minds, faith is a fearful, almost 
 
250 MORE JOY 
 
 an impossible burden. Joyous thanks and 
 thankful joy for the precious benefits of the Eu- 
 charist, of the sacraments and of prayer, would 
 surely be the most practical way of trying to 
 make better use of these gifts. ‘‘Thankfulness 
 for gifts received,’’ says St. Catherine of Siena, 
 ‘‘feeds the source of piety in the soul; whereas 
 ingratitude dries it up.”’ The taste of pure and 
 holy joys robs worldly and sinful joys of all 
 their charm and even instils an aversion for 
 them. 
 
 Rejoice then, in the saving gifts of God, and 
 thou wilt surely give thanks for them. In thine 
 own person thou wilt then disprove the saying 
 that debts of gratitude are the last to be paid, 
 and last among all debts of gratitude the debts 
 for spiritual, supernatural benefits. Give 
 thanks for these goods, and then thou wilt enjoy 
 them, and thereafter thou wilt never have to 
 complain of lack of joy. Whoever thou art and 
 whatever be thy life and lot, let no day pass with- 
 out rejoicing. At this present moment, while 
 reading these words, arouse thy heart to joy, and 
 arouse it again and again. And as often as any- 
 thing cometh to weigh it down, look around in- 
 stantly for a counterpoise to lift it up again. 
 The practice of these exercises of joy will grad- 
 
REJOICE! 251 
 
 ually make thy heart beat regularly and happily 
 and will give fresh buoyancy to thy life. 
 
 Yet at hearing the counsel, or command, ‘‘Re- 
 Joice, rejoice,’ many a one will not know just 
 how to begin; and perhaps may think the order 
 idle, vague, useless. We may as well therefore, 
 supplement it with another more concrete and 
 practical rule: ‘‘Keep the world of thy thoughts 
 and feelings in good order, and then joy will 
 - come and remain always.”’ 
 
 “The kingdom of God is within you.’’? How 
 much is contained in this one word of our Sav- 
 ior’s. The kingdom of God, and hence also the 
 kingdom of joy, is within us. The greater part 
 of our time and labor, of our care and love, 
 should be devoted to this inner kingdom, which 
 alone is wholly ours, where alone we are really 
 masters. Is the weather fair within? Then let 
 it rain and storm outside. In this kingdom the 
 weather will be regulated according to the wind, 
 the tide, the temperature, of mood and thought 
 and feeling. 
 
 It is not, however, our intention to lay down 
 the rule: ‘‘ Exclude all but happy thoughts and 
 feelings!’’ That would hardly be practical. 
 The principle should rather be, ‘‘Only good 
 thoughts and feelings are to be invited, admitted 
 
202 MORE JOY 
 
 or entertained.’’ These, like bees, carry with 
 them the pollen of joy; whereas evil thoughts 
 breathe poison. 
 
 Yet there prevails a tendency greatly to un- 
 derrate the importance of the thoughts and feel- 
 ings which each day and hour and moment float 
 across the broad firmament of this little inner 
 world like passing birds or clouds. We regard 
 them as so much air, or we look on them as ir- 
 responsible children who must be let do as 
 they please, and for whose movements no one is 
 answerable. As a matter of fact, they are spir- 
 itual forces, which radiate their influences and 
 effect results, good or bad, corresponding to their 
 own nature. Brought into the light of conscious- 
 ness and fed with the milk of volition, they be- 
 come living beings, active energies, and, in union 
 with numerous comrades, they not only set the 
 tone for the inner life of the spirit, but also ex- 
 press themselves in conduct and in deeds. 
 
 Thoughts are subtle, secret things, yet they 
 are also active forces, efficient for good or evil, 
 as the case may be. This truth cannot be re- 
 peated too often. It plainly implies that we 
 must invite and entertain good thoughts, but re- 
 press and banish bad ones. Here we have the 
 solution of the most puzzling point in the prob- 
 
REJOICE! 253 
 
 lem of joy. Good thoughts and feelings create 
 in the soul a healthful, sunny atmosphere. Pure, 
 lofty thoughts, thoughts of God and eternity, 
 thoughts and feelings of faith, hope, and charity, 
 of trust and mercy; anxious and sad thoughts, 
 bordered with patience and resignation like eve- 
 ning clouds fringed with sunset purple and gold; 
 thoughts of one’s employment and calling, 
 sprinkled with the holy water of prayer and good 
 intention; even distressing thoughts of one’s 
 own guilt and a smarting sense of sin, immersed 
 in the blood of Christ and the mercy of God— 
 all these are an odor of life unto life * and leave 
 behind them the fragrance of joy. Frivolous, 
 vain, dark, destructive, despairing thoughts; 
 thoughts of envy, fear, rage, hatred, greed, 
 malice, discontent, impurity,—these are an odor 
 of death unto death, and they kill joy, just as 
 they corrode and destroy the life of the body. 
 For that reason the will must be determined 
 to rejoice. In the inner kingdom, an end must 
 be put to anarchy, to the disorderly play of 
 chance and mood, to passive oscillation between 
 the two extremes of ‘‘heavenly happiness’’ and 
 ‘tragic woe.’’ <A consistent and prudent rule 
 must purify and direct the thoughts and emo- 
 
 4II Corinthians ii, 16. 
 
254. MORE JOY 
 
 tions, inviting or rejecting, uniting or dividing 
 them. This creates order, rest and peace in the 
 soul, and where they prevail, joy is not far away. 
 
 These are no idle promises and expectations 
 and anticipations, no mere fancies or imagin- 
 ings. They are well-tested rules of conduct 
 drawn from rich experience. We can guarantee 
 their validity,—with one reservation which must 
 again be strongly emphasized. 
 
 The never to be forgotten point is that in the 
 household of life joy is not root nor stem, but 
 blossom, and a pure, perfect, sound blossom can 
 never come from a diseased root and a rotten 
 stalk. We must not forget that all true JOYS 
 have to be merited and cannot be enjoyed except 
 as the reward of good conduct. As Seneca said: 
 ‘True joy is a serious matter.’’> 
 
 The foundation and indispensable condition of 
 all true joy is the fulfilment of duty, conscien- 
 tious work, fidelity to one’s earthly and heavenly 
 calling, a right disposition of heart towards God 
 and the God-Man. 
 
 The edelweiss of true spiritual j oy cannot pos- 
 sibly take permanent root among the thorns and 
 thistles and stinging nettles of a life where 
 work is feared and duty neglected, nor in the 
 
 5 Bp, 23. 
 
REJOICE! 200 
 
 swampy morass of lewdness and intemperance, 
 nor in the hard, stony soil of unloving selfishness, 
 nor in the sunless lowlands of laziness, nor in 
 the desert wastes of a soulless, godless, brutish 
 existence, nor in the quicksand and mire of fri- 
 volity and superficiality. In such soil will flour- 
 ish only short-lived flowers of evil odor with poi- 
 sonous berries. 
 
 Ruskin says that the pleasures resulting from 
 sensuality, vain knowledge, base voluptuous- 
 ness, all change into slow torture. 
 
 The edelweiss of joy needs a deep, rich, sunny 
 soil, pure mountain air, and a mountain climate. 
 It grows best in the state of grace, in a life of 
 virtue and holiness. There it is never missing. 
 Neither is it missing in the life of the worst sin- 
 ner, if he turns resolutely towards the sun and 
 bends his steps from the low ground to the 
 heights. At once joy smiles on him, encouraging 
 him in his bitter task of penance. The higher 
 one ascends, the clearer grows life’s atmosphere, 
 the more earnest is the fulfilment of duty, the 
 wider one’s bosom expands in the warm sunny 
 regions of love, the less lack of joy there is, the 
 more masterful and lordly grows the will, until 
 at last it is strong enough to say to trouble: 
 ‘*Begone!’’ and to joy: ‘‘Come!”’ 
 
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