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CHAPTER 9:

Abiding Joy

“Who carry music in their heart
Through dusky alne and wrangleing mart,
plying their daily toil with busier feet,
Because their secret souls a holier repeat.”

“Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.
— Wordsworth.

ABIDING joy! Is there such a thing? Where is it? Who possesses it? Yea; there is such a thing. It is
where there is no sin. It is possessed by the pure hearted.
As darkness is a passing shadow, and light is substance that remains, so sorrow is fleeting, but
joy abides forever. No true thing can pass away and become lost; no false thing can remain and be
preserved. Sorrow is false, and it cannot live; joy is true, and it cannot die. Joy may become hidden
for a time, but it can be always be recovered; sorrow may remain for a period, but it can be
transcended and dispersed.
Do not think your sorrow will remain; it will pass away like a cloud. Do not believe that the
torments of sin are ever your portion; they will vanish like a hideous nightmare. Awake! arise! Be
holy and Joyful!
You are the creator of your own shadows; you desire and then you grieve; renounce and then
you all rejoice.
You are not the impotent slave of sorrow; the Never-Ending Gladness awaits your Home-
coming. You are not the helpless prisoner of the darkness and dreams of sin; even now the
beautiful light of holiness shines upon your sleeping lids, ready to greet your awakening vision.
In the heavy, troubled sleep of sin and self the abiding joy is lost and forgotten; its undying
music is no more heard, and the fragrance of its fadeless flowers no longer cheers the heart of the
wayfarer.
But when sin and self are abandoned, when the clinging to things for personal pleasure is put
away, then the shadows of grief disappear, and the heart is restored to its Imperishable Joy.
Joy comes and fills the self-emptied heart; it abides with the peaceful; its reign is with the pure.
Joy flees from the selfish; it deserts the quarrel-some; it is hidden from the impure.
Joy is as an angel so beautiful and delicate and chaste that she can only dwell with holiness. She
cannot remain with selfishness; she is wedded to Love. Every man is truly happy in so far as he is
unselfish; he is miserable in so far as he is selfish. All truly good men, and by good men I mean
those who have fought victoriously the battle against self, are men of joy. How great is the