Go back over these verses, then, and you will find the Causes of this
Effect, the spring, and the only spring, out of which true Happiness
comes. I am not going to analyze them in detail. I ask you to enter
into the words for yourselves.
Remember, in the first place, that the Vine was the Eastern symbol of
Joy. It was its fruit that made glad the heart of man. Yet, however
innocent that gladness--for the expressed juice of the grape was the
common drink at every peasant's board--the gladness was only a gross
and passing thing. This was not true happiness, and the vine of the
Palestine vineyards was not the true vine. "_Christ_ was the _true_
Vine." Here, then, is the ultimate source of Joy. Through whatever
media it reaches us, all true Joy and Gladness find their source in
Christ.
By this, of course, is not meant that the actual Joy experienced is
transferred from Christ's nature, or is something passed on from Him
to us. What is passed on is His method of getting it. There is,
indeed, a sense in which we can share another's joy or another's
sorrow. But that is another matter. Christ is the source of Joy to men
in the sense in which He is the source of Rest. His people share His
life, and therefore share its consequences, and one of these is Joy.
His method of living is one that in the nature of things produces Joy.
When He spoke of His Joy remaining with us He meant in part that the
causes which produced it should continue to act. His followers, (that
is to say), by _repeating_ His life would experience its
accompaniments. His Joy, His kind of Joy, would remain with them.
The medium through which this Joy comes is next explained: "He that
abideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit." Fruit first, Joy
next; the one the cause or medium of the other. Fruit-bearing is the
necessary antecedent; Joy both the necessary consequent and the
necessary accompaniment. It lay partly in the bearing fruit, partly in
the fellowship which made that possible. Partly, that is to say, Joy
lay in mere constant living in Christ's presence, with all that that
implied of peace, of shelter, and of love; partly in the influence of
that Life upon mind and character and will; and partly in the
inspiration to live and work for others, with all that that brought of
self-riddance and joy in others' gain. All these, in different ways
and at different times, are