Your joy no man takes from you

No power in the universe can rob you of it;
none, but yourself, can even diminish it.
“Your joy no man takes from you.”
What the power, or love, or presence of man can create –
the power, or hatred, or absence of man can destroy.

But, the joy of the believer has a different origin,
and, as no man bestowed it,
so no man can take it away.

It has God for its author –
the living Rock of Ages for its ever-flowing fountain –
the Holy Spirit for the golden channel,
which it conveys into the heart.

Thus, coming from the fountain of joy,
it is of immortal origin –
and, is far above the reach of mortal enemies.
All the sorrows of earth –
all the temptations of hell,
are vain against this joy.
So far from being diminished
by what would crush earthly happiness,
and reduce the stoutest heart,
without Divine grace,
to hopeless dejection –
it is only realized more fully,
amid the raging fury of the hurricane,
or the dreary gloom of a starless midnight.


~John MacDuff
(The Throne of Grace, Alexander Strahan Publishers, 1865.)