The Project Gutenberg EBook of Joy & Power, by Henry van Dyke

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Title: Joy & Power

Author: Henry van Dyke

Release Date: December 7, 2003 [EBook #10395]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOY & POWER ***

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JOY AND POWER

Three messages with One meaning

by

Henry van Dyke

1903

Dedicated to my friend John Huston Finley
President of the College of the City of New York

THE PREFACE

The three messages which are brought together in this book were given
not far apart in time, though at some distance from one another in
space. The one called Joy and Power was delivered in Los Angeles,
California, at the opening of the Presbyterian General Assembly, May 21,
1903. The one called The Battle of Life was delivered on Baccalaureate
Sunday at Princeton University, June 7. The one called The Good Old Way
was delivered on Baccalaureate Sunday at Harvard University, June 14. At
the time, I was thinking chiefly of the different qualities and needs of
the people to whom I had to speak. This will account for some things in
the form of each message. But now that they are put together I can see
that all three of them say about the same thing. They point in the same
direction, urge the same course of action, and appeal to the same
motive. It is nothing new,--the meaning of this threefold message,--but
it is the best that I have learned in life. And I believe it is
true,--so true that we need often to have it brought to remembrance.

Henry van Dyke

Avalon, July 5, 1903

CONTENTS

i. Joy and Power

ii. The Battle of Life

iii. The Good Old Way

JOY AND POWER

<i>St. John viii. 17: If ye know these things, happy are
ye if ye do them.</i>

I ask you to think for a little while about the religion of Christ in
its relation to happiness.

This is only one point in the circle of truth at the centre of which
Jesus stands. But it is an important point because it marks one of the
lines of power which radiate from Him. To look at it clearly and
steadily is not to disregar