Acts 8:36-39 And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water… Happiness, according to the original use of the term, is that which happens, or comes to one by a hap; i.e., by an outward befalling, or favourable condition. Some good is conceived, out of the soul, which comes to it as a happy visitation, stirring in the receiver a pleasant excitement. It is what money yields or will buy — dress, equipage, fashion, luxuries of the table; or it is settlement in life — independence, love, applause, admiration, honour, glory, or the more conventional and public benefits of rank, political standing, victory, power. All these stir a delight in the soul which is not of the soul, or its qualities, but from without. Hence they are looked upon as happening to the soul, and in that sense create happiness. But joy differs from this as being of the soul itself, originating in its quality. And this appears in the original form of the word, which instead of suggesting a hap, literally denotes a leap or spring. The Latin has exult, which literally means a leaping forth. The radical idea, then, of joy is this — that the soul is in such order and beautiful harmony, has such springs of life opened in its own blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereignty from within. The motion is outward not toward, as we conceive it to be in happiness. It is not the bliss of condition, but of character. The soul has a light in its own luminous centre, where God is, which gilds the darkest nights of external adversity — a music charming all the stormy discords of outward injury and pain into beats of rhythm and melodies of peace. (H. Bushnell, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? |
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