“Oh,” replied Brother Joyful, “I think I have my full share of the troubles of life. You know every one must expect them. We all have plenty of them, but that is not the cause of your trouble. It is not the number of trials and perplexities people have that keep them from being joyful; for some of the most joyful people whom I know have many cares, sorrows, and troubles. There is just one thing wrong in your case, Brother Littlejoy—you have not learned how to work God’s joy-machine.”
“God’s joy-machine!” exclaimed Brother Littlejoy, “why, I did not even know that he had one. What do you mean by his ‘joy-machine’?”
Brother Joyful laughed, and his eyes twinkled as he said, “Come over here and let me give you an object-lesson.”
So they walked over to the side of the room where two machines were standing side by side.
“You see this weighing-machine,” said Brother Joyful; “I will just step upon it and get weighed.”
He stepped upon the platform of the machine, but the indicator remained at zero.
“Why, it seems it does not work this morning!”
“Of course not,” answered Brother Littlejoy, “you have to drop a penny in the slot before it will act.”
Then Brother Joyful took a penny from his pocket and dropped it into the slot. The indicator immediately flew around on the dial.
“One hundred and seventy-two pounds,” said Brother Joyful. “That is just what I weighed two weeks ago. Now let us try this one, and have some music.”
So saying, he took a disk from the rack and adjusted it in the machine and pressed the lever, but nothing moved; no music came forth.
“Why,” said Brother Littlejoy, “it will not play until you drop a nickel into the slot.”
“Oh,” said Brother Joyful, “that’s the way!”
He dropped a nickel into the slot, and the machine began sounding forth its melody.
Sitting down on a seat near by, they listened until the music ceased, when Brother Joyful said:
“You see I might have stood there on the platform of that weighing-machine all day and wished to have known my weight ever so much, but I should not have found it out until I had dropped a penny into the slot. We might have stood there by the music-box all day and wished to hear it play; we might have asked it ever so earnestly to play for us; but until the nickel was dropped into the slot, there could be no music. Now, God has a joy-machine, and it works on the plan of the slot-machines. You can see its picture almost anywhere in the Bible. But there is a real place where you can get the joy—real joy and there is plenty of it. This music-box will play a tune for each nickel dropped into it, and so God’s joy-machine will yield you a heartful of joyfulness every time you can get it to work, and it always works whenever you proceed right. Some people merely stand around and look at the box. They see others getting joy out of it and often try to get joy, but somehow it does not work for them. The trouble is, they do not put in the coin; in other words, they do not do what is necessary to get the machine to work. The joy is there, plenty of it, enough for everybody; there is no reason why people should be without it.”