Understand, I do not mean that what we need and want is to have our sins
ignored and overlooked. On the contrary, that is just what would fail to
bring us true rest. For if God took no account of sins, required no
repentance and reparation, He would not be holy, just, and faithful, a
God whom we can adore and love and trust.

Nor do I mean that what we need is merely to have the punishment of sins
remitted. That would not satisfy the heart. Is the child contented when
the father says, "Well, I will not punish you. Go away"? No, what the
child wants is to hear the father say, "I forgive you. Come to me." It
is to be welcomed back to the father's home, to the father's heart, that
the child longs.

Peace means not to have the offense ignored, but to have it pardoned:
not to the punishment omitted, but to have separation from God ended and
done with. That is the peace of being divinely forgiven,--a peace which
recognizes sin, and triumphs over it,--a peace which not merely saves us
from death but welcomes us home to the divine love from which we have
wandered.

That is the peace which Christ offers to each one of us in His Gospel.
We need it in this modern world as much as men and women ever needed it
in the old world. No New Era will ever change its meaning or do away
with its necessity. Indeed, it seems to me that we need this
old-fashioned religion to-day more than ever.

We need it for our own comfort and strength. We need it to deliver us
from the vanity and hollowness, the fever and hysteria of the present
age. We need it to make us better soldiers and workers for every good