be obtained? The answer is that HE DID. But plainly, explicitly,
in so many words? Yes, plainly, explicitly, in so many words.
He assigned Rest to its cause, in words with which each of us has
been familiar from his earliest childhood.

He begins, you remember--for you at once know the passage I refer
to--almost as if Rest could be had without any cause; "Come unto
me," He says, "and I will GIVE you Rest."

Rest, apparently, was a favor to be bestowed; men had but to
come to Him; He would give it to every applicant. But the next
sentence takes that all back. The qualification, indeed, is added
instantaneously. For what the first sentence seemed to give was
next thing to an impossibility. For how, in a literal sense, can
Rest be GIVEN? One could no more give away Rest than he could
give away Laughter. We speak of "causing" laughter, which we can
do; but we can not give it away. When we speak of "giving" pain,
we know perfectly well we can not give pain away. And when we aim
at "giving" pleasure, all that we can do is to arrange a set of
circumstances in such a way as that these shall cause pleasure.
Of course there is a sense, and a very wonderful sense, in which a
Great Personality breathes upon all who come within its influence
an abiding peace and trust. Men can be to other men as the shadow
of a great rock in a weary land; much more Christ; much more Christ
as Perfect Man; much more still as Savior of the world. But it
is not this of which I speak. When Christ said He would give men
Rest, He meant simply that he would put them in the way of it. By
no act of conveyance would or could He make over His own Rest to
them. He could give them