What Peace Means | Page 2

as in the four terrible
years of conflict which German militarism forced on the world in the
twentieth century. Having seen it, I know what it means.
Now we have "supped full with horrors." We have had more than
enough of that bloody banquet The heart of humanity longs for peace,
as it has always longed, but now with a new intensity, greater than ever
before. Yet the second course of war continues. The dogs fight for the
crumbs under the peace-table. Ignorant armies clash by night. Cities are
bombarded and sacked. The barbarous Bolsheviki raise the red flag of
violence and threaten a war of classes throughout the world.

You can never make a golden age out of leaden men, or a peaceful
world out of lovers of strife.
Where shall peace be found? How shall it be attained and safeguarded?
Evidently the militarists have assaulted it with their doctrine that might
makes right. Evidently the pacifists have betrayed it with their doctrine
of passive acceptance of wrong. Somewhere between these two errors
there must be a ground of truth on which Christians can stand to defend
their faith and maintain their hope of a better future for the world.
Let me begin by speaking of Peace in the Soul. That is where religion
begins, in the heart of a person. Its flowers and fruits are social. They
are for the blessing of the world. But its root is personal. You can never
start with a class--conscious or a mass--conscious Christianity. It must
begin with just you and God.
Marshal Joffre, that fine Christian soldier, said a memorable thing
about the winning of the war: "Our victory will be the fruit of
individual sacrifice." So of the coming of peace on earth we may say
the same: it will be the fruit of the entrance of peace into individual
hearts and lives.
A world at war is the necessary result of human restlessness and
enmities. "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come
they not hence, even of your lusts, that war in your members?" Envy,
malice, greed, hatred, deceit,--these are the begetters of strife on earth.
A world at peace can come only from the cooperation of peaceful
human spirits. Therefore we must commence to learn what peace is, by
seeking it in our souls through faith.
Christ promised peace to His disciples at the Communion in that little
upper room in Jerusalem, nineteen hundred years ago. Evidently it was
not an outward but an inward peace. He told them that they would have
a lot of trouble in the world. But He assured them that this could not
overcome them if they believed in Him and in His Father God. He
warned them of conflict, and assured them of inward peace.

What are the elements of this wondrous gift which Christ gave to His
disciples, and which He offers to us?
I. First, the peace of Christ is the peace of being divinely loved.
Nothing rests and satisfies the heart like the sense of being loved. Let
us take as an illustration the case of a little child, which has grown tired
and fretful at its play, and is frightened suddenly by some childish
terror. Weeping, it runs to its mother. She takes the child in her arms,
folds it to her breast, bends over it, and soothes it with fond words
which mean only this: "I love you." Very soon the child sinks to rest,
contented and happy, in the sense of being loved. "Herein is love, not
that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins." In Jesus Christ God is stretching out His arms
to us, drawing us to His bosom, enfolding us in the secret of peace. If
we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, He makes us sure of a
Divine affection, deep, infinite, inexhaustible, imperishable. "For God
so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God, who
"spared not his dearly-beloved Son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" "Nothing
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord."
II. The Christian peace is the peace of being divinely controlled. The
man who accepts Jesus Christ truly, accepts Him as Master and Lord.
He believes that Christ has a purpose for him, which will surely be
fulfilled? work for him, which will surely be blessed if he only tries to
do it. Most of the discords of life come from a conflict of authorities, of
plans, of purposes. Suppose that a building