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of His peace which the world can neither give nor take away, because it is God's gift only. Such peace may undergo many an assault, but it will be confirmed thereby, and rise above all that would trouble it. He who has tasted it would not give it in ex- change for all this life can give : and death is to him a passage from this rest to that of eternity.1
2. Many of the great gifts of life are not transmissible. Ask the artist for the power by which he gives us the inspired painting, ask the poet for the power by which he is able to sing and touch men's hearts into enthusiasm, and they cannot give it. There is always just the inexpressible something which they can never impart. It is the spirit of the thing, which is incommunicable, the Divine touch ; the fairy has not given her kiss at birth. But here is Christ who can impart restfulness of soul, that which transforms the soul from being worldly and agitated to being a spirit possessed of calm. It seems to be a miracle that a subtle quality should be transmissible from the Lord to His disciples. Here He stands above all other instructors in being able to pass on that which otherwise is incommunicable, but which, in His hand, has been a real persistent heritage in the Church.
TJ On the way to Chapra from Eatnapur Miss Dawe, of the Church of England Zenana Mission at Eatnapur, told me of a Hindu with whom God's Spirit worked before he met any missionary and gave him a sense of sin, so that he became dis- satisfied. He visited various places of pilgrimage seeking rest. One day he picked up a piece of paper on which were written the words : " Come unto me, and I will give you rest." He did not know where they came from and went inquiring from one to another. At length a fakir who had heard something of Christianity told him they were to be found in the Christian books. Then he came to a C.M.S. Mission at Krishnagar, where he was instructed, and a Bible given him, and he was baptized. Then his great desire was for his wife. He wrote to her telling her he was a Christian, and asking her to come to him. She was a remarkable woman, and had taught herself to read through her little brother, who went to school. She consented to come to him, as she was his wife. There was great opposition from the family, but he carried her off. On his way he passed a tree where Miss Dawe was preaching, and took his wife to her. Miss D. was astonished that she knew how to read, and put a New Testament into her hand 1 Jean Nicolas Grou, The Hidden Life of God,
266 THE GREAT INVITATION
On opening it, her eye fell on : " Let not your heart be troubled " — just the word for her. Miss D. pitched her tent near her village and gave her a course of instruction every day for some weeks. At the end she wished to be baptized. This was many years ago. They are now in Calcutta, working in connexion with the London Missionary Society.1
3. The rest which Christ gives is based on a perfect reconcile- ment to God. He gives us an eterual settlement, adjusting us to a place which we feel to be thoroughly suitable, and satisfying all in us which we feel deserves to be satisfied. He gives us rest by making life intelligible and by making it worthy ; by showing us how through all its humbling and sordid conditions we can live as God's children ; by delivering us from guilty fear of God and from sinful cravings ; by setting us free from all foolish ambitions and by shaming us out of worldly greed and all the fret and fever that come of worldly greed ; by filling our hearts with realities which still our excited pursuit of shadows, and by bringing into our spirit the abiding joy and strength of His love for us. We enter into the truest rest when we believe that He takes part with us and that we can depend upon Him.
What the man who is burdened with a bad conscience needs is the assurance that there is a love in God deeper and stronger than sin. Not a love which is indifferent to sin or makes light of it. Not a love to which the bad conscience, which is so tragic- ally real to man, and so fatally powerful in his life, is a mere misapprehension to be ignored or brushed aside as insignificant. No, but a love to which sin, and its condemnation in conscience, and its deadly power, are all that they are to man, and more ; a love which sees sin, which feels it, which is wounded by it, which condemns and repels it with an annihilating condemnation, yet holds fast to man through it all with Divine power to redeem, and to give final deliverance from it. This is what the man needs who is weighed down and broken and made impotent by a bad conscience, and this is what he finds when he comes to Jesus.