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undisturbed and enraptured gaze on the Eternal Beauty — all ancient and all young. His will is redirected, the problem of duty is simplified, and he does it with all his heart. His conscience is calmed, for there is no longer any sense of feud between himself and holiness of life. All is pardoned through the cleansing Blood. All becomes possible through the grace of the Redeemer, and Augustine became the greatest saint the Catholic Church has produced since the time of the great Apostle himself.^
3. How did the peace of God, passing understanding, come to them that night ? By the manifested presence of Him who first said, " Peace be unto you," and then showed them His hands and His side. He came as His own supreme Evangelist, in His own utterance of " peace." He let them see Him as His own supreme Evangel, in His finished sacrifice and that glorious sequel of it. His living Presence. So it is for ever. There is no substitute, nor ever can be, for personal relations with Christ, crucified and risen. Would we taste a " peace " which is indeed " of God " ? It must be " through our Lord Jesus Christ," as not a principle only but a Person. Faith must see His wounds ; faith must hear His bene- diction, nothing between, resting direct on Him. Only so will our life have banished out of it the bewilderment, the misgiving, which lie at the troubled heart of half -religion.
Wilt Thou not visit me? The plant beside me feels Thy gentle dew;
And every blade of grass I see. From Thy deep earth its quickening moisture drew.
Wilt Thou not visit me ? Thy morning calls on me with cheering tone;
And every hill and tree Lend but one voice, the voice of Thee alona
Come, for I need Thy love. More than the flower the dew, or grass the rain
Come, gently as Thy holy Dove; And let me in Thy sight rejoice to live again.
I will not hide from them When Thy storms come, though fierce may be their wrath
But bow with leafy stem, And strengthened follow on Thy chosen path.
» M. Fuller, In Terrd Pax, 79.
ST. JOHN XX. 19, 20 341
Yes, Thou wilt visit me, Nor plant nor tree Thine eye delights so well,
As when, from sin set free. My spirit loves with Thine in peace to dwell.^
III.
The Confikmation of the Message.
** He shewed unto them his hands and his side."
Our Lord first convinced them of His identity. The deep shadows of evening were around them ; a solitary lamp, perhaps, cast a glimmer of light through the large upper room, and made the darkness visible, while they were standing in a group and eagerly discussing the news of the Eesurrection, which, first Mary Magdalene, then Peter, then the two disciples from Eramaus, had in turn brought in. And casually some one glanced aside into the darkened room, where all was vacancy; and surely the air was not seen to move — but it did move — and he looked again, and it moved again, and now a dim outline was seen. The disciple held his breath, and touched his neighbour and whispered. And they looked again, and the shadow had grown in dis- tinctness, and others saw the shape. At length it was plainly visible to all, and it stood out in the very midst in the full proportions of a man, although a moment before they could neither see, nor feel, nor hear any one besides themselves. Well might they be filled with fear, and think that they had seen a spirit. Great need had they of hearing those soothing words, " Peace be unto you ! "
And now, to show them not only that it was a true material organism, but the very body that had been crucified, He showed the ghastly gashes made in the crucifixion. Luke says, "He shewed them his hands and his feet " : those hands and feet that had always been about His Father's business; hands that had waved away the powers of darkness ; hands that had been placed on the heads of little children ; hands that had broken the bread of miracle; feet that had walked the stormy waters; feet that
^ Jones Very.
342 THE SAVIOUR'S EASTER GREETING
had carried Him to the weeping sisters, and the tomb of Lazarus ; feet that had climbed the mountain stair into the midnight holy of holies, where He prayed ; feet that had hastened to the side of the wretched, had stood near the most forlorn ; feet that took Him down to Gethsemane, and failed Him there under the load of our sorrow ; feet that with weak, fainting, yet resolute steps, came out of Jerusalem, while the hands assayed to hold upon His shoulder the cruel cross — the hands and the feet that were nailed to that cross.
^ One time when David Livingstone was engaged in his civilizing work in Africa, he was attacked by a huge lion of the jungle. The ferocious beast grasped the hand of the missionary in his powerful jaws, and broke the bone. Livingstone was rescued by two friends who had accompanied him, but for a long time he was obliged to keep his arm in a sling. He carried the scar of the wound all his days, and when the faithful natives brought back his dead body to his native land, this scar on the arm once broken was one of the means by which the remains of the great missionary were identified by his friends.