Article May 16, 1914 Issue

From Our Exchanges

with contributions from Vivian T. Pomeroy

[The Christian World]

When we fully recognize our responsibility for all our words and actions, then it will be a good thing if we can say of any wrong we have done: "It was not on the main line of my character; the deepest and the best in me, and that which I most want to realize, condemns it." That will lead to bitter weeping, but clearer vision and steadier life will follow. Peter will know his denial as a thing to repent of and to leave behind; and this same Peter will stand like a rock against heavier temptations later on. He who said to the maid, "I know him not," will stand before the Jewish council and say, "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." While it is important that we should not try to shuffle out of our responsibility, it is also important that we should not despair of victory.

Our religious faith is that we were made for God and for goodness, and that they must claim us through all falls and failures. We can make that life our own in which God is working out the contradictions, taking away the blemishes, and weaving all into harmony and beauty divine. The Christ whom Peter denied drew him back into service, and took the weakness out of him. There came a time when that same Peter, from the heights of victory, rang down encouragements upon men who were "in heaviness through manifold temptations." Whatever may have happened to us of fall or failure, we must revert to our standards, get back to our Christ, and in the "service royal" remain to grow strong and steadfast, with Christ to conquer, with God to live forever.

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