Article October 5, 1935 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Norman Goodall, George Lawrence Parker, Cortland Myers, E. W. Beatty, Mary E. Woolley, Walter Williams, W. N. Ainsworth

[Norman Goodall, M. A., in the Christian World Pulpit, London, England]

Our deepest need is a peace which the world cannot give, a peace which we must impart to the world. Such peace is only derived from those eternal sources which are penetrated—or which penetrate us—in hours of deliberate spiritual search. We must study to be quiet, even while we obey the rest of the apostolic injunction and do that which it is our business to do and work with our hands. There may never be any return to the rigid formalism of the old Sabbaths, but there must be regular and well-defined Sabbaths within. At least as eagerly as we wrestle with the new tasks of this complex and interesting world we shall give ourselves to the old task of freeing our hearts from the dominance of the world.... Amidst all the bustle and fever of our day we shall preserve those places where we can be still and know. Only through the life of the Spirit have we access to that peace which the world can neither give nor take away.

It is in this sanctuary that we shall meet, and meet again, the one who holds the key to the rest which our souls need—the God who makes Himself known to us in Jesus Christ. If we are not prepared to come to terms with Him we shall be in danger of regarding the spiritual life as a way of escape, and of taking refuge in a species of quietism which shirks the more pressing duties. But if we are seeking the kind of peace which Jesus possessed in abundance and which he offers to others, we shall recognize that it absolves us neither from the arena of duty nor from the path of suffering. His promise of the peace that we need was not made in retirement from the world and all its forces. It was made at the heart of the world.... Jesus offered his greatest assurance of peace on the eve of the crucifixion, when he was bidding his disciples obey his commandments, and when his prayer for them was not that they should be taken from the world, but that they should be kept from evil by the presence of the Father. No, to come to terms with Him, in this inner sanctuary of our hearts, is not to find release from duty. It is to see duty made more clear and more imperative....

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