[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.

[The Advance]

Joseph and Mary supposed that Jesus was in the company [when they were returning from Jerusalem]. They did not look so as to be sure. They were having so much else that needed attention, were having so good a time with old friends, that they took for granted the presence of the Christ-child. And he was not there. They awoke to the bitter discovery that he was missing.

They had other things to attend to. They had come a long journey and were about to return. They had to say many farewells, make several purchases, perform several neglected social obligations, and do all the last things that must be done before such a departure; but they overlooked the one supremely important interest. The Christ who had come to abide with them twelve years before was their one most glorious responsibility; and him they forgot,—not for very long, but long enough to lose him.

Men do the same still. They have so many interests, and many of them good and important. They cannot be thinking of religion every minute. Before they know it they have lost it among the baggage. It has come to be one of many miscellaneous interests, as important as many others but not more so. Then in some fatal moment they let their faith get mislaid, and in the hour of need it is not there.

[Rev. Vivian T. Pomeroy, B.A., in The Christian Commonwealth]

The persistence of the influence of Jesus upon mankind is one of the most astounding facts we can face. There is something inescapable in the power for which his name stands. During the centuries which have passed since his words were spoken and his works were done, creeds claiming his authority and sects claiming his name have multiplied, and still they continue to multiply. They differ from, and even war against, one another; yet they all refer themselves to what Jesus said and was nineteen centuries ago. One might have thought that today the world would be so sickened by the division and strife associated with the name of Jesus that men would try to forget his story and sayings, and find an altogether fresh ground. But no! Many of the wisest and most earnest men of modern times are working to uncover the meaning of his personality and message, believing that hitherto this meaning has been only partly understood, and that in its clear truth it still offers the open secret of human welfare and happiness. Even when men today express contempt for the church, they are careful to explain that the church has been untrue to the teachings of its Master. The most unlettered and the most learned unite to find in the fact of Jesus their supreme interest and hope. There is something seen in him which makes a common center for people of all times and classes.

[The Universalist Leader]

Over and over again men have felt unrest welling up in them, until it has overflowed the banks of peaceful rivers of life and has flooded whole continents and nations. A thousand times has humanity reached forward to pluck the golden fruit of an earthly paradise, only to find that all is not gold that glitters. The world is strewn with the ruins of civilizations which have been cast aside because they did not satisfy the spirit in man. Each of these civilizations marks a spot where humanity planted its hopes and grouped its anticipations in the vain belief that when once established there the race would find its paradise. Alas, each memorial to this futile hope was corroded by the ages as the world moved on. Some of these mounments stand today where the simoom of the desert drifts the piling sand about it, or where in the fastnesses of the hills only screeching owls or howling wolves break the awful monotony of silent desolation. Such is the story of man's endless search for peace in his long journey through the world.

[The Watchman-Examiner]

The work of evangelism in the present day is not so simple as it appears upon the surface, for false notions have arisen as to the meaning of Christianity and as to the method by which men become Christians. Sacramentarianism teaches that men become Christians by submitting themselves to external ordinances. Ecclesiasticism says that the way to salvation is through the portals of the church. There are others who believe that Christianity is a matter of the intellect, and that men become Christians as they become evolutionists, by giving the assent of their minds to a certain system of truth or philosophy. There are still others who believe that men become Christians by an earnest effort to follow in the footsteps of Christ, forgetful of the fact that it is the assimilation of Christ rather than the imitation of Christ that makes a man a Christian. The work of evangelism is therefore complicated, and much rubbish must be cleared away if men are to be brought to the knowledge of Jesus Christ; but this is the very task to which the church should give itself with boundless enthusiasm.

[The Continent]

If one has only a very little of the spirit of Christ, and by much struggle succeeds in working up to the point of forgiving some slight from a careless friend, he is almost sure to count it a mighty achievement and inform his neighbors of his victory, expecting praise and congratulation. But a man saturated with the spirit of Jesus will overlook, cheerfully forgive, and utterly forget a long series of really malicious indignities, and never give a second thought to his generosity; in fact, he won't even realize that it is generous. For any man to be highly appreciative of his own piety is a sign that he has not any very great amount of piety. If he had a liberal supply of it, he would not think it a matter of remark.