“When we walk through the field of battle, slippery with blood, and strewn with the bodies of the slain—when we hear the shrieks, and the groans of the wounded, and the dying—when we see the country wasted, cities burned, houses pillaged, widows, and orphans wailing in the track of the victorious army, we cannot help exclaiming, ‘Oh, what a blessing is peace!’ When we are obliged to witness family turmoils, and strifes—when we see parents, and children, brothers, and sisters, masters, and servants, husbands, and wives, contending with each other like tigers—we retire as from a smoky house, and exclaim as we go, ‘Oh, what a blessing is peace!’ When duty calls us into that church, where envy, and malice prevail, and the spirit of harmony is supplanted by discord, and contention—when we see brethren, who ought to be bound together in love, full of pride, hatred, confusion, and every evil work—we quit the unhallowed scene with painful feelings of repulsion, repeating the exclamation, ‘Oh, what a blessing is peace!’
“But how much more precious in the case of the awakened sinner! See him standing, terror-stricken, before Sinai. Thunders roll above him—lightnings flash around him—the earth trembles beneath him, as if ready to open her mouth, and swallow him up. The sound of the trumpet rings through his soul, ‘Guilty! guilty! guilty!’ Pale and trembling, he looks eagerly around him, and sees nothing but revelations of wrath. Overwhelmed with fear, and dismay, he cries out—‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me! What shall I do?’ A voice reaches his ear, penetrates his heart—‘Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!’ He turns his eyes to Calvary. Wondrous vision! Emmanuel expiring upon the cross! the sinner’s Substitute satisfying the demand of the law against the sinner! Now all his fears are hushed, and rivers of peace flow into his soul. This is the peace of Christ.
“How precious is this peace, amid all the dark vicissitudes of life! How invaluable this jewel, through all the dangers of the wilderness! How cheering to know that Jesus, who hath loved us even unto death, is the pilot of our perilous voyage; that He rules the winds, and the waves, and can hush them to silence at His will, and bring the frailest bark of faith to the desired haven! Trusting where he cannot trace his Master’s footsteps, the disciple is joyful amid the darkest dispensations of Divine Providence; turning all his sorrows into songs, and all his tribulations into triumphs. ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.’”