Peace is various and versatile. Peace is not mere pleasure, yet there is a pleasure in peace. When there is no longer any offers to be happy, nor any dread of care, pleasure settles to its repose, as a frame that lolls and turns on a luxurious couch by and by folds itself to motionless and dreamy comfort; or as the mountain peak that shot and shafted to its height sublime falls softly off and folds away into the gentle slope, the nooks where lights and shadows play, the curve that modulates the majestic summit to the meek swell of the landscape lowlands, and invests the valley with the mountain grandeur, and mountain grandeur with the placid secret of the lowly vale; the breast that heaved with pleasure in its confirmed rapture comes to rest. Pleasure is not peace, but in Its realisation and fulfilment there is a peace of pleasure. See a little further. Joy is not peace, nevertheless there is a peace of joy in which the mind and heart take counsel with each other. This is delight arriving at repose. Thus, when a strain of music dies away upon the ear, the harmony thrills memory still — the noise ceases, the notes linger and serenade the silence, the silence returns the serenade. Again, pain might be reckoned as the foe of peace, and still there is a peace of pain. Some tranquilities are gendered by adversity alone. The peace found in pain cannot be otherwise discovered nor elsewhere known. When one has borne excruciating pang or undergone sore struggle, and can say, It is familiar now; I have been through the worst of it, and have survived; or where one can even set out about such an undertaking, and although outwardly the infliction or affliction has yet to be encountered, that moment takes on its own radiance, and the mind has upon effective grounds prepared itself for all, anticipated all, looked through all resolutely, braced now and nerved, knitted and compacted; the resolve is half the readiness, the readiness is all the conflict — the endurance is the victory, as of one whose valour makes his foes to tremble, as the Spartan band or the Royal Guard by their very presence put the enemy to flight. When the heart and soul are set in resolution, like a regiment kneeling with fixed bayonets, and so the onset is taken with a will, and the triumph is anticipated in advance, there ensues a serenity which is of itself a triumph, a fortitude which is in itself a conquest and a coronation. It is thus that there can come into the heart the peace of pain. It has distinct varieties. The peace of suffering in physical endurance must not be undervalued. There is such a thing as is indicated by the words, to suffer and be strong, whereby that which in another would enforce an outcry or insist upon a groan — that which even to the same sufferer, at another time, coming by stealth or startling, would utterly unman the nature, has become a manageable trial, to be confronted, to be endured, and to be looked through and through, it may be with bated breath and set teeth, but still at bay, until the paroxysm faints away into the peace, and the strong mastery of the resolve carries the torture of the flesh, and rules the throb of the nerves by its volition. There is a pain peace not to be despised — it may be the peace of peril. Presence of mind is power of help. The war horse stands motionless while the guns emit their bloody blasts and the carnage overflows. The young hero leaps upon the ramparts, the veteran holds the fort. The peace of peril is the opposite of peril panic. Panic huddled the fleeing, frightened throng, so that none could escape from the blazing building; peace would have found the fire escape; peace would have opened the back stairs. And thus it is in life at large: panic is peril's peril, but peace is peril's protection — peril's safe control. And of pain peace another branch is peace of sorrow, peculiar to itself. It does not neutralise the grief, it softens and enchants it. When sorrow has undergone its first wild shock, when cries are stilled and tears are dried, a hush that sinks to softer sorrow, as a gale dies to a zephyr breeze, comes in upon the gloomy void, and sorrow in its silence, sorrow in its sanctity, can find sorrow peace — the very peace of pain. And so it is that in all these varieties, and under all vicissitudes like these, the grace within enkindles peace without. And when the Finite is in treaty with the Infinite, the creature in reconciliation with his Maker, the soul, possessed of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, can prove that paradox of life and earth — the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

(H. S. Carpenter.)