Consider lastly the peace that passeth understanding. Now, if ever, this peace should descend upon me. There is a kind of peace that is accessible to the understanding, and there is the peace that passeth understanding. The peace that can be understood is that which consists in the relief of pain. It arises in various ways. After an acute attack of physical pain how like balm is felt the succeeding absence of pain. After a prolonged sickness, when the convalescent takes his first walk, what a sweet tranquillity fills his mind! There is also the mental relief that comes when some danger has been safely passed; the peace of the sheltered fireside to one who has passed through a storm. Again, there is the peace that follows pecuniary anxiety, or the removal of some carking care, as when an erring son is reclaimed, or an estranged wife or husband is found anew. But the peace that passeth understanding is that which comes when the pain is _not_ relieved, which subsists in the midst of the painful situation, suffusing it, which springs out of the pain itself, which shimmers on the crest of the wave of pain, which is the spear of frustration transfigured into the shaft of light. It is upon those we love that we must anchor ourselves spiritually in the last moments. The sense of interconnectedness with them stands out vividly by way of contrast at the very moment when our mortal connection with them is about to be dissolved. And the intertwining of our life with theirs, the living in the life that is in them, is but a part of our living in the infinite manifold of the spiritual life. The thought of this, as apprehended, not in terms of knowledge, but in _immediate experience_, begets the peace that passeth understanding. And it is upon the bosom of that peace that we can pass safely out of the realm of time and space. APPENDIX APPENDIX I SPIRITUAL SELF-DISCIPLINE