Before we visit Peter with our censures because of his unmistakable reluctance to accept Christ's vision of the cross let us give heed to ourselves. The same mistakes may take very different form. With many of us the ideal of human felicity which we call Christian is essentially Pagan. Our very thanksgivings show it. We are grateful to God for troubles averted, happiness preserved, fortune assured; we tacitly assume that the opposite of these things would have been an evil. We praise the goodness of God in shielding us from the untoward and calamitous, and though it may seem hardly worth while to say it, some naturally amiable characters with a bias toward holy things have lost their faith and lost their sweetness at one and the same time with the arrival of sorrow. Far be it from me to insist that men should cease to thank God for the sweetness and the joy of life, but if we lay the stress here and refuse to take the cross when it is presented to us we have shut ourselves off from the attainment of that highest good, which is to know the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." If the clear truth of the necessary connection between the assumption of the cross and the attainment of true blessedness were to be grasped by those who seek to follow Christ, there would be fewer of the sad failures so frequently apparent amongst those who are disappointed with the result of their faith in God. I do believe, what you call trust Was self-delusion at the best: for, see! So long as God would kindly pioneer A path for you, and screen you from the world, Procure you full exemption from man's lot, Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere pretext Of your engagement in His service--yield you A limitless licence, make you God, in fact, And turn your slave--you were content to say Most courtly praises! What is it, at last, But selfishness without example? None Could trace God's will so plain as you, while yours Remained implied in it; but now you fail, And we, who prate about that Will, are fools! In short, God's service is established here As He determines fit, and not your way, And this you cannot brook.[2] Peter's remonstrance here is but an example of a very common human feeling in regard to the things of Christ. It exhibited a certain immaturity of character and crudeness of perception such as, in spite of his genuine affection for his Master, disqualified him at this stage from understanding Him. [1] Matt. xvi. 16, Mark viii. 29, Luke ix. 20. [2] Browning, "Paracelsus." V. Simon Peter Witnesses the Transfiguration.