You will feel at peace with God through Christ Jesus, because you have found out that God is at peace with you; that God is not against you, but for you; that God does not hate you, but love you; and if God is at peace with you, what cause have you to be at war with him? And so the message of Christmas-day will bring you peace. You will be at peace with your neighbours, through Christ Jesus. When you see God stooping to make peace with sinful men, you will be ashamed to be quarrelling with them. When you see God full of love, you will be ashamed to keep up peevishness, grudging, and spite. When you see God's heaven full of light, you will be ashamed to be dark yourselves; your hearts will go out freely to your fellow- creatures; you will long to be friends with every one you meet; and you will find in that the highest pleasure which you ever felt in life. But mind one thing--what sort of a peace this peace of God is. It passes all understanding; the very loftiest understanding. The cleverest and most learned men that ever lived could not have found it--we know they did not find it--by their own cleverness and learning. No more will you find God's peace, if you seek for it with your understanding. Thinking will not bring you peace, think as shrewdly as you may. Reading will not bring it, read as deeply as you may. Some people think otherwise; that they can get the peace of God by understanding. If they could but understand more, their minds would be at rest. So they weary themselves with reading, and thinking, and arguing, perhaps trying to understand predestination, election, assurance; perhaps trying to understand which is the true Church. What do they get thereby? Certainly not the peace of God. They certainly do not set their minds at rest. They cannot. Books cannot give a live soul rest. Understanding cannot. Nothing can give you or me rest, save God himself. The peace is God's; and he must give it himself, with his own hand, or we shall never get it. Go then to God himself. Thou art his child, as Christmas-day declares: be not afraid to go unto thy Father. Pray to him; tell him what thou wantest: say, Father, I am not moderate, reasonable, forbearing. I fear I cannot keep Christmas- day aright, for I have not a peaceful Christmas spirit in me; and I know that I shall never get it by thinking, and reading, and understanding; for it passes all that, and lies far away beyond it, does peace, in the very essence of thine undivided, unmoved, absolute, eternal Godhead, which no change nor decay of this created world, nor sin or folly of men or devils, can ever alter; but which abideth for ever what it is, in perfect rest, and perfect power, and perfect love. O Father, give me thy peace. Soothe this restless, greedy, fretful soul of mine, as a mother soothes a sick and feverish child. How thou wilt do it I do not know. It passes all understanding. But though the sick child cannot reach the mother,