Whatever else pardon may be, it is above all things admission into full fellowship with God. It is not a release from certain penalties which the natural course of sin entails, though it brings with it power and wisdom to endure and to use penalties so that they become means by which lost virtues are restored and the whole character reinvigorated. The sense of fellowship comes out with singular force when for the first time the pardoned soul leaps out from under a weight of sin. The joy of prayer, the fearless approach to God, the contemplation of His personal love--all this testifies to what pardon is. The absolution of the dying robber on Calvary was not merely an admission into Christ's privileges, but a call to His fellowship and a speedy call at that--"_To-day_ shalt thou be _with Me_ in Paradise." The first awakening of the soul to a sense of pardon makes this very vivid. But somehow as time goes on and repeated falls on the upward climb discourage the soul, the difficulty of grasping God's pardon seems to increase. Confession is made and sorrow is felt, but God's face seems hidden behind a cloud. Then is it comforting to remember that all clouds are earthborn. The trouble is that we reflect our own impatience and discouragement up into the life of God. Because we chafe under our almost imperceptible progress we imagine God does the same. His first absolutions were full and generous, but how can these later ones be so? Surely they must be grudgingly bestowed. So we argue, and the latest forgiving message of God, a message as strong and full as the first, falls upon listless ears. The absolution that comes to the penitent after the seventy-times-seven repetitions of a sin is all that the first one was. Absolution is never less than absolution. It always admits to fellowship so complete that it could not be closer. FOOTNOTES: [12] _Matthew Arnold, St. Paul and Protestantism._ [13] _H. Scott Holland._ Chapter VII _Friendship in God_ Friendship is not only _with_ God but also _in_ God. Fellowship with God has for its corollary fellowship with man in God. And the latter in the greatness of its dignity and privilege is second only to the former. The religion of Christ does not allow of one without the other. The Church, which is the divinely ordered means by which man is admitted into and sustained in his fellowship with God, is also the ideal society of men. God never considers men apart from, but always as a part of, a great social order--a social order that is not a concourse of independent units, but a body instinct with life, a society which is not an organization but an organism. The description of our relationship to one another is couched in the same terms that tell of our relationship to Christ--"members one of another," "members of Christ."