ages us, in the words of the Shorter Catechism, "to enjoy God
for ever," as Jesus himself does. Those who learn his secret enjoy
God in reality. Wherever they see God with the eyes of Jesus, it is
joy and peace. And they realize with deepening emotion that this
also is God's gift, as Jesus said (Luke 8:10; 12:39).

Jesus entirely recast mankind's common ideas of holiness. It is no
longer asceticism, no longer the mystical trance, no longer the
"fussiness," with which the early Christian reproached the Jew,
which still haunts all the religions of taboo and merit, and even
Christianity in some forms. Where men think of holiness as freedom
from sin, the negative conception reacts on life. They begin at the
wrong end. Solomon Schechter, the great Jewish scholar, once said of
Oxford, that "they practice fastidiousness there, and call it
holiness." Unfortunately Oxford has no monopoly of that type of
holiness. But with Jesus holiness is a much simpler and more natural
thing--as natural as the happy, easy life of father and child, and
it rests on mutual faith. It is Theocentric, positive, active rather
than passive--not a state, but a relation and a force. Holiness with
him is a living relation with the living God. That is why the first
feature in it that strikes us is Courage. "Be of good cheer; be not
afraid"; that note rings through the Gospels, and how much it means,
and has meant, in sweet temper and cheerfulness in the very
chequered history of the Church! His is the great voice of Hope in
the world. "The Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Hope," Paul said (1
Tim. 1:1). Even on the Cross, according to one text, Jesus said to
the penitent thief: "Courage! To-day thou shalt be with me in
paradise" (Luke 23:43). We may not know where or what paradise is,
but the rest is intelligible and splendid: "Courage; to-day thou
shalt be with me." Look at the brave hearts the Gospel has made in
every age; how venturesome they are! and we find the same
venturesomeness in Jesus--for instance, as a German scholar
emphasizes, in that episode of the daughter of Jairus. The messenger
comes and says she is dead. Anybody else would stop, but Jesus goes
on. That is a great piece of interpretation. Look again at his
venturesomeness in trusting the Gospel to the twelve and to us--and
in facing the Cross. "It was his knowledge of God," says Professor
Peabody, "that gave him his tranquillity of mind."[22]

"Jesus," says Dr. Cairns, "said that no one