PEACE:
FALSE; CHRISTIANS: IN THE WORLD

Peace of heart that is won by refusing to bear the common yoke of human sympathy is a peace unworthy of a Christian. To seek tranquility by stopping our ears to the cries of human pain is to make ourselves not Christians but a kind of degenerate stoic having no relation either to stoicism or Christianity.

We Christians should never try to escape from the burdens and woes of life among men. The hermit and the anchorite sound good in poetry, but stripped of their artificial romance, they are not good examples of what the followers of Christ should be. True peace comes not by a retreat from the world but by the overpowering presence of Christ in the heart. “Christ in you” is the answer to our cry for peace.

John 17:15–18; Romans 12:9–13, 16–18; Colossians 1:27

The Next Chapter After the Last, 37.