of His atoning
sacrifice through faith brings peace to the soul. This consciousness of
reconciliation in turn causes a blessed sense of restfulness and peace to
spring up in the heart, and thus we have the peace of God within us.

The connection between peace and holiness is close and essential. It is
impossible for anyone to understand consecration until they have
experienced reconciliation. Holiness must be based on righteousness, and
righteousness is only possible to those who have accepted the Lord Jesus
as God's righteousness through faith. So long as there is any enmity in
the heart, or even any uncertainty as to our acceptance in Christ Jesus,
holiness is an impossibility. May not the forgetfulness of this fact be
the cause of surprise and disappointment at Christian Conventions from
time to time? May it not be that many go to such gatherings longing to be
made holy who have not settled this question of their standing before God
and their peace as the result of acceptance of Christ's atonement? To
understand and experience what holiness means before enjoying peace with
God is like trying to take a second step before attempting the first. Only
through peace can holiness come, and only as we have blessed personal
experience of God as the God of peace can a prayer like this be answered.

3. THE PROSPECT.

"Unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Once again the Apostle prays
with special reference to that glorious day to which he was always looking
and pointing his readers. As he looks forward to that day he uses again a
favourite word, "blameless," and suggests to us the great and wonderful
possibility of being so consecrated and preserved that we may lead a
blameless life day by day until the coming of our Lord. Holiness is thus
associated once again with the great future. The Apostle finds in the
coming of the Lord one of the most potent reasons why Christians should be
consecrated and preserved. This close and intimate connection between
holiness, and what we term the Second Advent, needs much stronger
emphasis in daily living and in church teaching than it often has in the
present day. There is, in its way, nothing more powerful as a reason for
holiness than the thought of the certainty and imminence of the Lord's
coming.

4. THE PROMISE.

"Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it." Lest we should be
tempted to think that so wonderful a prayer could not be fulfilled in
daily experience, t