Conversion implies some degree at least of peace with God.  Many seem to think it almost presumptuous to look for peace or to expect joy in God.  “It betokens,” they say, “a want of humility.”  Love and humility are one.  Both are a going out of ourselves, and finding our good, strength, peace—­all in God.  It is surely a poor compliment to pay a friend, if we rebuke those who dare to be happy in his presence or to find peace in his society.  What hard thoughts have men of God when they do not see how He must ever rejoice in the good and peace of His children!  Oh, shame upon us that we do not “rejoice in the Lord always,” and possess the “love which casteth out fear, for fear hath torment.”  Why, then, should it seem impossible for a man to have peace, the moment he can say with the apostle John, “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us?” Cannot that love be seen in its own light when revealed?  And if so, why should the possession of immediate peace, in a degree corresponding to faith in God, seem to be so wonderful?  Would not its absence be more so?  The very hope, methinks, of pardon, when first entertained by the condemned criminal—­or of deliverance and return to home, when first realised by the shipwrecked sailor—­or of life and health, when first deemed probable even, by the hitherto despairing invalid—­or of meeting his long-injured, but still patient and loving father, by the miserable prodigal—­may well kindle sudden joy and peace.  Much, no doubt, may have been done before any hope could dawn to the captive, to the shipwrecked, to the invalid, or the prodigal; yet the hope itself may suddenly flash on each, as the message enters the cell to assure the criminal of his safety, or the signal is seen on the distant horizon that promises succour to the mariner, or the smile plays on the countenance of the physician, telling that the dread crisis is over and that progress towards recovery has begun, or the remembrance of a father’s love is rekindled in the heart of the wanderer.  And thus a man who has been roused to see his moral guilt, as well as moral depravity—­to see his dread and terrible danger—­may well find unutterable peace the very moment he believes that there is for him deliverance from the evil, and forgiveness with God, “that He may be feared”—­or even when the maybe dawns upon him that he, the hitherto dead, careless, presumptuous sinner, has not been so shut out of his Father’s heart and home, but that there is yet grace omnipotent to save him, to take away his sins, renew his whole being, and make him and keep him a child of God.  When the prodigal in the far country was planning only his return, he resolved to say to his father, “Make me one of thy hired servants!” To be for a time a very slave in his father’s house, seemed in prospect as a very paradise when compared with his present wretchedness; but to be received at once as a son—­that he would not