THE FAMILY ALTAR:

April 22.

"Go and tell Peter." Mark 16:7.

The joyous Easter tidings impose a sacred missionary duty

on all of us. "Go and tell Peter," the Easter angel says to the

women at the empty grave of our Lord. Why does He single out

Peter from the rest of the disciples? Because poor fallen Peter,

most of all, needed to learn the blessed Easter news. In the bitter

repentance over his shameful denial of his Lord and Master he

could not think otherwise than that the risen Lord would take

all the other disciples back into His grace, but never him, the

great sinner and backslider. So just he is to be told that his

risen Lord still loves him, and has forgiven him, and therefore

wants to meet him with the other disciples in Galilee. Behold

what a merciful Savior we have in our risen Lord! He will not

deal with us after our sins, nor reward us according to our

iniquities. He is ready to forgive even the backsliding among

His followers and to take them again into His blest companionship.

Ah, the world about us is full of fallen Peters, of backsliders,

who have denied or still deny their Lord. How many, oh, how

many, vowed to be faithful to Him unto death when they renewed

their baptismal vow at His altar, and, lo ! it needed but a few

months or a few years and their Savior was forgotten, forgotten

His Gospel, forgotten His altar, forgotten their sacred vow; they

live with the world and for the world, and practically say as

Peter said: "I do not know this man Jesus." Yet they are not

happy. Eemorse often gnaws at their hearts, and in secret they

long to be back with their Savior, with His Gospel, with His

Church. Where we know of such a faithless Peter, let us make

it our business to tell him the blessed truth that the risen Lord

still loves him and is anxious to have him back in His saving fold.

"Go and tell Peter!" Let us not forget that sacred Easter duty.

Fill with the radiance of Thy grace

The souls now lost in error's maze,

And all whom in their secret minds

Some dark delusion haunts and blinds.

And all who else have strayed from Thee,

O gently seek! Thy healing be

To every wounded conscience given,

And let them also share Thy heaven.