EDITOR’S NOTE: Published below are letters, columns and even a sermon from folks who are trying to make a difference in their community by sharing their thoughts. A retired judge, Josanna Berkow talks about the Confederate Memorial. Pastor Melody Perdue shares an important message — love your enemy. Award winning columnist Jonathan Tobias offers advice about how to “Be brave and hopeful: resist the inferno.” Regional columnists Keith and Pat Throckmorton share their views faith and government.

LETTER

Remember All the Dead And Honor All the Living

BY JOSANNA BERKOW

Open Letter to Edenton Town Council and Chowan County Board of Commissioners following their recent joint meeting regarding the Confederate Monument

My husband and I chose to buy a home in Edenton several years ago, charmed by the friendliness and diversity of its citizens, its gracious homes, historic downtown and beautiful waterfront. Since we have been here though, the debate over the Confederate monument has grown increasingly contentious. Now, it is hard to see a viable path forward though everyone –citizens, business owners, tourists, and public officials –regardless of their current positions, would clearly benefit from a resolution. 

The Importance of Considering All the Relevant History

The families of the fallen in all wars should have a place to honor their loved ones. But we cannot ignore that the Civil War was fought to enforce states’ rights to continue the institution of slavery, which was then the basis of the Southern economy. Nor should we ignore the horrible reality of slavery in which for more than two centuries’ people were deemed property with no legal rights and compelled to work in whatever manner their owners ordered. There were no guarantees of humane treatment; slaves were bought and sold, their families separated, and they were raped, murdered, tortured, and beaten at the whim of their masters with impunity. 

It appears to me that the heart of the matter in the conflict over our monument is the Town’s failure to acknowledge the pernicious and long-lasting effects of slavery on the enslaved, the enslavers and their descendants and how the presence of such a strong symbol of oppression continues to divide us.  A terrible irony in the case of Edenton’s Confederate monument is that its current location is precisely where the Town had an auction block for buying and selling slaves. Whether our monument remains where it is or is relocated, all the relevant history of our Town’s involvement in the Civil War should be told in the same place. Let us not add a second irony by moving the monument behind a courthouse where those entering must gaze upon this symbol of the Confederacy going from their cars into the place where justice is supposed to be blind. 

Possible Reconciliation

The duty of our elected officials should be to ensure that any public space used to place a monument tells the full story of the Town’s involvement in the Civil War and includes additional material celebrating the abolition of slavery. The space shouldinclude information that both Black and White soldiers from our region fought bravely for the Union as well as the Confederacy, recognize the named and unnamed slaves who suffered here as well as the citizens who did what they could to help the enslaved.

The Current Legal Quagmire

I know that Town and County officials are familiar with the Confederate monument debate, but I have included a summary here for the rest of us trying to wrap our heads around the current impasse. Following George Floyd’s murder and the national outcry against it, the Town appointed a Human Relations Commission (HRC) to investigate and make recommendations regarding the Confederate monument. HRC’s report of August 2021 recommended that the monument be relocated to a green space adjacent to the Beaver Hill cemetery where some confederate veterans are buried. 

In February 2022, the Town adopted HRC’s recommendation to relocate the monument, but did not endorse the recommended site. In May 2022, the Town endorsed transferring whatever ownership rights it had in the monument to the County, but acknowledged in November 2022 that the County did not want to accept ownership. 

In December 2022, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) sued the Town to prohibit moving the monument from its current location. In March 2023, the Town unanimously voted to relocate it to Hollowell Park. Shortly thereafter, the plaintiffs sought an injunction prohibiting the relocation of the monument. 

In March 2023, Judge Tillett entered his “temporary” restraining order prohibiting the relocation of the monument pending further hearing. The Judge indicated that he was awaiting disposition of a case pending in the North Carolina Supreme Court regarding the removal of the Vance monument in Ashville. That case was resolved in March 2024 when the North Carolina Supreme Court endorsed the City of Ashville’s removal of the Vance monument. 

Two years after issuing his “temporary” restraining order, and one year after the Supreme Court’s resolution of the Vance monument case, Judge Tillett has yet to set the matter for hearing. The Town has filed no pleading asking that he do so. (Author added the bold for emphasis)

It is important to point out that there are several outstanding legal issues that have not yet been but will undoubtedly be litigated in the future at considerable public cost. The following is not an exclusive list but a good start.

First, there is the question of whether the Town actually owns the monument. UDC bought it and asked permission to place it on public property but there are no records that ownership was ever transferred to the Town either when it was originally installed at the old courthouse in 1909 or when it was relocated to its current location at the foot of Broad Street in 1961. Second, there is the question of whether the State’s 2015 “Remembrance” law which requires relocation of similar monuments to a site of equal prominence applies to our monument considering its questionable provenance and previous relocation in 1961. Finally, there is the question of whether there any other legal barriers to relocating the monument to public property adjacent to but not inside a cemetery or elsewhere on Town property.

Thus, Chairman Kirby’s statement to his fellow County Commissioners is premature that they have only two options: to move it to a place of equal prominence or leave it where it is. The courts, not the Town or County, are the ultimate arbiters of these questions.

Conclusion

The more we understand and can explain all of Edenton’s complex history, by remembering those named and unnamed buried here, the more we will honor the lives and heritage of all our neighbors and make it more likely we will reach a resolution to this divisive conflict.

Josanna Berkow, a resident of Edenton, is retired from 20 years on the bench of the State of California, Superior Court of Contra Costa County where she presided over thousands of child custody, child and spousal support, marital property division, paternity, and family violence cases. A top-notch legal mind, Berkow was admitted to the bars of New York, California and Maryland.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: During a recent public meeting with the Edenton Town Council and the Chowan County Commission while folks on both sides of the Confederate Memorial issue were talking, I thought about Sunday’s sermon and wished more people would apply these words about loving your enemy and how it’s best not to let folks you disagree with live “rent free” in your head so I asked for St. Paul’s Pastor Melody Perdue’s sermon.

SERMON: Who is my enemy? And why should I love them?

BY PASTOR MELODY PERDUE

Today we’re right in the midst of a sermon by Jesus – one that we began reading last week. We are still near the beginning of what we have come to call the sermon on the Mount – although Luke has a slightly different setting.

In last week’s text we read that Jesus comes down a mountain and is surrounded by not just his disciples, but people from 4 surrounding cities – all trying to get to him – to get close enough to hear him, to touch him, in hopes that they would experience healing and deliverance. Jesus is healing people, but in the midst of this action he begins to teach his disciples what it means to be blessed in this life; how to find contentment and peace in the midst of poverty, loss, and unjust circumstances. He also listed out some cautions or woes – or, as we read from The Message version of this text, what would bring “trouble ahead.” Jesus was essentially saying that if we are only dependent on ourselves, only focused on our own security in this life, or only base our sense of purpose and satisfaction on our outer circumstances, then we’re going to have trouble in this life. BUT – there is blessing when we acknowledge our poverty, grieve our lack, and then turn to Jesus to meet our needs. 

Oh how nice if Jesus would have stopped his sermon there – but he doesn’t. He continues with, “love your enemies,” And a whole list of directed actions that raise a lot of understandable questions. How do I love my enemy? Do I just let anyone slap me in the face and take my stuff? I’m supposed to love people who treat me terribly? Where is the justice in that?

How can we love people who not only hurt us, but who do so intentionally, callously? Don’t we get to protect ourselves? Are we not to point out things that are wrong?

Someone once asked Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” And Jesus responded with a story that revealed that our neighbor is anyone who crosses our path in this life who is need of our kindness.

Similarly, if we asked Jesus, “who is my enemy,” I imagine that would include anyone that is currently in our life, or who had been in your life, that has caused you harm in some way shape or form. Unlike the story about loving one’s neighbor, usually our enemies are people we intimately know – in our Old Testament reading, for Joseph, it had been his own brothers – his own family, who had caused him a great deal of harm. Out of jealousy, sold him into slavery. Sometimes our enemies are our own family members. Sometimes they are coworkers, physical neighbors, people who had been friends who suddenly turn on us and, in this day and age, random strangers on the internet. 

Why does Jesus tell us to love our enemies? Ultimately – I believe it’s to set us free. 

First we need to look at how Jesus tells us to do this: It is a series of actions that is not based on the way we feel. So a little good news – we don’t necessarily have to like our enemies. As we go through the words of Jesus sermon, it’s also important to note that some of these actions are metaphorical and I will clarify those. First off, we choose to do good to our enemies and speak kindly to and of them, even if they do not do so to us. We pray for them. We don’t place any expectations on them to change. We don’t insult them when they insult us – that’s the slapping the cheek part – and it’s important to say, this passage in no means speaks of physical violence or abuse – that idiom – turn the other cheek, meant a verbal insult. Jesus is not asking us to let people beat us up, nor is he saying that we have to stay in abusive situations. That’s important to say, because some have used this very passage in defense of that. 

We love our enemies by showing them mercy, by not judging or condemning them; and we show them love when we forgive them. 

These are actions, not feelings. This does not mean that we will never feel hurt by the actions of others – or that we’re not supposed to. People will hurt us. This does not mean that we can’t take steps to safely remove ourselves from harmful people and circumstances. Setting healthy boundaries in necessary in our relationships. 

What Jesus is saying and doing here, however, is freeing us from the control of the person who is causing us harm. I’m going to say that again. Jesus is freeing me from the control of the person choosing to cause me harm – because that person does not get to dictate how I respond. They don’t control my response to their actions. Jesus does.

Jesus says it’s easy to love those who love you – it’s easy to lend when you know you’ll get back. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. But if that’s our only code of interaction, then what YOU do always dictates what I do – you love, I love. You’re nice, I’m nice. You give- I give. You hate – what am I to do in turn?

When we return hate with hate, the original hate has won! That original hate or hurt inspires and directs our actions. That’s what Jesus wants to free us from. If we live according to what he is telling us, what we do, what we choose, is no longer directed by what others do to us. What we do is a response to who God is. And the people that harm us – no longer live rent free in our minds and in our hearts – controlling our actions and responses. 

Is this easy? No. Does Jesus understand that? Yes. He lived this. We know he had enemies. But through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus gives us the power to love as he loved. Consider the testimony of forgiveness shared by Corrie Ten Boom in her book the Hiding place:

Corrie Ten Boom and her family worked against the Nazis in World War II, hiding Jews in her home. When she was caught, she was sent to a concentration camp where she was stripped of her dignity, saw her father and her sister (Betsie) die, and suffered more at the hands of other people than we could possibly imagine. And then she met one of her enemies face to face.

“It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face. It was 1947 and I had come with the message that God forgives.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.’ He said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who preached so often to the people on the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on his. When he tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” (repeat!!)

Corrie Ten Boom, who had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality, shared that those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness, remained invalids. It was simple and horrible as that.

Jesus tells us that if we love our enemies, there is a great reward – I’m not sure exactly what that looks like, but I’m in. He tells us that those who choose to love like this and live like this, reflect who God is in the world; And when I give, more than I expect will be given back to me. 

So my friends – who is living rent free in your head? Who is dictating your actions because of the way they treated you? As I prayed over these words of Jesus, some folks who had recently said and did things that hurt me came to my mind. I had forgiven – but I hadn’t prayed for them. So I thought I’d put that to the test. And I have to share it was really cool, because I hadn’t realized that the anxiety from my past interactions with those folks was affecting some of my current relationships. And by praying for those people, and praying for their healing, I felt a peace that I hadn’t felt before.

Jesus offers us the path out – the path of choosing love. Choose the path that frees you from the control of others. And we are blessed, if we acknowledge that we cannot do this on our own strength because then there is so much more room for God’s love to be poured into our hearts. When he tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

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COLUMN: Give Them Space

By JONATHAN TOBIAS

In his famous pamphlet “The Crisis,” American Founding Father Thomas Paine wrote these timeless words: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.” 

What can be done in such “trying times”?

Italo Calvino tells the story of Marco Polo traveling through many strange, mythical “Invisible Cities” (which is the title of his little book). At the end of his journey, he narrated his grand tour to the great Kublai Khan. The emperor listened intently to the Venetian’s tales of the fantastical cities he had visited over the years.

Finally, the Great Khan reached the inexorable, shocking conclusion that each of these many narratives is describing a single place.

The Great Khan leafed through his atlas, nearing despair, and he shook his head mournfully, and said:

“It is all useless, if the last landing place can only be the infernal city, and it is there that, in ever-narrowing circles, the current is drawing us.”

Marco Polo offered this sage advice: “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together.

“There are two ways to escape suffering it. 

“The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can longer see it.

“The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

So this is my motto for these “times that try men’s souls”: 

“Learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

Nicolai Hartmann, a philosopher from the first half of the twentieth century, writes that too many of us have opted for Marco Polo’s first and easy way:

“The tragedy of man is that of somebody who is starving and sitting at a richly laden table but does not reach out with his hand, because he cannot see what is right in front of him. For the real world has inexhaustible splendour, the real life is full of meaning and abundance, where we grasp it, it is full of miracles and glory” (Foundations of a Metaphysic of Knowledge, 1925).

That “inexhaustible splendour” should be the natural vision of things. Humanity was meant to be moved to desire by Beauty and to move onward and upward in knowledge all the way to the divine vision – what the Greek philosophers called “theoria.” Life was meant, primordially, to be a journey marked and blazed by signposts of “miracles and glory.”

The English Catholic poet Gerard Manley Hopkins agrees: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil …” (“God’s Grandeur,” 1877).

Hans Urs von Balthasar, great friend of Pope John Paul II, also agrees: “Man philosophizes in a transport of awe,” he says, “illumined by the light of eternal Being as it shines forth in the world.”

That is the natural way of things, the way things should be.  But these days, the world has become so unnatural. Ugliness in thought, speech, and behavior seems to be a mass addiction. An Oklahoma senator recently defended the use of corporal punishment on disabled students, and deployed Proverbs 22.15 (“spare the rod, spoil the child”) to support his horrid position.

This past week, a petulant tyrant, along with his toady sidekick, treated another country’s heroic leader with sickening disrespect. In this country there are men who wield enormous power and wealth who seriously believe that the poor, the mentally ill, the disabled, and the weak are “parasites.” Not only do they think so – they say so and do so.

Obviously, in a culture so rife with such brutal ugliness, things are not natural, the way they were meant to be. Recall Marco Polo’s “easy way” of acclimation and assimilation into the opaque world of inferno. So many have gotten so used to such a world that they’ve gotten quite used to it, and have even grown quite fond of it. There’s the pleasure of retribution to be had, after all, and the thrill of power. And, don’t forget, the lush ichor of wealth. Especially wealth without responsibility.

There’s much to be done as one of Paine’s faithful “winter soldiers.” But the first steps must be beauty, must be peace, must be love.

We’ve just started our long Lenten journey, and I like to think of it as a pilgrimage of beauty, because that is how I understand the word “glory.” I think that the Cross and Resurrection have ushered eternal Beauty into our here-and-now experience, and thus, all of life is illuminated, all moments are made meaningful … even the insignificant intervals of time which constitute most of life, those “in-between” times that lay outside the notice of “influencers” and biographers … those moments of stillness when you see dust-motes wafting in the sharply-defined three-dimensional beam of an afternoon sun through a southwest window … or when you permit yourself to be dazzled by the white-gold dance of the noonday sun on a stream in the winter woods, on what T S Eliot calls, in “Little Gidding,” the “zero summer.”

There is an odd, elusive property of Beauty, which is that Beauty completely fills time and all its interstitial moments, and Beauty reveals the creatures that inhabit time — whether these moments are small or large, important or disregarded, celebrated in history, or left unrecorded in the chronicles. Beauty is the distance that images and distinguishes all things in the mind of God.

I know I sound like a useless aesthete here. Beauty seems to be but an all too easily discardable luxury, a budget item that is the first to be cut, like the firing of angels: no one will notice their absence because, after all, they can’t be seen. 

But beauty is not an idle reverie, a waste of time and effort. It is precisely for beauty that we care for the poor and the powerless. It is for beauty that we show regard for humanity, of whom no one is not our neighbor. It is for beauty that we take care of creation as good stewards. When we open our eyes to glory, as we were always meant to, how could we do otherwise?

In these trying times, first go out and find beauty: you won’t have to go far – beauty is all around you. Be brave and hopeful: resist the inferno. “Learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

Yes. Make them endure. Give them space.

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COLUMN: Is A Government Of The People, By The People, For the People A Reality?

BY KEITH THROCKMORTON

In President Abraham Lincoln’s closing remarks in the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, he said: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Is this statement true in America today, or has the word “people” been replaced by “government.”?

America was founded as a Christian nation. The Bible and the Constitution were the foundations for our greatness. Yet, today, God’s Word has been compromised and ignored by man’s unGodly laws, and the Constitution is under continued attack in every way. During our founding, lawmakers were people from various walks of life every day. Today, our lawmakers are primarily lawyers, creating and supporting man’s laws while turning their backs on God’s Word.

Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of The United States, said: “The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the state!”

The Constitution is the backbone of our society. Yet, unfortunately, it is under attack in many ways, especially our freedom of speech, right to bear arms, and education. The purpose of the Constitution was to limit the power of government such that the rights of our citizens were protected from government abuse.

Many agree that the government has gone far beyond its constitutional bounds. The government has become too big, too intrusive, and too expensive. Moreover, Congress has gone far beyond its “few and defined” powers to infringe on those reserved to states and their people. Some examples are education, healthcare, and various criminal laws.

Even more intrusive is that there are more than 400 federal agencies created by Congress that issue thousands of regulations controlling every aspect of our lives, from our air and water to our farms and factories. In addition, the executive branch now chooses which laws to enforce and issues its own regulations through executive orders and administrative rules. The federal courts now routinely decide matters of public policy historically reserved to the states, including life, marriage, and morality. The balance of federalism has been lost.

The two political party system is now blamed for destroying this country due to their conflicting philosophies.
Matthew 12:25 (KJV) “ And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”

Benjamin Rush, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, responded when questioned about his political party affiliation: “I have been alternately called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am now neither. I am a “Chris-Ocrat.” I believe all power will always fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.”

President Truman’s statement was a prophecy that is true today in America.
The political party affiliation of Benjamin Rush is the only solution if we are to return to being a Godly nation and a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

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COLUMN: Tell Me The Story of Jesus

BY PAT THROCKMORTON

Fannie Crosby was a prolific Protestant hymn writer, producing many works. She was anactivist and well-educated, although she had been blind since infancy. She was a productive hymnist, writing over 8,000 hymns and gospel songs. She was known for her teaching and rescue mission work, and by the end of the 19th century, she was a household name. One of my favorites is “Tell Me The Story Of Jesus.”

“Tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word, tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard. Tell how the angels in chorus, sang as they welcomed His birth, ‘Glory to God in the highest! Peace and good tidings to earth.’”

“And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Now, there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born unto you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’” Luke 2:7-14 NKJV.

Miracle of Miracles! And what a birth announcement! The shepherds made haste in traveling to be the first to see this baby lying in a manger. “When they had seen Him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.” Luke 2: 17-18 NKJV.

“Fasting alone in the desert, tell of the days that are past, how for our sins He was tempted, yet was triumphant at last.” After being baptized in the Jordan River, “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting for forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” Matthew 4:1-2 NIV.

Satan, the fallen angel, is real; he is not symbolic. The temptations appeal to Jesus’ human side: hunger, emotional, and psychological. We, too, will be tested – will we be able to overcome the temptations we will face? What an example to follow; our Savior demonstrates the importance and effectiveness of knowing and applying Scripture to fight temptation.

Reading and studying the Bible is crucial to our everyday lives.
“Tell of the years of His labor and the sorrow He bore. He was despised and afflicted, homeless, rejected, and poor.” We seldom think of Jesus as a laborer who spent His early years learning the carpentry trade. He was interested in ordinary people and knew that a laboring man needed rest. God set the precedent for resting: “By the seventh day God had finished the work that he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

And God blessed the day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating all that he had done.” Genesis 2:-3 NIV.
The Pharisees challenged Jesus routinely regarding his authority and teachings. The scribes were experts in the Law, responsible for copying and interpreting the Scriptures, and shared the same concerns as the Pharisees.

The tension between the scribes and Pharisees was palpable to the end.
“Tell of the cross where they nailed Him, writhing in anguish and pain, tell of the grave where they laid Him, tell how He liveth again. Love in that story so tender, clearer than ever I see, stay, let me weep while you whisper, love paid the ransom for me. Tell how He’s gone back to Heaven, up to the right hand of God: how he is there interceding, while on this earth we must trod. Tell of the sweet Holy Spirit He has poured out from above; Tell how He’s coming in
glory for all the saints of His love.”

Never can I read the crucifixion story without breaking down in tears. According to the words of Rev. Billy Graham, “But the greatest work that Jesus did was not in the carpenter’s shop, but the work that was accomplished in three dark hours on the cross at Calvary.

There, He entered a labor that no other person in all the universe has ever known. His primary purpose in coming to Earth was to die in our place. There is no other way to salvation. Before the conscience can be quieted, before we can start life afresh, we must receive this great work done for us by the One who loves us most. May we always be at work.”