Faith and hope are the two requisites without which restoration is impossible—faith in God and hope for the future. With these is life-giving repentance; without these is crushing remorse.

As long as we look only to ourselves, pardon seems wholly beyond our reach. There is nothing in our own hearts, nothing in our past lives that suggests it. It is well that we should grieve over our sins; it is not well that we should give ourselves up to overmuch self-dissection. Our failings must be our stepping-stones; they must not be our stumbling blocks. We cannot suffer them to cripple our energies or to bar our path. But this will always be the case so long as our gaze is directed solely within. For here we find only feebleness, only vacillation, only ignorance, only failure and sin. Our strength, our consolation, our renewal are elsewhere. It is only when our hearts go forth in faith to God the all wise and almighty, God the merciful, God our Father that the pardon comes, that the pure heart is made and the steadfast spirit renewed within us. This faith Judas did not realize. He knew God only as an avenging judge. He did not know him as a loving Father.