'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'--MATT. v. 10.
We have seen the description of the true subjects of the kingdom growing
into form and completeness before our eyes in the preceding verses,
which tell us what they are in their own consciousness, what they are in
their longings, what they become in inward nature by God's gift of
purity, how they move among men as angels of God, meek, merciful,
peace-bringing. Is anything more needed for complete portraiture, any
added touch to the picture? Yes--what the world is to them, what are its
wages for such work, what its perception of such characters. Their
relations to it are those of peace-bringers, reconcilers; its to them
are those of hostility and dislike. Blessed are the persecuted for
righteousness' sake.
I take these words to be as universal and permanent in their application
as any which have preceded them. This characteristic is, like all the
others, the result of those which go before it and presupposes their
continuous operation. The benediction which is attached is not an
arbitrary promise, but stands in as close a relation of consequence to
the characteristic as do the others. And it is marked out as the last in
the series by being a repetition of the first, to express the idea of
completeness, a rounded whole; to suggest that all the others are but
elements of this, and that the initial blessing given to the poor in
spirit is identical with that which is the reward of the highest
Christian character, the one possessing implicitly what the other has in
full development.