Luke 6:20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be you poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. The sunniest hearts I have ever found in my pastoral rounds have often been lodged in houses so poverty-stricken and obscure that even the tax-collector never found them. They were people who had very little of this world, but a great deal of the next. They took short views of this life; but long ones of the life to come. Living pretty much from "hand to mouth," they learn to trust God a great deal more than their prosperous brethren, who secretly trust — their own bank-accounts and government bonds. The happiest heart I encounter in Brooklyn belongs to an aged cripple, who lives on charity in a fourth storey. She is old and poor, and without relatives, and lost even the power of speech twenty years ago l By dint of hard effort she can make a few words intelligible. But I never saw that withered face distorted by a frown; and a few Sabbaths since, when she was carried in to the communion-table, I looked down from the pulpit into that old saint's countenance, and it "shone like the face of an angel." She lives every day on the sunny side of Providence, and feeds hungrily on the promises. Jesus knows where she lives. He "ofttimes resorts thither." She is one of His hidden ones. That old disciple will not have far to go when the summons comes from her Father's house. She lives near the gates now, and catches the odours and the music of that "marriage supper" for which she has her wedding garment on. Would to God that some of the sourspirited, morose, and melancholy Christians of our acquaintance could drop in to that old woman's garret occasionally, and borrow a vial of her sunshine! (Dr. Cuyler.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. |
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