Page:SermonOnTheMount1900.djvu/47

 you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise on the good and the bad, and raineth on the just and the unjust,’ as we shall see afterwards. ‘ Blessed,’ then, ' are the peaceable ’ — those who love peace and promote it — ‘they shall be called the children of God,’ because they will bear the character of so good a Father.

In lands where God is unknown, the sun is no dimmer, the rain waters the fields and pastures no less abundantly, and is no less refreshing or fertilising, than in Christian lands. Thus, as St Paul said, ' God left not himself without testimony.’ The sun, when it rises, bears witness to His all-embracing goodness, for it appears no later, nor with any less brilliant colours, for the enemies of God than for His friends. Do you, then, at sunrise adore the God of pardon; and never show an ungracious countenance to your neighbour when the heavens, and God himself — if one may say so — look on him with such a gentle and serene one.

Jesus Christ, only Son of the Heavenly Father, is the great Peace-maker: — ' killing all enmities in himself... preaching peace to you that were afar off, and to them that were