Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/138

 a former part of the same verse, but reflect that all tribulation and conflict must and will have an end, and that the crown of life, the bright reward of the spiritual conqueror, will be lasting!—yea, eternal! Remember these are words of truth, of mercy, and of love. The Lord of heaven, our Father and Redeemer, speaks to each of us at the present moment, and says, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

T is admitted by all that heaven is the kingdom of God. The Lord, as if to guard the world against any mistaken notions concerning heaven, used the words which form our motto in answer to the Pharisees, who demanded of him, when the kingdom of God should come? It is evident, from the manner in which the Pharisees put this question to the Lord, that they considered the kingdom of God as something connected with worldly splendour, outward pomp and show!

It probably would have been very flattering to the vanity of the Pharisees, if they could have been satisfied as to the time when the kingdom of God would appear in the world, visible to their bodily senses; for then they might have looked forward to that day with a degree of selfish satisfaction, when they might have proclaimed, as it were upon the house-