Matthew 5:10

Persecuted for righteousness sake. — Here again there is a profound significance in the order. The work of the peacemakers is not a light and easy work. Often, as of old, when we “labour for peace,” men “make them ready for battle” (Psalms 120:7); but not the less is the blessing sure to follow. Amid seeming failure or seeming success, those who are persecuted, not for opinions, but for right conduct, the true martyrs and confessors of righteousness, attain their reward at last. There is something suggestive in the fact that the last promise is the same as the first. We end, as we began, with “the kingdom of heaven;” but the path by which we have been led leads us to see that that includes all the intermediate blessings, of which at first it seemed but the prelude and beginning.