And this power of sanctity which is the outcome of union with God is a permanent acquisition to the Kingdom of God.  God’s Kingdom is ultimately a Kingdom of saints.  The sphere of God’s self-manifestation in human life increases ever as the saints increase; and the power of sanctity necessarily remains while the saint remains, that is, forever.  The saint remains a permanent organ of the Body of Christ, a perdurable instrument of the divine love.  To speak humanly, the more saints there are, the more the love of God can manifest itself; the wider its influence on humanity.  And the greater the Saint, that is, the nearer the Saint approaches the perfection of God, to which he is called—­Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect—­the more influential he must be; that is the more perfectly he will show the divine likeness and transmit the divine influence.  When we think of the power of the saints as intercessors that is what actually we are thinking of,—­the perfection of their understanding of the mind of Christ.

But to return to this world and to the gathering in the temple on the day of the Purification.  These are they in whom the hope of Israel rests.  Israel is not a failure because it has brought forth these.  God’s work through the centuries has not come to naught because in these there is the possibility of a new beginning.  The consummate flower of Israel’s life is the Blessed Mother through whom God becomes man; and these who meet her in the temple are the representatives of those hidden ones in Israel who will be the field wherein the seed of the Word can be sown and where it will bring forth fruit an hundredfold.  Jesus, this Child, is God made man; and these around Him to-day, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, are those who will receive His love and will show its power in the universe forever.

And so it will remain always; the good ground wherein the seed may be sown and bring forth unto eternal life is the spiritual nature of man, made ready by humility and love,—­“In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”  In the quietness that waits for God to act, the confidence that knows that He will act when the time comes.  It is well if our aspiration is to be of the number of those who live lives hid with Christ in God; who are seeking nothing but that the love of God may be shed abroad in their hearts; who are “constrained” by nothing but the love of Jesus.  It is true that this simplicity of motive and aim will bring it about that our lives will be hidden lives, lives of which the world will take no note.  We may be quite sure that none of the rulers of Israel thought much about old Simeon who passed his time praying in the temple.  And if we want to be known of rulers it is doubtless a mistake to take the road that Simeon followed.  But the reward of that way was that he saw “the Lord’s Christ,” that it was permitted him to take in his arms Incarnate God, and then, in his rapture, to sing Nunc Dimittis.