On this occasion he uses the word hunger without limitation.  Every true want, every genuine need, every God-created hunger, is a thing provided for in the idea of the universe; but no attempt to fill a void otherwise than the Heart of the Universe intended and intends, is or can be anything but a woe.  God forgets none of his children—­the naughty ones any more than the good.  Love and reward is for the good:  love and correction for the bad.  The bad ones will trouble the good, but shall do them no hurt.  The evil a man does to his neighbour, shall do his neighbour no harm, shall work indeed for his good; but he himself will have to mourn for his doing.  A sore injury to himself, it is to his neighbour a cause of jubilation—­not for the evil the man does to himself—­over that there is sorrow in heaven—­but for the good it occasions his neighbour.  The poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, may lament their lot as if God had forgotten them; but God is all the time caring for them.  Blessed in his sight now, they shall soon know themselves blessed.  ’Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.’—­Welcome words from the glad heart of the Saviour!  Do they not make our hearts burn within us?—­They shall be comforted even to laughter!  The poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, the persecuted, are the powerful, the opulent, the merry, the loved, the victorious of God’s kingdom,—­to be filled with good things, to laugh for very delight, to be honoured and sought and cherished!

But such as have their poor consolation in this life—­alas for them!—­for those who have yet to learn what hunger is! for those whose laughter is as the crackling of thorns! for those who have loved and gathered the praises of men! for the rich, the jocund, the full-fed!  Silent-footed evil is on its way to seize them.  Dives must go without; Lazarus must have.  God’s education makes use of terrible extremes.  There are last that shall be first, and first that shall be last.

The Lord knew what trials, what tortures even awaited his disciples after his death; he knew they would need every encouragement he could give them to keep their hearts strong, lest in some moment of dismay they should deny him.  If they had denied him, where would our gospel be?  If there are none able and ready to be crucified for him now, alas for the age to come!  What a poor travesty of the good news of God will arrive at their doors!

Those whom our Lord felicitates are all the children of one family; and everything that can be called blessed or blessing comes of the same righteousness.  If a disciple be blessed because of any one thing, every other blessing is either his, or on the way to become his; for he is on the way to receive the very righteousness of God.  Each good thing opens the door to the one next it, so to all the rest.  But as if these his assurances and promises and comfortings were not large enough; as if the mention of any condition