Now, I need not remind you, I suppose, that for such a realisation and active, real communion, purity of heart is indispensable.  That is no arbitrary requirement, but inherent, as we all know, in the very nature of the case.  If we think of what He is, we shall feel that only the pure in heart can really pass into loving fellowship with Him.  ’How can two walk together except they be agreed?’ And if we reflect upon the history of our own feelings and realisation of God’s presence with us, we shall see that impurity always drew a membrane over the eye of our souls, or cast a mist of invisibility over the heavens.  The smallest sin hides God from us.  A very, very little grain of dye stuff will darken miles of a river, and make it incapable of reflecting the blue sky and the sparkling stars.  The least evil done and loved blurs and blots, if it does not eclipse, for us the doers the very Sun of Righteousness Himself.  No sinful men can walk in the midst of that fiery furnace and not be consumed.  ‘The pure in heart’—­and only they—­’shall see God.’

Nor need I remind you, I suppose, that in this, as in all these Beatitudes, the germinal fulfilment in the present life is not to be parted off by a great gap from the perfect fulfilment in the life which is to come.  And so I do not dwell so much on the differences, great and wonderful as these must necessarily be, between the manner of apprehension and communion with God which it is reserved for heaven to bestow upon us, and the manner of those which we may enjoy here; but I rather would point to the blessed thought that in essence they are one, however in degree they may be different.  No doubt, changed circumstances, new capacities, the withdrawal of time and sense, the dropping away of the veil of flesh, which is the barrier between us and the unseen order of things in which ’we live and move and have our being,’ will induce changes and progresses in the manner and in the degree of that vision about which it would be folly for us to speak.  If there were anything here with which we could compare the state of the blessed in heaven, in so far as it differs from their state on earth, we could form some conception of these differences; but if there were anything here with which we could compare it, it would be less glorious than it is.  It is well that we should have to say, ’Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared.’  So let us be thankful that ’it doth not yet appear what we shall be’; and let us never allow our ignorance of the manner to make us doubt or neglect the fact, seeing that we know ’that when He shall appear ... we shall see Him as He is.’

III.  Lastly, notice how this sight brings blessedness.