Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. What results from this conflict, heroically maintained? Victory. Moral beauty as well. More keenly, perhaps, than any other American writer, has Hawthorne seen into the human heart, and he somewhere remarks that the human face never is so beautiful as when the soul has passed through some great struggle; when it has triumphed in this unseen battlefield, and there is a divine irradiation of the countenance, such as Jacob's face must have had, when, after that night of wrestling with the angel, the morning light, breaking over the mountains of Gilead, revealed in his features the celestial halo that crowned them. All moral beauty is secondary. It comes from conflict and victory. Thus was the shepherd David fitted to become the monarch of the nation, and the persecuting Saul the preacher Paul. Linnaeus and Humboldt have found, on icebergs, in far-off forests and on Alpine peaks, flowers that had no fragrance; but to which, when care, skill, and patience had been lavished on them. a secondary nature was given, so that to-day, under wintry skies, we have them in our conservatories, sweet, as well as fair. (Bishop Hurst.) Parallel Verses KJV: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.WEB: "Don't think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn't come to send peace, but a sword. |
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