Excerpt from Blessed Are the Pure in Heart: A Sermon Preached in St. Mary's Church, Oxford, Before the University, Nov. 20, 1859 The terms in which the beatitude is stated are entirely simple. There is not in them, as in several of the others, the least sound of paradox. There is no difiiculty, such as we meet in several of the others, where we have to understand how sorrow or persecution, things naturally painful and sad, can be called 'blessed, ' or how meekness can have the promise of inheriting this earth. All here is per fectly simple and plain. Neither in the first part, Blessed are the pure in heart, is there difficulty, for man can naturally see that pureness is a blessed and sweet thing; nor yet in the second, for they shall see God. Yet we may truly say that in these last words there is something greater than paradox there is revelation. For these words surely open to us a truth, which naturally we could not know, of the invisible world; a very sacred and precious truth, respecting what we may call, without impro priety, t/ze senses of tile soul, that those who are pure in heart, and no doubt those only, shall hereafter be admitted and able to see God. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.