1895 218 Luke 2:25. We sometimes hear commercial men boasting that they have done good business on a "falling market:" anyone can do well on a rising market, but it needs much more capacity and acumen to prosper when prices are adverse. In like manner some say that they have made fortunes out of bad accounts; that is, with persons no one else would trust; but by nursing them and exercising patience, vigilance, and dexterity, they have made these had accounts profitable. It is well with us when we can do this kind of thing in a higher sense — bring profit to the soul and glory to God out of declining times and decaying faiths.
It was in such a period that Simeon lived. We find him shining in the night of the Jewish age like Cogia Hassan's diamond in the dark room, or perhaps more like the humble glow-worm as the night shadows fall. There are some things which are most in season when they are out of season. It is when the other birds have flown southwards that we most appreciate the robin's cheerful notes over the winter's snow: it is when the convolvulus has closed its petals in the evening gloom and the sunflower droops its head that the nictanthes yields its most fragrant odour. Notwithstanding the prevailing cold-heartedness and wickedness, Simeon continued "a just man, and devout, and waited for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him." There were evidently a few others of this spirit — the aged Anna was amongst them — too few, feeble, and poor to form a sect, whom God maintained for a witness even then in Israel awaiting the advent of His Son. Their testimony was ultimately vindicated and their hopes fulfilled, though perhaps few of them lived to see even the dawn of that fulfilment, and none of them its noontide: but doubtless they were regarded as the merest visionaries and fanatics by the few persons who took any notice of them at all. They were hardly worth the trouble of persecuting; a little cheap contempt is usually thought sufficient for such people.
Yet this is the way in which not only the Christ comes into the world, but also the way in which every great movement for the welfare of the race is ushered into the world. Those who attend and support it are persecuted, for they are considered dangerous to the existing order and vested interests; but those who precede and foretell its advent are usually only ridiculed. In both cases the friends of Truth are considered the enemies of mankind and fair game for Bigotry to attack; but until Truth is visibly present, its advocates are not generally worth the trouble of persecuting. In both cases the servants of the Truth are looked on as the scum of the earth, whilst they are in reality the salt of the earth; they are spoken of as the "offscouring of all things," but they are the efflorescence of the age. "Then to side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just."
In this way have come about most of those movements which have benefited the human race and delivered men in spite of themselves from the bondage of Ignorance, Superstition, and Tyranny. The Hebrews of old, by whom came to the world the testimony of the true God, were counted as a set of wretched slaves. The founders of Christianity were a few peasants and fishermen, "not many, [the Countess of Huntingdon was not the only one, however, who thanked God for the letter M in that word, not Many rich, not Many noble." The emancipators of Holland were called the "beggars;" and for many years the cry of vivent les gueux excited derision, before the time at length arrived when it fired men's blood with thoughts of liberty and righteousness. In course of time though, the beggars' doctrines spread and become popular; and then their persecutors quietly adopt them and advance them as their own newborn fledgling truths. The course of things drags onward: "Where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands!"
If these considerations be correct, there is something heroic in standing thus on Truth's side before "'tis prosperous to be just;" and in general it requires strength of purpose and courage to maintain so invidious a position, especially when others are falling away. But somehow, in regard to such as Simeon and Anna, we do not think in this way. Their characters I do not impress us with the sense of heroism at all, but merely with the sense of simplicity and obedience. They were indeed in a heroic position; but probably neither themselves nor anyone else ever thought so. We are fold that he was led by the Holy Ghost, and he submitted to that leading implicitly as a horse to the bridle; so, though hislife had all the effect of heroism, his only thoughts were doubtless of devotion and obedience to God. And thus, though he may not even have been of any particular strength of character in himself at all, he was able to cling to the principles of truth and the divine word, in the presence and frown of the Falsehood, organized, enthroned, almost omnipotent, that menaced them.
The Holy Ghost is typified in both Testaments by the wind: and amongst the numerous effects of the wind, nothing is more strange than the way in which it transforms weak and fragile things into missiles of immense power. I have sometimes seen photographs of straws and feathers, deeply imbedded into hard wood by the power of the wind during a tropical tornado. It seems physically impossible for a straw to be driven into oak like a nail; but the wind does it and nothing else can. Nor can any other power than the Holy Ghost make men and women of commonplace character and attainments to become instruments of irresistible strength. Ziesberger the missionary used to say that he was naturally "as timid as a dove;" yet he passed his life continuously in the most appalling dangers.
It is well when we see a man getting old like Simeon without losing the brightness and strength of hope, and to see one so filled with satisfaction when his arms clasp the Infant promise of the coming Salvation as to feel that he has nothing further to live for: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. … for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation!" He must needs prophesy too when he holds the Holy Babe in his arms — for who can hold Christ to his bosom and not prophesy? And he speaks of strange events to come; that this Child, Who was to be the coronal glory of Israel, should be the Great Light to illumine the darkness of the Gentile world. And the old man, whose outward eyes are dim, can see down through the veil of future time sorrow, and disaster. Aye, and here, where we would least expect it, he turns his compassionate gaze on the gentle and patient mother, saying, "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also!"