In the book of Ruth we read how the
Lord visited His people in giving them bread. The Psalmist, in the
captivity at Babylon, PRAYS God to visit him with His salvation. The
prophet Jeremiah says that it was a sign of God's anger against the
Jews that He had not visited them; and the prophets promised again
and again to their countrymen, how, after their seventy years'
captivity in Babylon, the Lord would visit them, and what for?--To
bring them back into their own land with joy, and heap them with
every blessing--peace and wealth, freedom and righteousness. So it
is in the New Testament too. Zacharias praised God: "Blessed be the
Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people;
through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on
high hath visited us." And that was the reason why I chose Luke vii.
16, for my text--only because it is an example of the same thing.
The people, it says, praised God, saying: "A great Prophet is risen
up among us, and God hath visited His people." And in the 14th of
Acts we read how God visited the Gentiles, not to punish them, but to
take out of them a people for His name, namely, Cornelius and his
household. And lastly, St. Peter tells Christian people to glorify
God in the day of visitation, as I tell you now--whether His
visitation comes in the shape of cholera, or fever, or agricultural
distress; or whether it comes in the shape of sanitary reform, and
plenty of work, and activity in commerce; whether it seems to you
good or evil, glorify God for it.
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