when the slave who has been on the watch through all the long, weary
night, or toiling through all the hot, dusty day, may extinguish his
lantern, or fling down his mattock, and go home to his little hut.
'Lord! Thou dost dismiss me now, and I take the dismission as the
end of the long watch, as the end of the long toil.'

But notice, still further, how Simeon not only recognises, but
welcomes the approach of death. 'Thou lettest Thy servant depart in
peace.' Yes, there speaks a calm voice tranquilly accepting the
permission. He feels no agitation, no fluster of any kind, but
quietly slips away from his post. And the reason for that peaceful
welcome of the end is 'for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.' That
sight is the reason, first of all, for his being sure that the
curfew had rung for him, and that the day's work was done. But it is
also the reason for the peacefulness of his departure. He went 'in
peace,' because of what? Because the weary, blurred, old eyes had
seen all that any man needs to see to be satisfied and blessed. Life
could yield nothing more, though its length were doubled to this old
man, than the sight of God's salvation.

Can it yield anything more to us, brethren? And may we not say, if
we have seen that sight, what an unbelieving author said, with a
touch of self-complacency not admirable, 'I have warmed both hands
at the fire of life, and I am ready to depart.' We may go in peace,
if our eyes have seen Him who satisfies our vision, whose bright
presence will go with us into the darkness, and whom we shall see
more perfectly when we have passed from the sentry-box to the home
above, and have ceased to be slaves in the far-off plantation, and
are taken to be sons in the Father's house. 'Thou lettest Thy
servant depart in peace.'