Whom does Jesus call the blessed people? Again he answers: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." And who are the meek? We think of a meek man as a limp and mild creature who has no capacity to hurt or courage to help. But that is not what the Bible word means. Meekness is not weakness. The Book of Numbers says that Moses was the meekest man that ever lived; but one of the first illustrations of his character was in slaying an Egyptian who insulted his people. The meek man of the Bible is simply what we call the gentle-man—the man without swagger or arrogance, not self-assertive or forthputting, but honorable and considerate. This is the sense in which it has been said of Jesus that he was the first of gentlemen. Now these people, the gracious and generous,—not the self-important and ostentatious,—are, according to Jesus, in the end to rule. {63} They are not to get what we call the prizes of life, the social notoriety and position, but they are to have the leadership of their time and its remembrance when they are gone. Long after showy ambition has its little day and ceases to be, the world will remember the magnanimous and self-effacing leader. He does not have to grasp the prizes of earth; he, as Jesus says, "inherits the earth." It is his by right. The meek, says the thirty-seventh Psalm, shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in abundance of peace. The meek escape the quarrelsomeness of ambition. They live in a world of peace and good-will. And when we sing of peace on earth and good-will to men, we are only repeating the beatitude of Jesus: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
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XXV
THE HUNGER FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
Matthew v. 6.
Whom does Jesus call the blessed people? "Blessed," he goes on, "are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." The New Testament repeatedly states this doctrine, which sounds so strangely in our ears. It is the doctrine that a man gets what he asks for—that his real hunger will be filled. We should say that just the opposite of this was true—that life was a continued striving to get things which one fails to get—a hunger which is doomed to stay unsatisfied. But Jesus turns to his followers and says: "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find," and in the same spirit turns even to the hypocrites and says again: "They also receive their reward." Conduct, that is to say, fulfils its destiny. What you sow, you reap. The blessing which is sufficiently desired is attained. What you really ask for, you get. The only reason why this does not {65} seem to be true is that we do not realize what the things are which we are asking for and what must be the inevitable answer to our demand. We ask, for instance, for money; and we expect an answer of happiness. But we do not get happiness, we only get money, which is a wholly different thing. We ask for popularity and reputation, and we expect these gifts, when received, to last; but we have asked for something whose very nature is that it does not last. It is like asking for a soap-bubble and expecting to get a billiard-ball. We cannot work for the temporary and get the permanent. If, then, it is true that we are to get what we want, then the secret of happiness is to want the best things and to want them very much. If we hunger and thirst for base things we shall get them. Oh yes, we shall get them; and get the unhappiness which comes of this awful discovery, that as we have hungered so we are filled. And if we are really hungry for righteousness, if we want to be good, as a thirsty man wants water, if, as Jesus says of himself, our meat is to do the will of Him who sends us, then that demand also will be supplied. "He satisfieth the longing soul," {66} says the Psalmist, "and filleth the hungry soul"—not with success, or money, or fame, but with that which the soul was hungry for—"with goodness." The longing soul has sought the best blessing, and it has received the best blessedness.
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XXVI
THE MERCIFUL
Matthew v. 7.