ing
the gift of God is to be free from the curse of conceit. The
spiritually poor are the first to receive Christ's blessing. They have
at least made themselves accessible to the further blessings which
Jesus has to bestow.

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XXIII

THE MOURNERS

_Matthew_ v. 4.

Whom does Jesus call the blessed people? How strange it sounds when he
answers: "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."
Blessed, that is to say, are not only the people who, as we say, are in
sorrow; but blessed are all the burdened people, the people who are
having a hard time, the people who are bearing their crosses, for they
are the ones who will learn the deeper comfort of the Gospel. It is
the same promise which is repeated later in another place: "Come unto
me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This does
not mean that mourning is blessed for its own sake, or that the only
way to be a Christian is to be sad. It simply calls attention to this
fact, that every life is sure to have some hardness, or burden, or
cross in it. If you have none, it simply shows that you have not
really begun to live. And Jesus says that the farther you go into {61}
these deep places of experience, the more you will get out of his
religion. There are some phases of life where it makes little
difference whether you have any religion or not. But let the water of
trouble go over your soul, and then there is just one support which
keeps you from going down. Religion, that is to say, is not a thing
for holidays and easy times. Its comfort is not discovered until you
come to a hard place. The more it is needed, the stronger it is. How
strange it is that the people who seem most conscious of their
blessings and sustained by a sense of gratitude are, as a rule, people
who have been called to mourn. It is not resignation only which they
have found; it is light. They have been comforted through their
sorrows. Their burden has been made easy and their yoke light.

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XXIV

THE MEEK.

_Matthew_ v. 5.

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 i