llustrations 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."

{64}

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
happin