t's peacemaker must be something more than a mere composer of men's
quarrels. For he has to be trained by all the preceding experiences, and
has to be emptied of self, penitent, hungering for and filled with
righteousness, and therefore pure in heart as well as, in regard to men,
meek and merciful, ere he can hope to fill this part. That
apprenticeship deepens the conception of the peace which Christ's
subjects are to diffuse. It is, first and chiefly, the peace which
enters the soul that has traversed all these stages; that is to say, the
Christian peacemaker is first to seek to bring about peace between men
and God, by beseeching them to be reconciled to Him, and then
afterwards, as a consequence of this, is to seek to diffuse through all
human relations the blessed unity and amity which flow most surely from
the common possession of the peace of God. Of course, the relation which
the subjects of the true King bear to all wars and fightings, to all
discord and strife, is not excluded, but is grounded on this deeper
meaning. The centuries that have passed since the words were spoken,
have not yet brought up the Christian conscience to the full perception
of their meaning and obligation. Too many of us still believe that
'great doors and effectual' can be blown open with gunpowder, and regard
this Beatitude as a counsel of perfection, rather than as one of the
fundamental laws of the kingdom.

The Christian who moves thus among men seeking to diffuse everywhere the
peace with God which fills his own soul, and the peace with all men
which they only who have the higher peace can preserve unbroken in their
quiet, meek hearts, will be more or less recognised as God-like by men,
and will have in his own heart the witness that he is called by God His
child. He will bear visibly the image of his Father, and will hear the
voice that speaks to him too as unto a son.

VIII. The last Beatitude crowns all the paradoxes of the series with
what sounds to flesh as a stark contradiction. The persecuted are
blessed. The previous seven sayings have perfected the portraiture of
what a child of the kingdom is to be. This appends a calm prophecy,
which must have shattered many a rosy dream among the listeners, of what
his reception by the world will certainly turn out. Jesus is not
summoning men to dominion, honour, and victory; but to scorn and
suffering. His own crown, He knew, was first to be twisted of thorns,
and copies of it were to