ad a companion consequent on and like unto it, the love of our
neighbour. Religion without beneficence, and beneficence without
religion, are equally maimed. The one is a root without fruit, and the
other a fruit without a root. The selectest emotions, the lowliest
faith, the loftiest aspirations, the deepest consciousness of one's own
unworthiness--these priceless elements of personal religion--are of
little worth unless there are inseparably linked with them meekness,
mercifulness, and peacemaking. 'What God hath joined together, let not
man put asunder.' If any Christian people have neglected the service of
man for the worship of God, they are flying in the face of Christ's
teaching. If any antagonists of Christianity attack it on the ground
that it fosters such neglect, they mistake the system that they
criticise, and are judging it by the imperfect practice of the disciples
instead of by the perfect precepts of the Master.

So, then, here we have a characteristic lodged in the very heart of this
series of Beatitudes which refers wholly to our demeanour to one
another. My remarks now will, therefore, be of a very homely,
commonplace, and practical kind.

I. Note the characteristic on which our Lord here pours out His
blessing--Mercy.

Now, like all the other members of this sequence, with the exception,
perhaps, of the last, this quality refers to disposition much rather
than to action. Conduct is included, of course; but conduct only
secondarily. Jesus Christ always puts conduct second, as all wise and
great teachers do. 'As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.' That is
the keynote of all noble morality. And none has ever carried it out more
thoroughly than has the morality of the Gospel. It is a poor translation
and limitation of this great word which puts in the foreground merely
merciful actions. The mercifulness of my text is, first and foremost, a
certain habitual way of looking at and feeling towards men, especially
to men in suffering and need, and most especially to men who have proved
themselves bad and blameworthy. It is implied that a rigid retribution
would lead to severer methods of judgment and of action.

Therefore the first characteristic of the merciful man is that he is
merciful in his judgments; not making the worst of people, no Devil's
Advocate in his estimates of his fellows; but, endlessly, and, as the
world calls it, foolishly and incredibly, gentle in his censures, and
ever ready to ta