arable in thought, and are linked in the fashion that
our Lord sets forth in experience, they may be, and often are,
contemporaneous.

But whether separated from one another in time or not, whether this
life-preparation, of which the previous verses give us the outline, has
been realised drop by drop, or whether it has been all flooded on to the
soul at once, as it quite possibly has, in some fashion or other it must
precede our being the sort of peacemakers that Christ desires and
blesses.

There is only one more point that I would make here before I go on, and
that is, that it is well to notice that the climax of Christian
character, according to Jesus Christ Himself, is found in our relations
to men, and not in our relation to God. Worship of heart and spirit,
devout emotions of the sacredest, sweetest, most hallowed and hallowing
sort, are absolutely indispensable, as I have tried to show you. But
equally, if not more, important is it for us to remember that the purest
communion with God, and the selectest emotional experiences of the
Christian life, are meant to be the bases of active service; and that,
if such service does not follow these, there is good reason for
supposing that these are spurious, and worth very little. The service of
man is the outcome of the love of God. He who begins with poverty of
spirit is perfected when, forgetting himself, and coming down from the
mountain-top, where the Shekinah cloud of the Glory and the audible
voice are, he plunges into the struggles of the multitude below, and
frees the devil-ridden boy from the demon that possesses him. Begin by
all means with poverty of spirit, or you will never get to
this--'Blessed are the peacemakers.' But see to it that poverty of
spirit leads to the meekness, the mercifulness, the peace-bringing
influence which Christ has pronounced blessed.

II. What is the peace which Christ's peacemakers bring?

This is a very favourite text with people that know very little of the
depths of Christianity. They fancy that it appeals to common sense and
men's natural consciences, apart altogether from minutenesses of
doctrine or of Christian experience. They are very much mistaken. No
doubt there is a surface of truth, but only a surface, in the
application that is generally given to these words of our text, as if it
meant nothing more than 'he is a good man that goes about and tries to
make contending people give up their quarrels, and produces a healin