Need and the upward look, the mood ready to believe when and where it can, the embryonic faith, is dear to Him whose love would have us trust him.  Let any man seek him—­not in curious inquiry whether the story of him may be true or cannot be true—­in humble readiness to accept him altogether if only he can, and he shall find him; we shall not fail of help to believe because we doubt.  But if the questioner be such that the dispersion of his doubt would but leave him in disobedience, the Power of truth has no care to effect his conviction.  Why cast out a devil that the man may the better do the work of the devil?  The childlike doubt will, as it softens and yields, minister nourishment with all that was good in it to the faith-germ at its heart; the wise and prudent unbelief will be left to develop its own misery.  The Lord could easily have satisfied the Nazarenes that he was the Messiah:  they would but have hardened into the nucleus of an army for the subjugation of the world.  To a warfare with their own sins, to the subjugation of their doing and desiring to the will of the great Father, all the miracles in his power would never have persuaded them.  A true convincement is not possible to hearts and minds like theirs.  Not only is it impossible for a low man to believe a thousandth part of what a noble man can, but a low man cannot believe anything as a noble man believes it.  The men of Nazareth could have believed in Jesus as their saviour from the Romans; as their saviour from their sins they could not believe in him, for they loved their sins.  The king of heaven came to offer them a share in his kingdom; but they were not poor in spirit, and the kingdom of heaven was not for them.  Gladly would they have inherited the earth; but they were not meek, and the earth was for the lowly children of the perfect Father.

THE HEIRS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, ’Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ ...’Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.’—­Matthew v. 2, 3, 5.

The words of the Lord are the seed sown by the sower.  Into our hearts they must fall that they may grow.  Meditation and prayer must water them, and obedience keep them in the sunlight.  Thus will they bear fruit for the Lord’s gathering.

Those of his disciples, that is, obedient hearers, who had any experience in trying to live, would, in part, at once understand them; but as they obeyed and pondered, the meaning of them would keep growing.  This we see in the writings of the apostles.  It will be so with us also, who need to understand everything he said neither more nor less than they to whom first he spoke; while our obligation to understand is far greater than theirs at the time, inasmuch as we have had nearly two thousand years’ experience of the continued coming of the kingdom he then preached:  it is not yet come; it has been all the time, and is now, drawing slowly nearer.