abyss.  God is his life and his lord.  That his father should be content with him must be all his care.  Among his relations with his neighbour, infinitely precious, comparison with his neighbour has no place.  Which is the greater is of no account.  He would not choose to be less than his neighbour; he would choose his neighbour to be greater than he.  He looks up to every man.  Otherwise gifted than he, his neighbour is more than he.  All come from the one mighty father:  shall he judge the live thoughts of God, which is greater and which is less?  In thus denying, thus turning his back on himself, he has no thought of saintliness, no thought but of his father and his brethren.  To such a child heaven’s best secrets are open.  He clambers about the throne of the Father unrebuked; his back is ready for the smallest heavenly playmate; his arms are an open refuge for any blackest little lost kid of the Father’s flock; he will toil with it up the heavenly stair, up the very steps of the great white throne, to lay it on the Father’s knees.  For the glory of that Father is not in knowing himself God, but in giving himself away—­in creating and redeeming and glorifying his children.

The man who does not house self, has room to be his real self—­God’s eternal idea of him.  He lives eternally; in virtue of the creative power present in him with momently, unimpeded creation, he is.  How should there be in him one thought of ruling or commanding or surpassing!  He can imagine no bliss, no good in being greater than some one else.  He is unable to wish himself other than he is, except more what God made him for, which is indeed the highest willing of the will of God.  His brother’s wellbeing is essential to his bliss.  The thought of standing higher in the favour of God than his brother, would make him miserable.  He would lift every brother to the embrace of the Father.  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they are of the same spirit as God, and of nature the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,’ expresses the same principle:  the same law holds in the earth as in the kingdom of heaven.  How should it be otherwise?  Has the creator of the ends of the earth ceased to rule it after his fashion, because his rebellious children have so long, to their own hurt, vainly endeavoured to rule it after theirs?  The kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor; the meek shall inherit the earth.  The earth as God sees it, as those to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs also see it, is good, all good, very good, fit for the meek to inherit; and one day they shall inherit it—­not indeed as men of the world count inheritance, but as the maker and owner of the world has from the first counted it.  So different are the two ways of inheriting, that one of the meek may be heartily enjoying his possession, while one of the proud is selfishly walling him out from the spot in it he loves best.