who exercise it are called ‘Quakers’ and ‘poor-spirited’ and ‘chicken-hearted’ and the like.  Social life among us is in flagrant contradiction of this Beatitude; and as for national life, all ‘Christian nations’ agree that to apply Christ’s precept to it would be absurd and suicidal.  He said that the meek should inherit the earth; statesmen say that the only way to keep a country is to be armed to the teeth, and let no man insult its flag with impunity.  There does not seem much room for ‘a spirited foreign policy’ or for ‘proper regard to one’s own dignity’ inside this Beatitude, does there?  But notice that this meekness naturally follows the preceding dispositions.  He who knows himself and has learned the depth of his own evil will not be swift to blaze up at slights or wrongs.  The true meekness is not mere natural disposition, but the direct outcome of poverty of spirit and the consequent sorrow.  So, it is a test of their reality.  Many a man will indulge in confessions of sin, and crackle up in sputtering heat of indignation at some slight or offence.  If he does, his lowly words have had little meaning, and the benediction of these promises will come scantily to his heart.

Does Christ mean merely to say that meek men will acquire landed properly?  Is there not a present inheritance of the earth by them, though they may not own a foot of it?  They have the world who enjoy it, whom it helps nearer God, who see Him in it, to whom it is the field for service and the means for growing character.  But in the future the kingdom of heaven will be a kingdom of the earth, and the meek saints shall reign with the King who is meek and lowly of heart.

IV.  Righteousness is conformity to the will of God, or moral perfection.  Hunger and thirst are energetic metaphors for passionate desire, and imply that righteousness is the true nourishment of the Spirit.  Every longing of a noble spirit is blessed.  Aspiration after the unreached is the salt of all lofty life.  It is better to be conscious of want than to be content.  There are hungers which are all unblessed, greedy appetites for the swine’s husks, which are misery when unsatisfied, and disgust when satiated.  But we are meant to be righteous, and shall not in vain desire to be so.  God never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them.  Such longings prophesy their fruition.

Notice that this hunger follows the experience of the former Beatitudes.  It is the issue of poverty of spirit and of that blessed sorrow.  Observe, too, that the desire after, and not the possession or achievement of, righteousness is blessed.  Is not this the first hint of the Christian teaching that we do not work out or win but receive it?  God gives it.  Our attitude towards that gift should be earnest longing.  Such a blessed hungerer shall ’receive ... righteousness from the God of his salvation.’  The certainty that he will do so rests at last on the faithfulness of God, who cannot