This poverty of spirit is blessed because it is its own reward.  All self-esteem and self-complacency are like a hedgehog, as some one has said, ‘rolled up the wrong way, tormenting itself with its prickles.’  And the man that is always, or often, thinking how much above A, B, or C he is, and how much A, B, or C ought to offer of incense to him, is sure to get more cuffs than compliments, more enmity than affection; and will be sore all over with wounded vanities of all sorts.  But if we have learned ourselves, and have departed from these lofty thoughts, then to be humble in spirit is to be wise, cheerful, contented, simple, restful in all circumstances.  You remember John Bunyan’s shepherd boy, down in the valley of humiliation. Heart’s-ease grew there, and his song was, ‘He that is low need fear no fall.’  If we have this true, deep-rooted poverty of spirit, we shall be below the tempest, which will go clean over our heads.  The oaks catch the lightnings; the grass and the primroses are unscorched.  ’The day of the Lord shall be upon all high things, and the loftiness of men shall be brought low.’

So, dear brethren, blessedness is not to be found outside us.  We need not ask ’who shall go up into the heavens, or who shall descend into the deep,’ to bring it.  It is in thee, if at all.  Christ teaches us that the sources of all true blessedness are within us; there or nowhere is Eden.  If we have the tempers and dispositions set forth in these Beatitudes, condition matters but very little.  If the source of all blessedness is within us, the first step to it all is poverty of spirit.  ‘Be ye clothed with humility.’  The Master girt Himself with the servant’s towel, and His disciples are to copy Him who said:  ’Take My yoke upon you....  I am meek and lowly in heart ... and ye shall find rest’—­and is not that blessedness?—­’ye shall find rest unto your souls.’

THE SECOND BEATITUDE

     ’Blessed are they that mourn:  for they shall be comforted.’—­MATT.
     v. 4.

An ordinary superficial view of these so-called Beatitudes is that they are simply a collection of unrelated sayings.  But they are a great deal more than that.  There is a vital connection and progress in them.  The jewels are not flung down in a heap; they are wreathed into a chain, which whosoever wears shall have ‘an ornament of grace about his neck.’  They are an outgrowth from a common root; stages in the evolution of Christian character.

Now, I tried to show in the former sermon how the root of them all is the poverty of spirit which is spoken of in the preceding verse; and how it really does lie at the foundation of the highest type of human character, and in its very self is sure of possessing the Kingdom of Heaven.  And now I turn to the second of these Beatitudes.  Like all the others, it is a paradox, for it starts from a wholly different conception from the common one, of what is man’s