But for us the words have a double reference, as all the promises annexed to these Beatitudes have.  They apply to the present; they apply to the future.  And that is no mere looseness of interpretation, eking out an insufficient verification of them here upon earth by some dim hopes of a future fulfilment, but it flows from the plain fact that the gifts which a man receives on condition of his being a true disciple are one and the same in essence, and only differ in degree, here and hereafter.  Circumstances alter, no doubt, and there will be much in that heavenly state unlike that which we experience here.  But the essence of Christian blessedness is the same in this world and in the furthest reach of the shining but dim eternity beyond.  And so we take the double reference of these words to be inherent in the facts of the case, and not to be a makeshift of interpretation.

There is a present inheritance of the earth which goes, as certainly as the shadow with the sunshine, with the meekness spoken of in our text.  Not literal, of course, for it is not true that this Christian grace has in it any tendency whatever to draw to itself material good of any sort.  The world in outward possession belongs to the strong men, to the men of faculty, of force and push and ambition.  If you want to get through a crowd, make your elbows as sharp, and your feet upon the toes of your neighbours as heavy as you can, and a road will be made for you; but, in the majority of cases, the meek man on the edge of the crowd will stop there.

Nor is it true that there would be any real blessedness, though the earth were ours in that outward sense.  For you cannot measure happiness by the acre, nor does an outward condition of the most full-fed abundance, and of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and above the gnawings of care, ensure to any man even the shabby blessedness that the world knows, to say nothing of the solid beatitude that Christ proclaims.

So we must go deeper than that for the meaning of ‘inherit.’  Whatever are our circumstances, it is true that this calm, equable, submissive acceptance of the divine will and obedience to it, and this loving and unresentful attitude towards men, bring with them necessarily a peacefulness of heart which gets the highest good out of the modicum of material supplies which God’s providence may send us.  It used to be the idea that gods and beatified spirits were nourished, not by the gross, material flesh of the sacrifices, but by a certain subtle aroma and essence that went up in the incense smoke.  So Christ’s meek men do live and thrive, and are blessed in a true possession of earthly good, even though their outward portion of it may be very small.  ’Better is a little that a righteous man hath than the riches of many wicked.’