God, between him and duty, between him and himself, ever seek to shed any deep or real peace amongst men.  He may superficially solder some external quarrels, but that is not all that Jesus Christ means.  His peacemakers are created by having passed through all the previous experiences which the preceding verses bring out.  They have learned the poverty of their own spirits.  They have wept tears, if not real and literal, yet those which are far more agonising—­tears of spirit and conscience—­when they have thought of their own demerits and foulnesses.  They have bowed in humble submission to the will of God, and even to that will as expressed by the antagonisms of man.  They have yearned after the possession of a fuller and nobler righteousness than they have attained.  They have learned to judge others with a gentle judgment because they know how much they themselves need it, and to extend to others a helping hand because they are aware of their own impotence and need of succour.  They have been led through all these, often painful, experiences into a purity of heart which has been blessed by some measure of vision of God; and, having thus been equipped and prepared, they are fit to go out into the world and say, in the presence of all its tempests, ‘Peace! be still.’  Something of the miracle-working energy of the Master whom they serve will be shed upon those who serve Him.

Brethren, the peacemaker who is worthy of the name must have gone through these deep spiritual experiences.  I do not say that they are to come in regular stages, separable from each other.  That is not the way in which a character mounts towards God.  It does so not by a flight of steps, at distinctly different elevations, but rather by an ascending slope.  And, although these various Christian graces which precede that of my text are separable in thought, and are linked in the fashion that our Lord sets forth in experience, they may be, and often are, contemporaneous.

But whether separated from one another in time or not, whether this life-preparation, of which the previous verses give us the outline, has been realised drop by drop, or whether it has been all flooded on to the soul at once, as it quite possibly has, in some fashion or other it must precede our being the sort of peacemakers that Christ desires and blesses.

There is only one more point that I would make here before I go on, and that is, that it is well to notice that the climax of Christian character, according to Jesus Christ Himself, is found in our relations to men, and not in our relation to God.  Worship of heart and spirit, devout emotions of the sacredest, sweetest, most hallowed and hallowing sort, are absolutely indispensable, as I have tried to show you.  But equally, if not more, important is it for us to remember that the purest communion with God, and the selectest emotional experiences of the Christian life, are meant to be the bases of active service; and that, if such