2. Poverty of spirit is not a feeling of self-disgust which comes over us when we compare our gifts and talents with those of others ; it is born from no earthly inspiration, it proceeds from coming face to face with God. A man may be poor in spirit while his soul is on fire with enthusiasm for the cause of God, for the good of man. It is born of a double sense, both of the Divine greatness and of the Divine nearness. It is shown in unrepining acquiescence in our present limitations ; it is shown in acceptance of the will of God in everything ; it is shown not in self -depreciation, but in the strength that comes of trustfulness. It is the attitude which, in the presence of God, recognizes its entire dependence, empties itself, and is as a poor man, not that it may be feeble, but that God may fill it. It is the virtue which sends a man to his knees bowed and humbled and entranced before the Divine Presence, even in the hour of his most thrilling triumph. He cannot vaunt himself, he cannot push himself, he is but an instrument, and an 1 H. B. Garrorl, Dante, Goethe's Faust, and Other Lectures, 140.
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instrument that can work only as long as it is in touch with its inward power; the "God within him " is the source of his power. What can he he hut poor in spirit, how can he forget, how can he call out " worship me," when he has seen the Vision and heard the Voice, and felt the Power of God ? Poor in spirit, emptied of mere vain, barren conceit, deaf to mere flattery he must be, because he has seen and known; he has cried "Holy, Holy, Holy"; he knows God, and henceforth he is not a centre, not an idol, but an instrument, a vessel that needs for ever refilling, if it is to overflow and do its mission. His is the receptive attitude; not that which receives merely that it may keep, but that which receives because it must send forth. And so he accepts all merely personal con- ditions, not as perfect in themselves, but as capable of being transmuted by that inward power which is his own yet not his own — his own because God is within him, not his own because he is the receiver, not the inspirer.
T[ I am sure there must be many who have a difficulty in understanding these words of our Lord — " Blessed are the poor in spirit." It must almost seem to them as if He had meant to pro- nounce a blessing on the cowardly and mean-spirited ; whereas the blessing is on those who know and keep their place in the Divine hierarchy. We are dependent creatures, not self-existent or self- sufficing ; but there is nothing degrading in this dependence, for we share it with the eternal Son. When we forget this, we lose our blessedness, for it consists in the spirit of sonship, by which alone we can receive and respond to our Father's love. God does not call for the acknowledgment of our dependence as a mere homage to His sovereignty, but because we are His children, and it is only through this acknowledgment that we can receive His fatherly love and blessing. The blessedness arises out of the spirit of dependence, and when that spirit departs the blessedness departs with it ; therefore as the spirit of independence is the spirit of this world, we need not wonder at its unblessedness, for that spirit shuts the heart against God and cuts off its supply from the Fountain of Life.1
3. Only he who has discerned the ideal can feel what is described in the text as poverty of spirit. The man contented with himself, satisfied with his work and his position, to whom no ideal opens itself as something yet unattained, can never feel
1 Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, The Spiritual Order, 233.
ST. MATTHEW v. 3 75
poverty of spirit. In short, this foundation Beatitude, on which all the other Beatitudes are built up, sets forth a universal law of human life ; it describes the attitude of mind characteristic of the wisest, strongest, best of the human family. The gi-eater a man is in any walk of life the wider his vision, and the keener his insight the greater is his poverty of spirit in the presence of the perfection he has seen.
So doth the greater glory dim the less. A substitute shines brightly as a king Until a king be by ; and then his state Empties itself, as doth an inland brook Into the main of waters.
The vision of the greater glory, showing the contrast between what he has seen and what he has in possession, makes the man full of poverty of spirit. The stars shine as brightly during the daylight as they do at night, but they are invisible because of the greater glory of the sun. One can be content with his present state only when he has seen no brighter, clearer vision.
^| Miss Ellice Hopkins writes her impressions of a visit to the Briary at this time :
" At a very unassuming looking house at the foot of the Downs lived another of the Immortals, our great painter, who always went by the name of the ' Divine Watts.' Mrs. Cameron took us to see his studio, and to be introduced to him. We found a slightly built man with a fine head, most courteous in manner, and with the simplicity and humility of the immortal child that so often dwells at the heart of true genius. There was something pathetic to me in the occasional poise of the head, the face slightly lifted, as we see in the blind, as if in dumb beseeching to the fountain of Eternal Beauty for more power to think his thoughts after Him. There is always in his work a window left open to the infinite, the unattainable ideal." 1