80 THE FIRST BEATITUDE
true in humble life. Greatness is never ashamed to be found in lowly guise. The surest sign of a high nature is that it can stoop without apologizing for itself.1
3. We can understand the happiness of this attitude. The man is absorbed in the work — the God-given work — before him. He lias no leisure to pause and ask what the world thinks of him. There is a real work to do, and he is alive to its importance and to the necessity of turning his whole energy into it. The work has to be done ; the trust must be discharged ; the criticisms of the world, whether favourable or unfavourable, are of little moment. Egotism has so small a place in his spirit that he is neither uplifted nor depressed by the words of men's lips. His soul is set on other things. He seeks the Kingdom of God, and no kingdom of self — and it is in the emancipation of self from self that he finds that Divine Kingdom. He loses himself to find himself. This is the note that seals the possession of the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, this is the keynote of all our Lord's teaching. It is the note of His own life. It is expressly what He says of Himself : " Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest unto your souls." It is what He teaches by His example. For He ever watched the Father's hand. He spoke the Father's words, He did the Father's works, and all He thought, felt, and did was done in obedience to the Father. He emptied Himself. At every fresh departure in His work He spent the night in prayer and fellow- ship with the Father, and whenever He needed wisdom and power for His life-work He sought these from the Father. Thus in virtue of His poverty of spirit He was in possession of the Kingdom.
Tj I cannot tell you how great a point our Blessed Father made of self-abandonment, i.e., self-surrender into the hands of God. In one place he speaks of it as : " The cream of charity, the odour of humility, the flower of patience, and the fruit of perseverance. Great," he says, "is this virtue, and worthy of being practised by the best-beloved children of God." And again, "Our Lord loves with a most tender love those who are so happy as to abandon themselves wholly to His fatherly care, letting themselves be governed by His divine Providence without any idle speculations as to whether the workings of this Providence
1 Sidney M. Berry, G races of thr Christian Character, 78.
ST. MATTHEW v. 3 81
will be useful to them to their profit, or painful to their loss, and this because they are well assured that nothing can be sent, nothing permitted by this paternal and most loving Heart, which will not be a source of good and profit to them. All that is required is that they should place all their confidence in Him, and say from their heart, ' Into thy hands I commend my spirit,' my soul, my body, and all that I have, to do with them as it shall please Thee." x
TJ Christ showed that sacrifice, self-surrender, death, is the beginning and the course and the aim and the essential principle of the higher life. To find life in our own way, to wish to save it, to seek to gain it, to love it, is, He proclaims, to miss it altogether. . . . The law of sacrifice is based on essential moral relations, justified by the facts of common experience, welcomed by the universal conscience. . . . Sacrifice alone is fruitful. . . . The essence of sin is selfishness in respect of men, and self-assertion in respect of God, the unloving claim of independence, the arro- gant isolation of our interests. . . . That which we use for our- selves perishes ignobly : that which He uses for us but not on us proves the beginning of a fuller joy. Isolation is the spring of death ; life is revealed through sacrifice. . . . Vicarious toil, pain, suffering, is the very warp of life. When the Divine light falls upon it, it becomes transformed into sacrifice. . . . Not one tear, one pang, one look of tender compassion, one cry of pitying anguish, one strain of labouring arm, offered in the strength of God for the love of man, has been in vain. They have entered into the great life with a power to purify, and cheer, and nerve, measured not by the standard of our judgment but by the com- pleteness of the sacrifice which they represent.2
1 J. P. Camus, The Spirit of St. Francis Be Sales, 278. 1 Bishop Westcott, Tlie Victory of the Cross, 22.
ST. MATT.-
The Pure in Heart.
Literature.
Ainsworth (P. C), The Blessed Life, 131.
Barrett (G. S.), Musings for Quiet Hours, 110.
Dykes (J. 0.), The Manifesto of the King, 119.
Oore (C), The Sermon on tlie Mount, 40.
Houchiu (J. W.), The Vision of God, 1.
Hull (E. L.), Sermons, i. 154.
Huntington (F. D.), Chiist in the Christian Year: Advent to Trinity,