win to penitence and friendlj- relations bj' patience and forbearance (Gal 6\ 2 Ti 2^5, Tit 3-).
Whether there should be any bounds to this acceptance of personal wrong is a question which has been brought into great prominence in our day by the teaching of Tolstoi. According to the Russian moralist, who has preached with great power the Quaker doctrine of non-resistance to evil, the old right of requital was abolished b.y Christ ; not only should there be no private retaliation against wrong, but tliere should be no re- course to any legal tribunal when one has suffered injury or injustice. The law of non-resistance in Tolstoi's view is abso- lute ; when we are wronged, we should suffer meekly in the liope that through our meekness evil will be overcome of good. Against this interpretation of the law of Christ in an absolute sense \ve ha\e to set not only Christ's own example, when in the sacred name of justice He challenged the maa.who smote Him at the bar of judgment (Jn IS'^^-), but also the whole tenor of the Christian law. When Jesus, in inculcating meekness and lo\ e to our enemies, said, ' Resist not evil ' (Mt 5^^), the context shows that He was not laying down a law which should be rigidly interpreted according to the letter, but that He was requiring a new spirit — the spirit of forbearance and love in dealing with those who wrong us. Christ's aim in requiring meekness of His followers was a moral aim — the furtherance of tlie Divine Kingdom, the lessening of the amount of evil in the world — a result which the meek endurance of wrong often brings with it in the disarming of enmity and in the quenching of the fires of ill-will, whereas retaliation adds to the evil and inflames the bitterness that already exists ; but when it has become clear that forbearance and patience with a wrong-doer only confirm him in his evil courses, Christian lo\e not only does not forbid but actually requires, in the interest both of public righteous- ness and of the wrongdoer himself, recourse to a civil tribunal that requital may be given. So long as there is any reasonable hope that meek endurance of wrong will turn the wrongdoer to a better frame of mind, we should be willing to suffer injustice ; but when that hope has proved itself vain, there is nothing in- consistent with the spirit of meekness and Christian love in securing that justice shall be done and evil defeated by the procedure of civil law.
i. The dominion of meekness. — Meekness, though feeble to all outward seeniino-, is ' a world- conquering principle' (Tholuck). ' Blessed are the meek,' Christ said, ' for they shall inherit the earth.'' 'To inherit the earth' (or, rather, 'the land') was originally the formula for the Israelitish possession of the Promised Land (Gn 15^ Dt 4^8). in OT times, however, it had already, as in Ps 37^" ^\ become ' a symbolic expression for the totality of Di%'ine bless- ing and Messianic happiness ' (Holtzmann). On the lips of Jesus the phrase has a spiritual significance ; it expresses the highest good along with the col- lateral idea of world-wide influence. The inherit- ance of the earth by the meek does not come through outward possession, but by spiritual sovereignty. The meek, in accepting God's will in His discip- linary dealing with them, are not in bondage to earthly things, btit are their true masters. Thej- derive from life the highest good that it can be- stow. They who rebel against the appointments of Providence miss the real gains of life. Only when the conditions of life are seen to be instinct with spiritual significance and intention as the ex- pression of God's will, do they yield up the purest blessings that are hidden in them, and become the means of inward enrichment (cf. 1 Ti 6*^). Further, they who are meek under ]>rovocation and AATong have a large spiritual dominion. They are the true rulers of men. Human hearts are won only by gentleness and love. God"s Kingdom on earth grows not by requiting evil with evil, but by over- coming evil with good. That is the sovereignty of the Cross. And the future is with the meek. They are destined to have a world-wide dominion. Be- cause God reigns and they accept and do the will of God, they are on the winning side. Meekness will one day claim the whole earth for its own, when men, conquered by the meek endurance of the Cross, bow humbly before God and live together in peace and brotherhood.
Literature. — Trench, XT Sijnonyms, 142 ff. ; Comm. on Jit 55; works on the Sermon on the Mount (Tholuck, Dykes, Gore, Boyd-Carpenter, etc.); art. 'Sermon on the Mount' in Hastings' DB, Ext. Vol. 19 (Votaw); Sermons by MacLaren ('The Beatitudes'), Leckie ('Life and Religion' [excellent]), Channing (' Self-Denial '), etc. ; Tlioluck, Hours of Christian VOL. II. — II
Devotion, 378 flf. ; Martensen, Christliche Ethik, Spec. Th. i. 307 ff. ; Moulton, Expos. Aug. 1906; Tolstoi, ibj Religion, and The Kingdom of God is within you. A. ¥. FiNDLAY.
MELCHL-
Lk 32^- =«.
-Occurs twice in our Lord's genealogy,
MELCHIZEDEK.-See Priest.
ME LEA. — An ancestor of Jesus, Lk 3^^
MENNA. — An ancestor of Jesus, Lk 3'*^