every posture is uneasy, every food insipid, every office trou- blesome ; so, to an impatient fretful man, every thing becomes a source of trouble and vexation. Both the one and the other are ready to think that people are in league, as it were, against them : but the disease is within themselves ; and it is the soreness of their own flesh, not the hardness of the touch, that is in reality the source of their pain. But the man that is truly meek, cuts off, instead of multiplying, occasions of pain. By kindness and courtesy he disarms his adversary ; and " by his soft words, he turneth away wrath^." If he has himself inadvertently done wrong, he freely acknowledges his fault; and thus, by yielding, pacifieth even great offences^" If he have received an injury, tlie same disposition leads him to accept an acknowledgment, and not to insist on all the reparation which perhaps he might be justified in requiring. In many cases, he turns away his eyes from the evil that is done, and lets it pass unnoticed. In this manner he is kept from a thousand disputes which agitate others, and passes through life with half the troubles that vex and harass the world around him.]
2. He is less affected by those which do occur —
[The sturdy oak has often its branches broken off by a storm, or perhaps is torn up by the roots, whilst the supple reed sustains no injury at all. Thus the meek submissive Christian bears up under those trials which the stoutest of ungodly men would be unable to endure. He receives them as from the hand of God, and says, " Shall a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins**?" " I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him"^." Even when men are the immediate causes of his troubles, he still looks, through the second causes, unto God the first cause of all ; and says with Job, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed is the name of the Lord*^!" How different is the state of such a man from one, who, " like a wild bull in a net," foams and bellows with impotent unavailing rage ! The world is not like the same place to the two characters : to the one it is as the confines of hell ; to the other, the portico of heaven.]
3. He is more tranquil in his own mind —
[This necessarily arises from the two preceding conside- rations : but it is true in another point of view : the meek per- son has the testimony of a good conscience, and enjoys the presence of his God ; whilst those who are destitute of that
^ Prov. XV. 1. » Eccl. X. 4. ^ Lam. iii. 39.
<^ Mic. \ii. f). 'i Job i. 15, 17, 21.