Poverty in spirit; and the clue to its blessedness.
It is to be remarked that every pronouncement of blessedness that here passes the lip of Jesus is accompanied by a "reason of the hope that is" in it. We shall, therefore, in each case notice
I. THIS DESCRIPTIVE TITLE OF CERTAIN CHARACTERS—THOSE WHO ARE "POOR IN SPIRIT"—WHO ARE THEY? Do we not long for Christ's own determination of his own descriptions in these cases? Probably with singular unity and distinctest outline he would convey to us just who his "poor in spirit" design—just what his poverty in spirit aims at. In each succeeding case (but especially in the present and some of the others) we seem to need to give marks more than one of the disposition we think to be intended, in order to approach the meaning of Christ, rather than feel that we are successfully hitting the mark, the one mark of his meaning. Failing, however, that coveted dictum interpretation, we can but make the most faithful use of our own resources. We shall be safe in saying most unhesitatingly that no commendation is intended of those whom we call in modern days the poor-spirited, nor of those who are poor in intellect, or imagination, or in the power of high aspiration, or poor in moral virtues and graces. But, on the other hand, those who answer to such a description as follows may be designated, viz. who own to the essence of humility, of docility (and so far forth of a species of deservingness, not likely to go unnoticed, unrewarded, of the great Giver of all), in that, whatever wealth of things of real greatness, goodness, as seen by the side of some others, they may possess, yet, first, they take no praise of it to themselves; secondly, are profoundly conscious that still they stand but in mere sight of the threshold of knowledge, power, grace; thirdly, are simply abased in the presence of him who is the living, moving Power—the King—in that same kingdom. To be "poor in spirit ' is synonymous with being full-filled of a genuine humility. And there is no humility that has a chance of being as real, as genuine, as that which comes of the largest knowledge and the largest grace. For it postulates the largest knowledge, for a man to have anything approaching an intelligent idea of his abyss of ignorance; and the largest grace, for a man to be at all competent to gauge his defect of goodness.
II. THE LEADING SUGGESTION OR CLUE AS TO THE SOURCE OF THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE POOR IN SPIRIT. In the few words of Jesus' lips, it is because these have "the freedom," not of earth's greatest city, but of" the kingdom of heaven." No artificial condition or qualification gives entrance to this kingdom, much less a continued sojourn in it, least of all to the glorious "freedom" of it. But a pure docility and a determined growingness give each and all of these, one after another. And such pure docility and unresting growing are led in by that unchallengeable angel, the angel of humility. There is no surer docility than that which comes in the wake of humility—nay, owes its life to her, as to a mother; cleverness and quickness of intelligence is no equivalent of docility. A practical commentary upon this very aspect of the subject at the treatment of Christ himself is indeed not withheld from us, but is given us in the parable of the "little child". And to furnish ourselves with an impressive idea of the stress Christ lays, must lay, on docility, we need but to think of the place, the high place, that the universal Church feels to belong to those persuasively beseeching words of his, "Come to me … and learn of me" What words of Jesus have endeared themselves more to the whole Church of all the ages gone? To be "poor in spirit" is to have that condition prior to all others for belonging to the kingdom of heaven—the condition of receptivity unfeigned, of mind, heart, all the nature, unknown in its vastness. And the man who has that receptivity is already in divinest sympathy with the life of the "kingdom of heaven." For he can find his emptiness filled nowhere else, his capacity to receive satisfied nowhere else.—B.