The blessedness of the meek.
This Beatitude asks at the outset to be distinguished from the first, that speaks of the "poor in spirit." It is a quotation from the far-seeing, even if dim-seeing, gospel of the Old Testament (Psalms 37:11), The promise attached to the Beatitude is one the special habitat of which is the page of the Old Testament. And this helps to guide us to the genius of the present passage. Meekness must be indeed a quality of the person; it must undoubtedly be in the most essential sense a personal quality. It is nowhere, unless it is deep down in a man's heart, and in genuine possession of it. Though this be so, however, it is here a virtue that faces less to the individual character and life than to the social, collective, national. Let a man be more than as meek as Moses, he and his individual solitary meekness would never make that conquest of the heritage of the earth which is hero extolled and set up as a mark and a goal. Had, however, the chosen people been meek, true to meekness, continuously and growingly meek, meek subjects of the heavenly and theocratic rule, then dispossession would not have been their heritage of shame. A growing heritage of the earth would have been their glory and pride. Now, all this, unobtained by the Law of Moses and Sinai, with its commandments and the prophets, remains to be obtained. It is yet to be. The earth is to be inherited, and it is to be inherited by men whose conquest of it shall be, not by might, nor by power and pride, but by meekness! We may read, therefore, in this Beatitude—
I. CREATION'S CHARTER PROCLAIMED ANEW, OF MAN'S RIGHT IN THE EARTH.
II. DEEPER AND FAR MORE SIGNIFY[CANT INTIMATION OF THE REAL WAY IN WHICH THE CONQUEST OF THE EARTH SHOULD BE EFFECTED. The whole earth and mankind themselves, alike in their most scientific aspects and their moral aspects, are best understood, and certainly best mastered, by those methods of observation rather than of dictation, of induction rather than presuming speculation and hazardous conjecture, which the greatest, truest philosophers (like Lord Bacon) came at last to recognize and teach. This meekness is, even for the physical conquest of the earth and all things in it, the masterly meekness.
III. THE HIGHEST SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE DECLARED—THAT THE MEEKNESS THAT MINISTERS, THAT SERVES, THAT IS EVER READY TO MAKE ITSELF THE LEAST, IN PURSUIT OF THE HIGHEST WELFARE OF MEN, IS THAT FORCE WHICH MOST UNFAILINGLY WINS EVENTUALLY THE CHIEFEST PLACE, THE GREATEST HONOUR AND INFLUENCE, AND MOST ROYAL AND ENDURING EMPIRE. The Beatitude does not for a moment purport to say anything to the honour of the man who might possibly be lord of a million acres, but it does purport these two things at the lowest estimate—to honour the man who through meek obedience, diligence, industry, study, should out of actual poverty win for himself but a single acre; and, secondly, much more to honour the man who by the like qualities makes the earth more tenantable for its citizens, and its citizens longer-lived and happier tenants of it.
IV. A GRACIOUS AND UNFALTERING ASSURANCE FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE MEEK IN THIS SENSE, THAT THEY ARE STUDYING TO GROW IN REAL HARMONY WITH THE WILL OF HEAVEN AND ITS LOVE, THAT IT IS FOR THEM TO FIND AT LAST THEIR LONG PRAYER DIVINELY AND MOST PRACTICALLY ANSWERED, AND GOD'S "KINGDOM COME, AND HIS WILL DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN." There is no sense truer than this in which the meek shall "inherit the earth."—B.