attainment the exact opposites of these. To Meekness and Lowliness these
things simply do not exist. They cure unrest by making it impossible.
These remedies do not trifle with surface symptoms; they strike at once
at removing causes. The ceaseless chagrin of a self-centred life can
be removed at once by learning Meekness and Lowliness of heart. He who
learns them is forever proof against it. He lives henceforth a charmed
life. Christianity is a fine inoculation, a transfusion of healthy blood
into an anaemic or poisoned soul. No fever can attack a perfectly sound
body; no fever of unrest can disturb a soul which has breathed the air
or learned the ways of Christ. Men sigh for the wings of a dove that
they may fly away and be at Rest. But flying away will not help us. "The
Kingdom of God is _within you_." We aspire to the top to look for Rest;
it lies at the bottom. Water rests only when it gets to the lowest
place. So do men. Hence, be lowly. The man who has no opinion of himself
at all can never be hurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, be
meek. He who is without expectation cannot fret if nothing comes to him.
It is self-evident that these things are so. The lowly man and the
meek man are really above all other men, above all other things. They
dominate the world because they do not care for it. The miser does
not possess gold, gold possesses him. But the meek possess it. "The
meek," said Christ, "inherit the earth." They do not buy it; they do not
conquer it, but they inherit it.

There are people who go about the world looking out for slights,
and they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every
turn--especially the imaginary ones. One has the same pity for such men
as for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate. They have had no
real education, for they have never learned how to live. Few men know
how to live. We grow up at random, carrying into mature life the merely
animal methods and motives which we had as little children. And it does