Blessed are the meek

Some one has said that two virtues not to be successfully counterfeited by hypocrisy are humility and love when these exist together, since their appearing in one character is of so exquisite effect. The wonder of Christian culture is indeed that love is found to be an essential element in all virtues. The blessedness of the meek is in their love of that which is better than worldly self-exaltation. Humility, in the beauty of holiness, is not an inert yielding of all initiative and individuality to a power against which it is vain to strive. This is the wholly human concept of meekness, and in it is involved a total misconception of the real nature of God. Man does not submit to divine decree because God is stronger than he and therefore struggle is useless. Man as indeed man, that is the image of divine Love, sees his true obedience, submission, humility, in the confiding love of the child who would not if he could choose what the father does not choose for him. Or perhaps one may say that the humble following of heavenly law—the condition of holy being, of all being that is real—is like the artist's eager love for the laws of beauty, and his long, unsparing struggle to reflect these in his work.

Humility is that condition of thought where mankind has begun to see the impossibility of any other rightness than the eternal realities of infinite Mind. It is truly the reasonable service of God. That man who still desires to have his own way, to be something in or of himself, has not learned all the lessons of meekness. There is even a stage in the growth of the individual towards the true humility in which he seems to be proud of his very meekness. This state is nevertheless a hopeful one, for it is something to confess as an ideal the utter selflessness implied in the meekness which Jesus taught and lived. He who has accepted for himself this pure lowliness of heart as the standard of Christian perfection on earth is nearer its attainment than he who still clamors for the material rights of the individual and does not behold real “rights” to obtain solely in the individual's right relation to God.

The objection that many people express to humility as a paramount Christian virtue is that humble folk allow other people to override them; that they give up their right of independent thought or action under the aggressions of the proud and selfish. This is by no means the case, although the understanding of Christian truth proves that resistance to pride with pride or to selfishness by self seeking is forever vain. But he who understands that his victory is in God knows how to meet and defeat oppression of whatever sort. No self assertion which is not truly the assertion of the divine selfhood can ever do any human being any good. Experience proves that events which crush out the false self-assertion work for good. No one who has learned some of these lessons ever regrets any temporary domination of injustice or tyranny on the part of other human beings when he sees that this vaunting self in his oppressors is forcing him to give up self will and turn to the divine will for relief and succor.

We have said that love is an essential quality of all true virtue, and in considering this question of meekness or humility we find that where love is not there is no true humility. The presence of any sense of resentment, for example, toward persons or conditions that demand this quality of meekness on earth shows that we are giving power to something that is opposed to God. And this power which we ourselves give to the oppressor is all the power that person or thing can have over us. Where humanity truly has conquered self within us love enters and love means that spiritual being and might have become to us the only realities. So long as we make something of the human circumstances that seem to hold us in bondage we are not free. When in the pure understanding of God's allness and love we have yielded up our own will to Him and have given over our troublesome problems to Principle for solution, we are singularly light and free from personal responsibility, nor do we longer endow the things or persons outside ourselves with responsibility toward us, or power over us.

It seems a tremendous lesson to learn that there is but one power, one intelligence, one Mind. To mortals accustomed so long to run themselves and as many other people as possible, this humble letting alone which is demanded as the logical sequence of holding divine Mind to be the one cause and government, seems superficially considered almost an error rather than a virtue. Meditating this theme long and in the quiet of thought one is able to see what such a conviction must do to relieve not only all pride and rivalry and antagonism of warring wills, but to lift off the shoulders all the weight and burden of anxiety. And anxiety is perhaps the great cause of self-assertingness among us, in that we are driven by fear of personal failure to enforce ourselves against the interests or wishes of other people. In understanding what the humility of yielding to God truly involves we are beginning to understand the fulness of Jesus’ words: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

It is only by resting in divine might; by trusting divine wisdom, that the troubled human heart can find the yoke of material bondage of every sort removed, and the joyful service and obedience of love take its place. The yoke of meek obedience which this understanding brings to us is daily knowing ourselves able to reflect the activities of divine Mind. So we see that humility, meekness, submission to the divine decree, is not inaction or sloth, even as it is not anxious straining after results, as if we were in any way, shape, or manner of ourselves causative factors in existence. True meekness comes from knowing the truth of man's relation to God and the inviolable harmony of being, God-sustained. Such essential humility is expressed in Mrs. Eddy's words: “All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal.” (Science and Health, p. 472.)