| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 2 |
Page 5 |
It is a wonderful promise that is given to the meek – “They shall inherit the earth.” To the natural thought this seems just the reverse of the truth. Meekness is giving up the earth, not claiming even that portion of it which one has a just right to claim. How, then, can one inherit the thing one voluntarily surrenders? Yet a little thought shows us how, in the very yielding of one’s rights, one becomes the possessor of a far better portion than he relinquishes. The bird that unresistingly accepts the injustice of its captivity and sings in its cage becomes the inheritor of all things in a far truer sense than the bird which tries to claim its rights, and flies frantically against the walls of its prison in unavailing efforts to be free.
Then we know well that it is not he who demands recognition among men that really receives it. He may get the husk of it, – the place in the procession, the seat at the table, the order in the official list, – but it is only empty glory which he wins. Self assertion never plucks real honor. It gets no place in the respect or affection of men. The man only loses in the esteem of his fellows when he gets a place by demanding it. One never gains influence by scheming for it and by doing things for the purpose of becoming influential. There are men who spend money freely with the object of making themselves popular, but they utterly fail. People take their money or their gifts, eat their lavish suppers, and then despise those who pay such a price to buy that which never can be bought.
But let a man forget himself, pay no heed to his rights, give them up rather than contend for them; and let him live a life of disinterested goodness, with no self seeking, no purpose of glorifying his own name, and he will inherit a recognition and an influence which will shine like a halo about his head. “The really unworldly man wakes up with surprise, almost with amusement, to find the world about him at his feet.” He had never wrought for this. He loved his fellow men and was ready at every call of need to do any of them a kindly service, without regard to its cost. He never spared himself – he was lavish of his life. He never thought of fame or recognition, and was surprised to find men wreathing chaplets for his brow.
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