Pax Vobiscum | Page 4

says we
are to achieve Rest by learning. "Learn of Me," He says, "and ye shall
find rest to your souls." Now consider the extraordinary originality of
this utterance. How novel the connection between these two words,
"Learn" and "Rest"? How few of us have ever associated them--ever
thought that Rest was a thing to be learned; ever laid ourselves out for
it as we would to learn a language; ever practised it as we would
practise the violin? Does it not show how entirely new Christ's teaching
still is to the world, that so old and threadbare an aphorism should still
be so little applied? The last thing most of us would have thought of
would have been to associate Rest with Work.
What must one work at? What is that which if duly learned will find the
soul of man in Rest? Christ answers without the least hesitation. He
specifies two things--Meekness and Lowliness. "Learn of Me," He says,
"for I am meek and lowly in heart." Now these two things are not
chosen at random. To these accomplishments, in a special way, Rest is
attached. Learn these, in short, and you have already found Rest. These

as they stand are direct causes of Rest; will produce it at once; cannot
but produce it at once. And if you think for a single moment, you will
see how this is necessarily so, for causes are never arbitrary, and the
connection between antecedent and consequent here and everywhere
lies deep in the nature of things.
What is the connection, then? I answer by a further question. What are
the chief causes of _Unrest_? If you know yourself, you will answer
Pride, Selfishness, Ambition. As you look back upon the past years of
your life, is it not true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the
succession of personal mortifications and almost trivial
disappointments which the intercourse of life has brought you? Great
trials come at lengthened intervals, and we rise to breast them; but it is
the petty friction of our every-day life with one another, the jar of
business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of
our ambition, the crossing of our will or the taking down of our conceit,
which make inward peace impossible. Wounded vanity, then,
disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness--these are the old, vulgar,
universal sources of man's unrest.
Now it is obvious why Christ pointed out as the two chief objects for
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 anæmic 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 not occur to us that all this must be changed; that much of
it must be reversed, that