AS we read from time to time the precious Beatitudes with which Jesus began his wonderful Sermon on the Mount, we naturally consider the many virtues there extolled, and their rewards to those who manifest them. And perhaps we search our thoughts and weigh our actions to see whether we may indeed be worthy of some of the blessedness there promised. Sometimes we may even feel confident that through earnest striving we have measurably attained to some of these right conditions of thought, and with assurance claim the blessing and expect its manifestation.
Christian Science teaches us to expect all good from right thinking and acting, and gives us renewed faith in all the precious promises of the Bible. Through it we understand that the Beatitudes reveal laws, immutable and operative, even as are the rules of mathematics, or the unquestioned fact that one reaps what he sows. We are deeply grateful to the Master for this simple, yet profound, statement of God's laws and their fulfillment, showing that "the poor in spirit," those that mourn, the meek, those hungering for righteousness, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, each obtains a definite blessedness, which everyone may achieve through the understanding and demonstration of spiritual attributes.
The last two Beatitudes, perhaps, are not considered so often or so happily as are the others, but they unfold a blessedness which is sure, loving, and lawful. "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for their's is the kingdom of heaven." Here is the same blessedness as that realized by "the poor in spirit." Should one be persecuted for right thinking and acting, he may know that through claiming it, spiritual blessedness will be realized. Knowing that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand," one thereby reverses the seeming persecution, and the peace and harmony of ever present Love pervade his consciousness. This form of persecution besets all spiritually right thinkers, for it is the opposition of the carnal mind to the good which is its destroyer; but it fades into nothingness as we see it aright, as impersonal and powerless, and turn our thought toward the blessing which is assured.
