There are two beatitudes for the modest-minded--the second and the third: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." And again; "Blessed are the mourners: for they shall be comforted." For the meek and modest, who possess as though they had not; who teach as though they learned; who rule as though they obeyed; whose beauty of body and soul shines among men as though they but reflected that of others; whose inheritance is renunciation, and whose wealth is in their gifts; for them is the whole earth reserved, in its beauty and its glory, at the coming of the Lord. For the blessed mourners, whose perfection in Christian modesty has led them to fly all worldly honors and escape its flatteries; to exchange the gay paths of life for the tearful road of penance, and whose contrite and humble hearts God has promised not to despise--for them is dawning an everlasting day of comfort. {313} III. __Whatsoever things are just__. The just man always desires to act honorably and fairly in his dealings. The Christian is required to give anxious thought as well to the obligations he has contracted towards his neighbor. The closing year naturally brings these obligations to mind; the debts that are owing, the promises made, and the claims for support which others hold against us; and it is a mark of the good, conscientious Catholic that he is anxious about these things, and is earnestly striving to discharge them. A wise thought for Advent. For now the Lord is nigh, the day of His Judgment approaches, when all wrongs will be made right. The unjust escape payment here, through some quibble in the law, or through practices of chicanery and partial testimony of which they take an unfair advantage, but whose unpaid debts and hidden thefts will not escape the memory of their righteous Judge on the last day. Let our thoughts be, then, to render quickly unto every man his due, "because the Lord cometh, because he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with justice, and the people with His truth." {314} He who thinks upon whatsoever is just will think upon the poor. It is the word of God, that "the just taketh notice of the poor, but the wicked is ignorant of them." [Footnote 114] [Footnote 114: Prov. xxix. 7.]