But at the same time the only possible way to realize a kingdom of God in this world, or in any other world, is to begin by getting an inner spirit, the spirit of the Kingdom, formed within the lives of the few or many who are to be the “seed” of it. The “Beatitudes” furnish one of these extraordinary pin-hole peeps, of which I spoke in a former section, through which this whole inner world can be seen. Here, in a few lines, loaded with insight, the seed-spirit of the Kingdom comes full into sight. We are given no new code, no new set of rules, no legal system at all. It is the proclamation of a new spirit, a new way of living, a new type of person. To have a world of persons of this type, to have this spirit prevail, would mean the actual presence of the Kingdom of God, because this spirit would produce not only a new inner world, but a new outer world as well. The first thing to note about the _blessedness_ proclaimed in the beatitudes is that it is not a prize held out or promised as a final reward for a certain kind of conduct; it attaches by the inherent nature of things to a type of life, as light attaches to a luminous body, as motion attaches to a spinning top, as gravitation attaches to every particle of matter. To be this type of person is to be living the happy, blessed life, whatever the outward conditions may be. And the next thing to note is that this type of life carries in itself a principle of advance. One reason why it is a blessed type of life is that it cannot be arrested, it cannot be static. The beatitude lies not in attainment, not in the arrival at a goal, but in the _way_, in the spirit, in the search, in the march. I suspect that the nature of “the happy life” of the beatitudes can be adequately grasped only when it is seen in contrast to that of the Pharisee who is obviously in the background as a foil to bring out the portrait of the new type. The pity of the Pharisee’s aim was that it could be reached—he gets his reward. He has a definite limit in view—the keeping of a fixed law. Beyond this there are no worlds to conquer. Once the near finite goal is touched there is nothing to pursue. The immediate effect of this achievement is conceit and self-satisfaction. The trail of calculation and barter lies over all his righteousness. There is in his mind an equation between goodness and prosperity, between righteousness and success: “If thou hast made the most High thy habitation there shall no evil befall thee; neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” The person who has loss or trouble or suffering must have been an overt or a secret sinner, as the question about the blind man indicates.