"Before answering that question," said Mr. Lottson, "I think attention should be called to a passage in the opening of the chapter. It is said that 'When he was set, _his disciples_ came unto him. And he opened his mouth and taught _them_, saying,' etc. Now, before we try to understand this beautiful succession of blessings, we should realize whom they were spoken to--to the disciples, who had left all and followed him, and therefore to a set of men to whom he could say things which it would be nonsensical for him to say to the common people and business men around him. The disciples were out of business, and lived on their friends--it was right enough for them to do so under the circumstances, but for this very reason Jesus told them the things which nobody else could understand. This sermon was preached to self-forgetting preachers, not to men who had to make their living and take the world as they found it; and I suppose the first beatitude meant to them just what it said. _They_ were poor in spirit--any man has to be, if he be willing to go around without a cent in his pocket--but to pay them for it he gave them the kingdom of heaven, that is, the church of which Christ is prophet, priest, and king. It's the greatest charge in the world; all business enterprises are nothing in comparison with it; but Jesus showed his divine nature by giving them this, for while they managed it splendidly, it's the only great affair in the world that a lot of poor-spirited men could manage without running it into the ground." "That depends upon what 'poor in spirit' means," remarked Squire Woodhouse. "President Lottson seems to think it's the same thing as mean-spirited, but if it is, I can tell him that there's more money for that kind of chaps in other businesses. Now I'm a farmer--my principal crop is hay, and when my barn burned down last winter with eleven tons loose and forty odd tons pressed, and I went to the insur----" "The members will please speak as called upon," said the leader, whose watchful ear imagined it detected a personality in the immediate future of the Squire's address. Squire Woodhouse subsided after a soft whisper to his right-hand neighbor, which caused that gentleman to notice that President Lottson's face was flushing a little, and his lips touching each other more firmly than usual. "It seems to me," said Mr. Radley, who was next called upon, "that the passage means just what it says. The kingdom of heaven means the place we all hope to get to some day, and the poor in spirit are the people who aren't touchy and don't put on airs Christ was a man of this kind himself, and he knew by experience what he was talking about." "Then how did he come to call a lot of good church members vipers?" demanded Squire Woodhouse, before the leader could bring him to order.