tent,
discontented with themselves. Happy are they who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, that they may become righteous and good men. Happy are
they who have set their hearts on the one thing which is in their own
power--being better than they are, and doing better than they do. Happy
are they who long and labour after the true riches, which neither mobs
nor tyrants, man nor devil, prosperity nor adversity, or any chance or
change of mortal life, can take from them--the true and eternal wealth,
which is the Spirit of God. The man, I say, who has set his heart on
being good, has set his heart on the one thing which is in his own power;
the one thing which depends wholly and solely on his own will; the one
thing which he can have if he chooses, for it is written, "If ye then
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"
Moreover, he has set his heart on the one thing which cannot be taken
from him. God will not take it from him; and man, and fortune, and
misfortune, cannot take it from him. Poverty, misery, disease, death
itself, cannot make him a worse man, cannot make him less just, less
true, less pure, less charitable, less high-minded, less like Christ, and
less like God.

Therefore he is at peace, for he is, as it were, intrenched in an
impregnable fortress, against all men and all evil influences. And that
castle is his own soul. And the keeper of that castle is none other than
Almighty God, Jesus Christ our Lord, to whose keeping he has committed
his soul, as unto a faithful and merciful Saviour, able to keep to the
uttermost that which is committed to Him in faith and holiness.

Therefore that man is at peace with himself, for his conscience tells him
that he is, if not doing his best, yet trying to do his best, better and
better day by day. He is at peace with all the world; for most men are
longing and quarrelling for pleasant things outside them, for which he
does not greatly care, while he is longing and striving for good things
inside him in his own heart and soul; and so the world goes one way, and
he another, and their desires do not interfere with each other.

But, more, that man is at peace with God. He is at peace with God the
Father; for he is behaving as the Father wishes His children to behave.
He is at peace with God the Son; for he is trying to do that