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Of course, to be a peacemaker in the usual sense of composing the quarrels of other people is an excellent thing; but as all practical people know, an excessively difficult role to fill. By interfering in other people’s strife, it is ever so much easier to make things worse than to make them better. Personal opinion is almost certain to enter into your efforts, and personal opinion is exceedingly likely to be wrong. If you can get both of the people concerned to take a new view of the matter in controversy, that, of course, is well; but, otherwise, if you merely bring about a compromise in which they consent to agree from motives of self-interest or as the result of some kind of coercion, then the trouble has only been patched up on the surface, and there is no true peace, because they are not, both of them, satisfied and forgiving.

Once you understand the power of prayer, you will be able really to heal many quarrels in the true way; probably without speaking at all. The silent thought of the All-Power of Love and Wisdom will cause any trouble to melt away almost imperceptibly. Then, whatever arrangement will be best for all parties in the long run will come about under the influence of the Word thus spoken silently.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

In view of what we know about the essential character of the teaching of Jesus, that the Will of God for us is harmony, peace, and joy, and that these things are to be attained by cultivating right thoughts, or “righteousness,” this is a very startling statement. Jesus tells us again and again that it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom, and that the way in which we are to receive it is by cultivating serenity, or peace of soul. He says that the peacemakers who do this, praying in “meekness,” shall obtain prosperity, inherit the earth, have their mourning turned into joy, and that, in fact, whatever they shall ask the Father in the manner of this teaching, that will He do. Yet, here we are told that it is blessed to be persecuted as the result of our right thinking, or “righteousness,” for that by this means we shall triumph; that it is cause for rejoicing and gladness to be reviled and accused; and that the Prophets and great Illumined Ones suffered these things too.

All this is indeed very startling, and it is perfectly correct; only we have to understand that the source of all this persecution is none other than our own selves. No outside persecutor, but only our own lower selves. When we find righteousness or right thinking very difficult—when we are very strongly tempted to hold the wrong thoughts about some situation, or some person, or about ourselves; to give way to fear, or anger, or despondency—then we are being persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and this is for us an extremely fortunate or blessed condition, for it is in such moments that we are really advancing. Every spiritual treatment or scientific prayer involves a tussle with our own lower self, which wishes to indulge the old habit of thought, and, in fact, persecutes and reviles us—if we like to put the thing dramatically in the Oriental way. All the great Prophets and Enlightened Ones of the race who ultimately overcame, did so by just such struggles with themselves, when they were being persecuted by their own lower natures, or the Old Adam. Jesus himself, “who was tempted in all respects like as we are,” had to meet this “persecution” more than once; especially in the Garden of Gethsemane, and, for a few moments, on the Cross itself. Now, since these combats with the lower self have to be fought out sooner or later, then the sooner they are over and done with the better, and so, relatively speaking,