To relinquish the use of force does not mean to give up the custody of your life, of your labors and those of your neighbors, but merely to guard them in a way not contrary to reason and love. Guard the life and the labors of self and of others by endeavoring to awaken sentiments of kindliness in the attacking wretch. To be able to do this, man must be good and reasonable himself. If I see, for instance, that one man intends to kill another, the best thing that I can do is to place myself in the place of him who is threatened, to protect him, to shield him with my person, and if possible, to rescue him, drag him away to safety to conceal him, just as though rescuing a man from the flames of a conflagration or from drowning; either perish yourself or rescue him. And if I cannot do so because I am myself
an erring sinner, it does not mean that I should be a beast and while doing evil, seek excuses for my course of action.
Russian Sectarian Wisdom.
VII.
The Corruption of Christ's Commandment Regarding Non-Resistance to Evil by the Use of Force
1. The foundation of law and order among the heathens was retribution and force. It could not have been anything else. The foundation of our society it seems should inevitably be love and denial of force. And yet force still reigns. Why? Because that which is preached as the doctrine of Christ is not His doctrine.
2. It is remarkable that men who do not understand the teachings of Christ particularly resent the mention of non-resistance to evil by force. This mention displeases them because it disturbs their accustomed order of life. And therefore, people who do not care to change their accustomed order of life take exception to this basic condition of love, terming it a special commandment, independent of the law of love, and either amend it in divers ways or simply deny it.
3. Shall we understand the words of Christ admonishing us to love those that hate us, our enemies, and forbidding force of any description, just as they were spoken and expressed, or as the teaching of meekness, humility and love, or as something still different? If as something different, it must be stated as what? But no one is willing to do so. What does it mean ? It means that all these people who call themselves Christians desire to conceal from themselves and from others the true meaning of the teachings of Christ, for if it were understood as it should be, it would upset the
order of their life. And this order of life is profitable to them.
4. Men who call themselves Christians simply do not recognize the commandment of non-resistance as binding, they teach that it is not binding, and that there are cases when it must be transgressed, and yet they dare not say that they deny this simple and clear commandment, which is inseparably bound up with the entire teaching of Christ, the doctrine of meekness, humility, the obedient bearing of the cross, self-denial and love of the enemy, a commandment without which the entire teaching of Christ becomes empty words.
To this, and to this alone, is due the remarkable fact that while such Christian teachers have been preaching Christianity for over 1900 years, the world still continues to lead a pagan life.
5. Every man of the world reading the gospel knows in his heart that this doctrine forbids to do evil to your neighbor under any pretext, whether for retribution, or for protection, or for the sake of saving another, so that if he wishes to remain a Christian, he must do one of the two things: either change his entire life which is built on force, that is, on the doing of evil to his neighbor, or somehow conceal from himself that which the teaching of Christ demands. And for this reason men easily accept false teachings which substitute their diverse inventions for the substance of Christianity.
6. Strange, is it not, that people accepting the doctrine of Christ should rage against the rule forbidding the use of force under all circumstances.
A man, accepting the principle that the meaning and the true activity of life are found in love, rages because a sure and indubitable way to that activity is pointed out to
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
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him, as well as are those most dangerous errors which might draw him away from this path. As well might a navigator rage because mid shoals and submerged rocks a safe channel is pointed out to him for his course: "Why these restrictions?" "I might find it necessary to run aground." Just so speak the people who rage because under no circumstances is it right to use force and to repay evil with evil.
PUNISHMENT
PUNISHMENT
In the animal world evil calls for evtl, and the animal, unable to restrain the evil provoked in it, endeavors to repay evil with evil, not realizing that evil inevitably augments evil. But man, being endowed with reason, cannot help seeing that evil augments evil, and should therefore refrain from repaying evil with evil, but frequently man's animal nature gains the upper hand over his rational nature, and he uses the very reason that should restrain him from rendering evil for evil, in order to find an excuse for the evil committed by him, and calls this evil retributive punishment.
Punishment Never Achieves Its Object
1. Some say that evil may be rendered for evil in order to correct people. This is untrue. They deceive themselves. Men render evil for evil, not to correct others, but for vengeance's sake. Evil caimot be corrected by the commission of evil.
2. Russians use the word "to instruct" euphoniously in the sense of punishing. You can teach only by good words and a good example. Rendering evil for evil is not teaching, but corrupting.
3. The superstitious belief that evil may be destroyed through punishment is particularly harmful, because people doing evil in the name of this superstition, consider it not only permissible, but even beneficial.
4. Punishments and threats of punishments may restrain a man for a season from the commission of evil deeds, but cannot reform him.
fact that sinful men have usurped the prerogative of punishment. "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay."
6. One of the most lurid proofs that the name of "science" is a cover not only for the most trifling, but even for the most repulsive things, is found in the existence of a science of punishment, which is the most ignoble of all functions, fit only for the lowest stage of hiunan development— a child, or a savage.
II.
The Superstitious Belief in the Reasonableness
of Punishment
1. Just as there are superstitions regarding false gods, predictions, external methods of appeasing God and saving one's soul, there also exists a very common superstition among men, that some people can compel by the use of force other people to lead a good life. The superstitions of false gods, prophecies of mysterious means of saving the soul are beginning to be dissipated and are almost destroyed. But the superstitious order of things, permitting the punishment of the bad, in order to make others happy, is still adhered to by all, and the greatest crimes are committed in its name.
2. Only men altogether intoxicated with the lust of power can seriously believe that punishment can better the life of people. You have only to give up the superstition that punishment reforms people, in order to realize that a change in the life of a man can only be the result of an inner, spiritual change in the individual concerned, and never of the evil that some men commit upon others.
3. "And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
"They say unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
"Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned, but what sayest Thou?"
"This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not.
"So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said unto them: He that is without sin among you, let him 6rst cast a stone at her.