not break."

If it is urged that such things are natural to man--"do not even the
publicans the same?" (Matt. 5:46)--Jesus carries the matter a long
way further. "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him
twain" (Matt. 5:41). The man who would use such compulsion would be
the alien soldier, the hireling of Herod or of Rome; and who would
wish to cart him and his goods even one mile? "Go two miles," says
Jesus--or, if the Syriac translation preserves the right reading,
"Go two _extra_." Why? Well, the soldier is a man after all, and by
such unsolicited kindness you may make a friend even of a government
official--not always an easy thing to do--at any rate you can help
him; God helps him; "be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Ordinary kindness and
tenderness could hardly be urged beyond that point; and yet Jesus
goes further still. He would have us _pray_ for those that
despitefully use us (Matt. 5:44)--and in no Pharisaic way, but with
the same instinctive love and friendliness that he always used
himself. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"
(Luke 23:34). There are religions which inculcate the tolerance of
wrong aiming at equanimity of mind or acquisition of merit. But
Jesus implies on the contrary that in all this also the Christian
_denies_ himself, does not seek even in this way to save his own
soul, but forgets all about it in the service of others, though he
finds by and by, with a start, that he has saved it far more
effectually than he could have expected (Mark 8:35; Matt. 25:37,
40). The emphasis falls on our duty of kindness and tenderness to
all men and women, because we and they are alike God's children.

With his emphasis on tenderness we may group his teaching on
forgiveness. He makes the forgiving spirit an antecedent of
prayer--"when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against
any; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your
trespasses" (Mark 11:25). "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and
there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled
to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matt. 5:23, 24).
The parable of the king and his debtor (Matt. 18:23), painfully true
to human nature, brings out the whole matter of our forgiveness of
one another into the light; we are shown it from God's outlook. The
te