, and pray
for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father
who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and
the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye
love them that love you, what reward have ye? do not even the
publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do
ye more than others? do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye
therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect.--Matt. 5:38-48.

The Law restricted the natural desire for revenge to the limit of a strict
equivalent. If a man knocked out your tooth, you could knock out one for
him, but not two teeth, nor all he had. Of course retaliation never heals
a feud. Jesus proposes to limit revenge still farther and to retaliate
only by acts of kindness. That is, in fact, the only way to end a quarrel
completely and victoriously. It reestablishes fellowship and kills an
enemy.

The Law called for love for one's neighbors; the scribes had added the
permission to hate one's enemies. Jesus raises the standards of good-will.
The law of love applies to all. There is nothing great in loving those who
love us. Anybody can do that. Heroic love begins where no love comes to
meet it. Those who can win that triumph show the true family likeness of
God, and are now living in his Kingdom.

_What are our personal experiences as to the utility of revenge?_

_What is the difference between the non-resistance which Jesus proposed,
and cowardice?_

_Is there such a thing in fact as loving your enemies?_

Study for the Week

I

The Hebrew religion was an unfinished religion. That is one of the best
proofs of its divine inspiration. The prophets had the forward look. Great
things were yet to come. As one of the most daring expressed it, the old
and hallowed covenant, made by God at the Exodus, would be superseded by a
new and higher relation; God would write his law into the hearts of the
people; the old drill in outward statutes would disappear, for all men
would know God by an inward experience of forgiveness and love (Jeremiah
31:31-34).

Jesus not only shared this expectation of a new religious era, but set it
in the center of his teaching. Religion to him was not static. He lived in
a moving world. A new age was coming, and he would be the initiator of it.
"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of God suffereth
violence, and men of violenc