x him. We won't let him play on the team," said the boy.

"It was a rather dirty trick, wasn't it? Sort of a low-down thing to
do?" continued the uncle.

"It certainly was, but I'll get even."

"You might say, then," said the uncle, "that he was like the swampy mire
that he threw the ball into, compared with the firm, high ground where
you were playing?"

"Yes."

"Well, if you are going to get even," concluded the uncle, "you'll
either have to go down into the mire with him or get him up on to the
clean, hard ground with you. Think it over."

The next day, when his uncle asked him how he had made out, the boy
replied: "You know I thought about what you said, about getting even, so
I told him we wanted him to pitch for us; and he not only played a dandy
game, but he said he would get me a new ball." The boy had found the
divine way of getting even.

I am not concerned to apply this principle to the many corporate and
social evils of our time; for if only I can succeed in making clear how
true and how vital it is as a key to human relationships, and how
central it was in Jesus' teaching, its wider application can safely be
left to you. Creative love is the healing spirit most needed in the
world today.

If, in presenting those aspects of Jesus' message which reached the
hearts of the simple with a vitalizing power, giving them a new grip on
life and a sense of at-homeness in God's world, I have conveyed the
impression that here is a safe and easy way out of life's difficulties,
I have failed in my task. Because a view of the world is true and
because a method of approach is the only ultimately successful one, it
by no means follows that it is always a safe method for the individual.
Indeed Jesus abundantly reminded His followers that they need not
expect less of opposition, antagonism and persecution than He Himself
had received. The following of the way of love would make for division
and strife even in that place where it would be hardest to see it
arise--in one's own home. It could not be expected that evil corporately
and socially entrenched would always give way before the power of
redemptive love glowing in the life of one individual. It might mean
that the lives and labors of many would have to be spent to the utmost
before love would achieve its victory.

It is indeed in the light of such a possibility that the social
character of the gospel is doubly emphasized. The kingdom has a meaning
only when we