A. "Be ye merciful, be ye perfect even as your Father; your Father in
the spirit world is merciful, is perfect."
There is nothing in this, perhaps, which Christ might not have said
except the abominable metaphysical modernism of "the spirit world"; but
to say that it is recorded that He did say it, is like saying it is
recorded that He preferred palm trees to sycamores. It is a simple and
unadulterated untruth. The author should know that these words have
meant a thousand things to a thousand people, and that if more ancient
sects had paraphrased them as cheerfully as he, he would never have had
the text upon which he founds his theory. In a pamphlet in which plain
printed words cannot be left alone, it is not surprising if there are
mis-statements upon larger matters. Here is a statement clearly and
philosophically laid down which we can only content ourselves with
flatly denying: "The fifth rule of our Lord is that we should take
special pains to cultivate the same kind of regard for people of foreign
countries, and for those generally who do not belong to us, or even have
an antipathy to us, which we already entertain towards our own people,
and those who are in sympathy with us." I should very much like to know
where in the whole of the New Testament the author finds this violent,
unnatural, and immoral proposition. Christ did not have the same kind of
regard for one person as for another. We are specifically told that
there were certain persons whom He specially loved. It is most
improbable that He thought of other nations as He thought of His own.
The sight of His national city moved Him to tears, and the highest
compliment He paid was, "Behold an Israelite indeed." The author has
simply confused two entirely distinct things. Christ commanded us to
have love for all men, but even if we had equal love for all men, to
speak of having the same love for all men is merely bewildering
nonsense. If we love a man at all, the impression he produces on us must
be vitally different to the impression produced by another man whom we
love. To speak of having the same kind of regard for both is about as
sensible as asking a man whether he prefers chrysanthemums or billiards.
Christ did not love humanity; He never said He loved humanity; He loved
men. Neither He nor anyone else can love humanity; it is like loving a
gigantic centipede. And the reason that the Tolstoians can even endure
to think of an equally distributed affection is that their love of
humanity is a logical love, a love into which they are coerced by their
own theories, a love which would be an insult to a tom-cat.
But the greatest error of all lies in the mere act of cutting up the
teaching of the New Testament into five rules. It precisely and
ingeniously misses the most dominant characteristic of the teaching--its
absolute spontaneity. The abyss between Christ and all His modern
interpreters is that we have no record that He ever wrote a word, except
with His finger in the sand. The whole is the history of one continuous
and sublime conversation. Thousands of rules have been deduced from it
before these Tolstoian rules were made, and thousands will be deduced
afterwards. It was not for any pompous proclamation, it was not for any
elaborate output of printed volumes; it was for a few splendid and idle
words that the cross was set up on Calvary, and the earth gaped, and the
sun was darkened at noonday.