an appeal to God, and has no sense unless it is.  To swear such a truncated oath, then, has the still further condemnation that it is certainly an irreverence, and probably a quibble, and meant to be broken.  It must be fully admitted that there is little in common between such pieces of senseless profanity as these oaths, or the modern equivalents which pollute so many lips to-day, and the oath administered in a court of justice, and it may further be allowed weight that Jesus does not specifically prohibit the oath ‘by the Lord,’ but it is difficult to see how the principles on which He condemns are to be kept from touching even judicial oaths.  For they, too, are administered on the ground of the false idea that they add to the obligation of veracity, and give a guarantee of truthfulness which a simple affirmation does not give.  Nor can any one, who knows the perfunctory formality and indifference with which such oaths are administered and taken, and what a farce ’kissing the book’ has become, doubt that even judicial oaths tend to weaken the popular conception of the sin of a lie and the reliance to be placed upon the simple ‘Yea, yea; Nay, nay.’

NON-RESISTANCE

’Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:  39.  But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil:  but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40.  And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. 41.  And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42.  Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.’—­MATT. v. 38-42.

The old law directed judges to inflict penalties precisely equivalent to offences—­’an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’ (Exod. xxi. 24), but that direction was not for the guidance of individuals.  It was suited for the stage of civilisation in which it was given, and probably was then a restriction, rather than a sanction, of the wild law of retaliation.  Jesus sweeps it away entirely, and goes much further than even its abrogation.  For He forbids not only retaliation but even resistance.  It is unfortunate that in this, as in so many instances, controversy as to the range of Christ’s words has so largely hustled obedience to them out of the field, that the first thought suggested to a modern reader by the command ‘Resist not evil’ (or, an evil man) is apt to be, Is the Quaker doctrine of uniform non-resistance right or wrong, instead of, Do I obey this precept?  If we first try to understand its meaning, we shall be in a position to consider whether it has limits, springing from its own deepest significance, or not.  What, then, is it not to resist?  Our Lord gives three concrete illustrations of what He enjoins, the first of which refers to insults such as contumelious blows on the cheek, which are perhaps