Norwich bulletin., 1917-06-02
Views of the Vigilantcs
CHRISTIANITY AND THE WAR.
By Lyman Abbott of the VisiIantes


 Much can be said for the belief that Jesus Christ condemned self defense. 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek. turn to him the other d. so" ~refers to personal assault; If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also" refers to judicial injustice; "Whosoever shall compel thee to go d mile, go with him twain refers to government oppression. And these by the practice of Jesus. He neither defended himself by speech against slanderous tongues nor by act against criminal violence. When his enemies charged him with being a glutton and a wine bibber, he reported the fact but did not deign even to deny the charge. When they accused him of seeking to overthrow the 4aws of Moses. it was not to defend himself but to make his meaning clear that he told his hearers he did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil them.
 But there is nothing in either his teaching or his conduct to give any sanction to the notion that he coun- seled the strong not to protect the weak against injustice When his dis ciples were falsely accused he de- tended them by his voice. And twice in his ministry he used violence with considerable vigor to defend others from wrong. At the beginning of his ministry he drove the corrupt traders out of the temple, oVerthroWinE the tables of the ney-changers, letting those loose the doves, and using whip as the symbol, if not as the in strument, of his attack At the end of his ministry, when the Jewish and Roman police came to arrest him, he put himself between them and the haf-aWakened disciples, and the po- lice, it is said, fell backward to the ground. Whether the force he used was natural or supernatural, moral or physical it was sufficient to knock them down. Then when the disciples had taken his hint and fled, he al- lowed himself to be arrested and car ried to his death.
 It is true that when Peter drew the sword in perfectly futile attempt at resistance, Jesus told him to put up his sword. Jesus was no anarchist. He had already made clear to the peo- pie that he did not believe in the nor tion of the government and refuse to give it their support. By his rebuke of Peter he sanctioned the right of police officers to use force in the ex- ecution of the law.
 Nothing in Christ's life or teaching is inconsistent with the maintenancr of that right. It is the teaching of Christ not that force should never be trusted to unselfsh and disinterested hands. That teaching modern civili- zation almost universally accepts.
 A brave man will often relinquish his rights rather than use force to maintain them. But only coward will abandon duty because to fulfil it involves danger.
 It is right for the father to defend his childron from the abductor: of the policeman to defend the wayfarer from the highwaynran: of the nation to defend its citizens from pirates on the sea and assassins on the land because this is the duty of the father, of the policeman of the. nation. To charge Jesus Christ with teaching that the strong must not defend the weak is to dishonor him and to d'a- credit the religion which he taught To absoIve the state from the duty of defending its citizens is to throw them hack upon the primitive right of self-defense, and under guse of pro- noting peace, bring in the barbaric reign Of universal private war.