For the Christian Church to make of the words of Jesus commands to the world is to deserve the severest condemnation. Jesus taught that men were not to make for themselves a home, not to cultivate those virtues which blossom into the family, and not to save the fruits of their toil to make old age with its tottering form and feeble limbs less liable to the hardships of the world, but he summed up all the duties of life in these words: "Sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow me."
To obey such teaching as this would overturn every monument of prosperity upon the earth, blight every feeling of happiness that gladdens the heart of man, and convert the busy, working, loving world into one vast army of tramps, following a king without a kingdom, a leader without a purpose, a commander with nothing to give those who followed his command.
Jesus taught that we were not to resist evil; that is, that if a thief stole our watch and chain, we were bound to run after him and give him our purse also; that if a man took away our coat, we should wrong him if we did not send him the balance of the suit; that if a man struck us on one side of the face, we were to invite him to strike us on the other side also; that if, as it were, the armies of some foreign powers were to invade our land, and burn and destroy our cities and towns, pillage our homes and murder our families, we were in duty bound to look upon them as benefactors and thank them for their work of destruction, and ask them to come and do it again.
Such moral teaching as this would make a nation of cowards and slaves.
It is our duty to punish thieves and robbers, not to reward them; to resist wrong and injustice, not to submit to them like cravens; to protect our country from foes, even though we are obliged to shed their blood and our own in so doing.
Is there a Christian on the globe who pays the least heed to a single one of the moral commands of Jesus? You all know there is not.
I need not tell the Christian Church that the morality taught by Jesus is decaying when every church is its coffin, and every minister its grave-digger.
If you wish to see how much respect for the moral teachings of Jesus one of his professed followers has, just steal his coat, and if he gives you his cloak also, as he is commanded to do by his Lord and Master, please publish his name in the daily papers--for the benefit of others who wish to get a cloak.