A superficial glance at history illustrates the necessity of national compromise.
If Moses had preached, and the Jews had put in practice, the doctrine of non-resistance, they would soon have been exterminated by their Philistine neighbors, and the Jesus that was would never have been.
If the tribes of the northern barbarians in the first thousand years of our era had put into practical effect the Sermon on the Mount, as soon as they accepted Christianity, there would have been no Anglo-Saxon England and United States, as they are today.
If Ferdinand and Isabella had not relied on their earthly weapons, Spain would probably have been Moslem to this day.
If the Christian powers had not warred against the Turks in the sixteenth century, the greater part of Europe would have bowed the knee to Mahomet, and the Mosque would have superseded the Church as the authorized place of worship.
If our colonial ancestors had obeyed the injunction, "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," there would have been no American Revolution.
If the "conscientious objectors" had swayed the councils of the North in 1861, we would now have a divided country, with slavery firmly established in one-half of it.
As with the nation, so with the individual, a compromise between Jesus' ideals and the forces of nature is a necessity, at least until evolution has produced some fundamental change in human nature.
It is related that when the mother and brethren of Jesus sought to speak with Him, He repudiated their special claims of relationship on Him, and said: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister and mother" (Matt. XII:50; Mark III:31; Luke VIII:19).
In another place He says: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. X:37).
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke XIV:26).
"And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life" (Matt. XIX:29).