To put my thought briefly, I came to conclude that the ethical originality of Jesus consists in a new way of dealing with the problem of evil, that is, of evil in the guise of oppression. The prophets, his predecessors, as we have seen, identified injustice with oppression; and in the first flush of their moral enthusiasm the more optimistic among them believed that justice as they conceived of it would presently triumph and that oppression would cease altogether—“Arise, shine, for thy light is come.” God would miraculously interfere, and bring about on earth a state of righteousness. But years and centuries passed by, and oppression, far from ceasing, became under the ruthless administration of Rome ever more grinding and terrible. The yoke of Rome weighed upon the Jews as it did upon other peoples; but perhaps, because they were more independent in spirit, it galled them more sorely. The fiery zealots among the Jews persisted in hoping that by supreme desperate efforts, God coming to their aid, they might yet succeed in shaking off this yoke—efforts which culminated in the horrors of the last siege of Jerusalem. Jesus was not of their way of thinking. He seems indeed to have believed that the end of the existing order was near. It was too incredibly bad to last. The world would be consumed by fire. A new earth and a new heaven would appear. But in the meantime how accommodate oneself to the intolerable fact of oppression? Jesus said, Resist not evil in the guise of oppression, it is irresistible. He mentions in particular three forms of intolerable oppression: a blow in the face, the stripping of a man of his garment, and the coercing him to do the arbitrary bidding of another. He says, Resist not evil, resist not oppression. Shall then evil triumph? Is the victim helplessly at the mercy of the injurer? Shall he even be told that in a servile spirit he must accept the indignities that are put upon him? No; this is not the meaning. Quite a different meaning is implied. And here the teaching of Jesus takes its novel turn. There is a way, he says to the victim, in which you can spiritually triumph over the evildoer, and make your peace with irresistible oppression. Use it as a means of self-purification; pause to consider what the inner motives are that lead your enemy, and others like him, to do such acts as they are guilty of, and to so violate your personality and that of others. The motives _in them_ are lust, greed, anger, wilfulness, pride. Now turn your gaze inward upon yourself, look into your own heart and learn, perhaps to your amazement, that the same evil streams trickle through you; that you, too, are subject, even if it be only subconsciously and incipiently, to the same appetites, passions, and pride, that animate your injurers. Therefore let the sufferings you endure at the hands of those who allow these bad impulses free rein in their treatment of you lead you to expel the same bad impulses that