When Jesus says that He has come to bring a sword,—or as it is written in the parallel passage of Luke, “Discord,” He is speaking to His Disciples who are on the point of departing to announce the coming of the Kingdom. And immediately after having spoken of the sword, He explains with familiar examples what He meant to say: “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.” The sword therefore does not mean war; it is a figure of speech which dignifies division. The sword is what divides, cuts in two, disunites; and the preaching of the gospel shall divide men of the same family. Because among men there are those deaf and those who hear, those who are slow and those who are quick, those who deny and those who believe. Until all are converted and “brothers in the Word,” discord will reign on earth. But discord is not war, is not massacre. Those who have heard and believe—the Christians—will not assault those who do not hear and do not believe. They will, it is true, take up arms against their refractory and stubborn brothers, but these arms will be preaching, example, pardon, love. Those who are not converted perhaps will begin real warfare, the warfare of violence and blood, but they will begin it exactly because they are not converted, precisely because they are not yet Christians. The triumph of the Gospel is the end of all wars, of wars between man and man, between family and family, between caste and caste, between people and people. If the Gospel at first is the cause of separations and discord the fault is not in the truths taught in the Gospel but in the fact that these truths are not yet practiced by all. When Jesus proclaims that he comes to bring fire, only a literal-minded barbarian can think of murderous and destructive fire, worthy auxiliary of human warfare. “What will I if it be already kindled!” The fire desired by the Son of Man is the fire of purification, of enthusiasm, the ardor of sacrifice, the refulgent flame of love. Until all souls are burning and consumed in that fire, the word of the Gospel will be but useless sound, and the Kingdom still far away. To renew the contaminated and hateful family of men, a wonderful outburst of grief and of passion is needed. The complacent must suffer, the cold must burn, the insensible must cry out, the tepid must flame like torches in the night. All the filth accumulated in the secret life of men, all the sediments of sin which make of every soul an offensive sewer, all the corruption which shuts the ears and suffocates the hearts, must be burned up in this miraculous spiritual fire, which Jesus came to kindle in our hearts.