Uncle Ike had been thinking pretty hard, as the boy talked, had let his pipe go out, and his face had taken on a serious look, a look also of pride as he listened to the boy, but he was trying to think how to steer him right on that turning the other cheek also business. He fumbled for the tobacco bag, and as he emptied some tobacco into the pipe, his hand was unsteady, and he spilled a good deal on the floor, and he had to scratch two or three matches on his pants before he could get one that wouldn't break off, or go out. Finally he got the pipe lighted, and he puffed a long time, and looked at himself in the big mirror over the mantel, to see if he was looking his best, and finally he said: “I'll tell you, my boy, I don't think they are turning the other cheek also when smote, as much as they used to. The theory is all right, and if everybody would do so, there would not be any trouble, and all would be peace. I suppose that verse in the Bible was written when the Jews were trying to get along without having scraps all the time. There were people there, Jew-baiters, I suppose, who just laid for them, and knowing them to be opposed to a fight, they would smash them, and on the advice of leaders they would turn the other cheek, and go home with a black eye. I don't suppose I could write a Bible half as good as the old one, but I think if that verse had been changed a little, so the Jews would have stood up for their rights, and everlastingly lambasted anybody that came around jarring them on the cheeks, and been brought up to fight their way through, from Jerusalem to France, things would have been different. But, as I say, things have changed a good deal since Bible times. I think, now, if I was a boy, growing up to take my place in the business world, I might try to forget that verse, or think of it as we do of the Golden Rule, or the 'love one another' verse. You may try as hard as you like and you can't love your neighbor as yourself, unless he, or she, as the case may be, is a lovable person, and loves back. There can be no arbitrary rules that will bind you against what you think is right. Suppose your neighbor is a horsethief, or a liar, who belongs to another political party, and backbites, and steals your wood, and kicks your dog, and puts up jobs on you, how you going to love that neighbor as yourself? Two or three thousand years ago maybe these things would have been all right, when they didn't have any newspapers, and trolley cars, and there was no business except selling fish, and no money but coppers. I'll tell you how I shall bring up my boys, when I have any, and that is to keep their cheeks away from the smoter who smotes. Be on your guard, and if a boy tries to smite you on one cheek, you duck, and side-step, and smile at him, and keep your hands up so if he makes a feint to smite you on one cheek, just stand him off, and maybe he will think that you are onto his smiting on the cheek business