As soon as Scaurus used this argument, I perceived that he confused the remission of penalty with the forgiveness of sin, that power of “bearing the burdens” of others, and of “restoring” others, which, as I have shewn above, Paul recognised as a fact and which Paul made me recognise as a fact, though a very mysterious fact. Hence, reasoning backward, I saw that this faculty of discerning the image of God in the most sinful of sinners, and of pitying the sinner, yes, and even of loving him, might belong to God Himself, and to men in so far as they are like God. If so, the existence of this power of loving one’s enemies was a reality, just as the power of forgiving was a reality. “Scaurus himself,” I said, “has and uses this power. He often sees good in people where most men would fail to see it. He likes those in whom others see nothing to like. I can conceive that a Son of God might not only possess but impart a power of this kind, increased to such a degree that it might be justly called a new power.” “The curious thing,” said Scaurus, “about this doctrine of loving and forgiving is this. Although it appears unpractical and paradoxical, yet the ‘kingdom’ (to use the Christian word) based on this doctrine is, I must confess, not unpractical at all, but on the contrary a very solid and inconvenient fact in a great number of our largest cities and among the poorest and most squalid of the populace. Note the difference between the kingdom of the Christian and that of the Stoic. The Christian missionary cries aloud like a herald, ‘Repent ye; the kingdom of God is at hand,’ the Cynic says ‘_I am a king_,’ or—to quote Epictetus exactly—‘Which of you, having seen me, does not recognise in me his natural king and master?’ The former prays, and teaches his proselytes to pray, looking up to a God in heaven, ‘Thy kingdom come’; the latter neither prays nor enjoins prayer of any kind.