Nothing more nobly evidences the divine origin of the Gospel than this essential precept; "as far as it lies with _you_, live peaceably with all men." Such wise and kind forbearance and neighbourliness would never have been bound up with the belief of supernatural powers and hopes, if those powers and hopes had been the mere issue of human exaltation, of natural enthusiasm. The supernatural of the Gospel leads to nothing but rectitude and considerateness, in short to nothing but love, between man and man. And why? Because it is indeed divine; it is the message and gift of the living Son of God, in all the truth and majesty of His rightfulness. All too early in the history of the Church "the crown of martyrdom" became an object of enthusiastic ambition. But that was not because of the teaching of the Crucified, nor of His suffering Apostles. [Sidenote: Ver. 19.] =Not avenging yourselves, beloved; no, give place to the wrath;= let the angry opponent, the dread persecutor, have his way, so far as your resistance or retaliation is concerned. "_Beloved_, let us love" (1 John iv. 7); with that strong and conquering love which wins by suffering. And do not fear lest eternal justice should go by default; there is One who will take care of that matter; you may leave it with Him. =For it stands written= (Deut. xxxii. 35), ="To Me belongs vengeance; I will recompense, saith the Lord."= [Sidenote: Ver. 20.] ="But if"[220]= (and again he quotes the older Scriptures, finding in the Proverbs (xxv. 21, 22) the same oracular authority as in the Pentateuch), ="but if thy enemy is hungry, give him food; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for so doing thou wilt heap coals of fire on his head";= taking the best way to the only "_vengeance_" which a saint can wish, namely, your "enemy's" conviction of his wrong, the rising of a burning shame in his soul, and the melting of his spirit in the fire of love. [Sidenote: Ver. 21.] =Be not thou conquered by the evil, but conquer, in the good, the evil.=