If it is urged that such things are natural to man--"do not even the publicans the same?" (Matt. 5:46)--Jesus carries the matter a long way further. "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain" (Matt. 5:41). The man who would use such compulsion would be the alien soldier, the hireling of Herod or of Rome; and who would wish to cart him and his goods even one mile? "Go two miles," says Jesus--or, if the Syriac translation preserves the right reading, "Go two _extra_." Why? Well, the soldier is a man after all, and by such unsolicited kindness you may make a friend even of a government official--not always an easy thing to do--at any rate you can help him; God helps him; "be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Ordinary kindness and tenderness could hardly be urged beyond that point; and yet Jesus goes further still. He would have us _pray_ for those that despitefully use us (Matt. 5:44)--and in no Pharisaic way, but with the same instinctive love and friendliness that he always used himself. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). There are religions which inculcate the tolerance of wrong aiming at equanimity of mind or acquisition of merit. But Jesus implies on the contrary that in all this also the Christian _denies_ himself, does not seek even in this way to save his own soul, but forgets all about it in the service of others, though he finds by and by, with a start, that he has saved it far more effectually than he could have expected (Mark 8:35; Matt. 25:37, 40). The emphasis falls on our duty of kindness and tenderness to all men and women, because we and they are alike God's children.