The actual words need of course no explanation. But can we see how we are to apply the precept? would it “do” to obey it exactly and literally? Well, there are occasions when it might be obeyed, if not literally――because people may seldom, or perhaps never, smite us on the right cheek――yet nearly literally; occasions when nothing is concerned but our own instinct of revenge or our own pride, and we had better simply take meekly some insult or wrong, and make no effort to defend ourselves. For example: there is a nasty thing said about you in the newspaper or a nasty thing whispered about you in the circle where you move, and you know quite well who has put it into the newspaper or given it currency. You cannot be mistaken; there is evidence; only one person could have done it. And the statement made is really untrue. No one can be subjected to that kind of wrong, without being brought face to face with the question whether he intends to be a thorough-going Christian. For there is no doubt what we ought to do. We ought not to be content till we have utterly crushed out of ourselves the least desire, as far as our own personal feeling is concerned, to take any kind of revenge whatever. We are to efface ourselves utterly, we are to turn the other cheek. That means, of course, that we decline to show in any way that we know who has done the wrong, and that we are at pains to look out for an opportunity of kindness to the person who has wronged us. That would be not a literal but a practical application of the principle, and there are numerous occasions in any man’s life when it is right to act thus, and any other course of conduct at all is more or less morally wrong, because no social duty compels us to assert our just cause. The next injunction is: “And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.” There again, it is quite plain what is meant. It is to refuse to resist legal injustice. Very often it can and ought to be literally obeyed. “Nay, already it is altogether a defect in you, that ye have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? why not rather be defrauded?”[59] But there are also instances in which to act literally on this precept would be, in any sober judgement, doing a great wrong to society and to the man who is himself the wrong doer. But the question is, am I able to look at the matter from that point of view? The difficulty to almost all of us is to get into such a state of mind that we can honestly say, As far as my own will goes, I am ready to suffer this and more; and not to let the question of legal proceedings come into our minds at all till we are sure that our motive is the general interest of society and of the wrong doer. Then, once more: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain.”