cruel as before, continued, only with this difference, that those who committed or commended such acts, excused themselves by pleading that they did it for the benefit of humanity.
It was just this sophistical justification of violence that Christ denounced. When two enemies fight, each may think his own conduct justified by the circumstances. Excuses can be made for every use of violence; and no infallible standard has ever been discovered by which to measure the worth of these excuses. Therefore Christ taught not to believe in any excuse for violence, and (contrary to what had been taught by them of old time) never to use violence.
One would have thought that those who professed Christianity would have been indefatigable in exposing deception in this matter, for in such exposure lay one of the chief manifestations of Christianity. What really happened was just the reverse. People who profited by violence, and who did not wish to give up their advantages, took on themselves a monopoly of Christian preaching, and declared that as cases can be found in which Non-resistance causes more harm than the use of violence
