I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
This second great rule of conduct is: Do not lust.
It is not generally accepted as good advice. In all our towns things exist — certain ways of dressing, ways of dancing, some entertainments, pictures, and theatrical posters — which would not exist if everybody understood that lust is a bad thing, spoiling our lives.
Being animals we probably cannot help lusting, but the fact that we are imperfect does not prevent the advice from being good. Lust as little as you can, if you cannot be perfectly pure.
(3) “Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all… . But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay.”
How absurd! says some one. Here are five great commandments to guide us in life — the first is: “Don’t be angry,” the second is: “Don’t lust.” These are really broad, sweeping rules of conduct — but the third is: “Don’t say damn.” What is the particular harm, or importance, of using a few swear-words?
But that, of course, is not at all the meaning of the commandment. It, too, is a broad, sweeping rule, and it means: Do not give away the control of your future actions. You have a reason and a conscience to guide you, but if you set them aside and swear allegiance elsewhere — to Tsar, Emperor, Kaiser, King, Queen, President or General — they may some day tell you to commit the most awful crimes; perhaps even to kill your fellow-men. What are you going to do then? To break your oath? or commit a crime you never would have dreamt of committing had you not first taken an oath?
The present Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm II, once addressed some naval recruits just after they had taken the oath of allegiance to him. (The oath had been administered by a paid minister of Jesus Christ, on the book which says “Swear not at all.”) Wilhelm II reminded them that they had taken the oath, and that if he called them out to shoot their own fathers they must now obey!
The whole organised and premeditated system of wholesale murder called war, is based and built up in all lands (in England and Russia to-day as in the Roman Empire when Jesus lived) on this practice of inducing people to entrust their consciences to the keeping of others.
But it is the fourth commandment that people most object to. In England, as in Russia, it is as yet hardly even beginning to be understood.
(4) “Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil; but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
That means, do not injure those who act in a way you disapprove of.
There are two different and opposite ways of trying to promote the triumph of good over evil. One way is the way followed by the best men, from Buddha in India and Jesus in Palestine, down to William Lloyd Garrison in America and Leo Tolstoy in Russia. It is to seek to see the truth of things clearly, to speak it out fearlessly, and to try to act up to it, leaving it to influence other people as the rain and the sunshine influence the plants. Men who live that way influence others; and their influence spreads from land to land, and from age to age.
Think of the men who have done most good in the world, and you will find that this has been their principle.
But there is another plan, much more often tried, and still approved of by most people. It consists in making up one’s mind what other people should do, and then, if necessary, using physical violence to make them do it.
For instance, we may think that the Boers ought to let everybody vote for the election of their upper house and chief ruler, and (instead of beginning by trying the experiment at home) we may send out 300,000 men to kill Boers until they leave it to us to decide whether they shall have any votes at all.
People who act like that — Ahab, Attila, Caesar, Napoleon, Bismarck, or Joseph Chamberlain — influence people as long as they can reach them, and even longer; but the influence that lives after them and that spreads furthest, is to a very great extent a bad influence, inflaming men’s hearts with anger, with bitter patriotism, and with malice.
These two lines of conduct are contrary the one to the other. You cannot persuade a man while he thinks you wish to hit or coerce him.
The last commandment is the most sweeping of all, and especially re-enforces the 1st, 3rd, and 4th.
(5) “Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies … that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you … what do ye more than others? Do not even the Gentiles (Foreigners: Boers, Turks, etc.) the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
The meaning of these five commandments, backed as they are by the example of Jesus and the drift and substance of his most emphatic teaching, is too plain to be misunderstood. It is becoming more and more difficult for the commentators and the expositors to obscure it, though to many of them the words apply: “Ye have made void the word of God because of your traditions.” What Jesus meant us to do, the direction in which he pointed us, and the example he set us, are unmistakable. But, we are told, ‘it is impracticable!’ ‘It must be wrong because it is not what we are doing.’ ‘It is impossible that Jesus can have pointed men to a morality higher than ours!’
There it is! As long as we, men or nations, are self-satisfied — like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not as other men are — we cannot progress. “They that are whole need no physician.” Religion and philosophy can be of use only to those who will admit their imperfections and willingly seek guidance.
‘But it is impossible for us to cease killing men wholesale at the command of our rulers, or to cease hanging men who kill in retail without being told to. We must go on injuring one another, or evil will be sure to come of it.’ If so, then let us throw away Christ’s religion, for it leads us astray, and let us find a better religion instead. The trouble is that the best of the other religious teachers (such as Buddha) said the same thing! And we can hardly admit openly that we are still worshipping Mars or Mammon.
The only other way is for us to be humble and honest about the matter and confess: “I begin to see the truth of this teaching. It points to perfection above the level we have reached; but if I am not good enough to apply it altogether, I will apply it as far as I can, and will at least not deny it, or pervert it, or try by sophistry to debase it to my own level.”
After reaching this view of life (about the year 1880 or a little earlier), Tolstoy saw that much he had formerly considered good was bad, and much he had thought bad was good.
If the aim of life is to co-operate with our Father in doing good, we should not seek to acquire as much property as possible for ourselves, but should seek to give as much to others, and to take as little from others, as we can.
Instead of wanting the most expensive and luxurious food for ourselves, we should seek the cheapest and simplest food that will keep us in health.
Instead of wishing to be better dressed than our neighbours, and wanting to have a shiny black chimney-pot hat to show that we are superior to common folk, we should
