the law of God. A virtue cannot be practiced in all
circumstances without self-sacrifice, privation, suffering, and
in extreme cases loss of life itself. But he who esteems life
more than fulfilling the will of God is already dead to the
only true life. Trying to save his life he loses it. Besides,
generally speaking, where non-resistance costs the sacrifice of
a single life or of some material welfare, resistance costs a
thousand such sacrifices.

Non-resistance is Salvation; Resistance is Ruin.

It is incomparably less dangerous to act justly than unjustly,
to submit to injuries than to resist them with violence, less
dangerous even in one's relations to the present life. If all
men refused to resist evil by evil our world would be happy.

Q. But so long as only a few act thus, what will happen to
them?

A. If only one man acted thus, and all the rest agreed
to crucify him, would it not be nobler for him to die in the
glory of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than to
live to wear the crown of Caesar stained with the blood of the
slain? However, one man, or a thousand men, firmly resolved
not to oppose evil by evil are far more free from danger by
violence than those who resort to violence, whether among
civilized or savage neighbors. The robber, the murderer, and
the cheat will leave them in peace, sooner than those who
oppose them with arms, and those who take up the sword shall
perish by the sword, but those who seek after peace, and behave