it in their language, as a reformer who laid down new principles
of life and destroyed the old, and whose reforms are not yet
complete, but are still in progress even now.

Such a view of Christ and his teaching follows from my book. But
to my astonishment, out of the great number of critics of my book
there was not one, either Russian or foreign, who treated the
subject from the side from which it was approached in the book--
that is, who criticised Christ's doctrines as philosophical,
moral, and social principles, to use their scientific expressions.
This was not done in a single criticism. The freethinking Russian
critics taking my book as though its whole contents could be
reduced to non-resistance to evil, and understanding the doctrine
of non-resistance to evil itself (no doubt for greater convenience
in refuting it) as though it would prohibit every kind of conflict
with evil, fell vehemently upon this doctrine, and for some years
past have been very successfully proving that Christ's teaching is
mistaken in so far as it forbids resistance to evil. Their
refutations of this hypothetical doctrine of Christ were all the
more successful since they knew beforehand that their arguments
could not be contested or corrected, for the censorship, not
having passed the book, did not pass articles in its defense.

It is a remarkable thing that among us, where one cannot say a
word about the Holy Scriptures without the prohibition of the
censorship, for some years past there have been in all the
journals constant attacks and criticisms on the command of Christ
simply and directly stated in Matt. v. 39. The Russian advanced
critics, obviously unaware of all that has been done to elucidate
the question of non-resistance, and sometimes even imagining