equally guilty? Moreover, these traders in the outer courts of the
synagogue were rendering the worshipers a useful service. Just as
candles, rosaries, images and literature are sold in church vestibules
for the accommodation of Catholics, so were doves, pigeons and Hebrew
coins, necessary to the Jewish sacrifices, sold in the temple-courts
for the Jewish worshiper. The money changer who supplied the pious Jew
with the only sacred coin which the priests would accept was not very
much less important to the Jewish religion than the rabbi. To have
fallen upon these traders with a weapon, and to have caused them the
loss of their property, was certainly the most inconsistent thing that
a "meek" and "lowly" Jesus preaching non-resistance could have done.

Again; one writer makes Jesus the teacher _par excellence_ of peace.
He counsels forgiveness of injuries not seven times, but seventy times
that number--meaning unlimited love and charity. "Love your enemies,"
"Bless them that curse you," is his unusual advice. But another hand
retouches this picture, and we have a Jesus who breaks his own golden
rule. This other Jesus heaps abuse upon the people who displease him;
calls his enemies "vipers," "serpents," "devils," and predicts for
them eternal burnings in sulphur and brimstone. How could he who said,
"Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden," say also, "Depart from me
ye _cursed_?" Who curses them? How can there be an everlasting hell in
a universe whose author advises us to love our enemies, to bless them
that curse us, and to forgive seventy times seven? How could the same
Jesus who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," say also, "I came not
to bring peace, but a sword?" Is it possible that the same Jesus who
commands us to love our _enemies_, commands us also to "hate" father,
mother, wife and child, for "his name's sake?" Yes! the same Jesus who
said, "Put up thy sword in its sheath," also commands us to sell our
effects and "buy a sword."