The Christian doctrine is the doctrine of truth as well as of prophecy.
Eighteen hundred years ago the Christian doctrine revealed to men the true conduct of life, and at the same time foretold the result of disobeying its injunctions and of continuing to pursue their former course, guided only by the precepts which were taught before the dawn of Christianity; and it also showed them what life may become if they accept the Christian doctrine and obey its dictates.
Having taught in the Sermon on the Mount those precepts by which men should order their daily lives, Christ said: "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it" (Matthew vii. 24-27).
And thus, after eighteen centuries, the prophecy has been fulfilled. As the result of the abandonment of Christ's teachings, having disregarded the principle of non-resistance to evil, men have unwittingly fallen into the condition of imminent peril foretold by Christ to those who refused to follow His precepts.
Men often think that the question of resistance or non-resistance to evil by violence is an artificial question, which may be evaded. And yet this is the question that life presents to mankind in general, and to each thinking man in particular, and it is one that must be solved. In social life, ever since Christianity was first preached, this question has been like the doubt that confronts the traveler when he comes to a place where the road which he has followed divides, and he knows not which branch to choose. He must pursue his way, and he can no longer go on without pausing to deliberate, because there are now two roads from which to choose, whereas before there was but one; he must make up his mind which he will take.
In like manner, since the doctrine of Christ has been made known to men, they can no longer say, I will go on living as I did before, without deciding the question of resistance or non-resistance to evil by violence. One must decide at the beginning of every fresh struggle whether one ought or ought not to resist by violence that which one believes to be evil.
The question of resistance or non-resistance of evil by violence arose with the first contest among men, for every contest is simply the resistance by violence of something which each combatant believes to be an evil. But before the time of Christ men did not understand that resistance by violence of whatever the individual believed to be evil—only the same action which seems evil to one man may seem good to another—is simply one mode of settling the difficulty, and that the other method consists in not resisting evil by violence.
Before the appearance of the doctrine of Christ men believed that there could be but one way of deciding the contest, that of resisting evil by violence, and acted accordingly, while each combatant strove to persuade himself and others that what he regarded as evil was in fact the actual and absolute evil. For this purpose, dating from the oldest times, men began to invent certain definitions of evil which should be obligatory for all, and for the purpose of establishing definitions which should be thus binding, were issued, either certain laws supposed to have been received in a supernatural manner, or commands of individuals or of bodies of men to whom an infallible wisdom was ascribed. Men used violence against their fellow-men and assured themselves and others that they were but using such violence against an evil acknowledged by all.
This was the custom from the most ancient times, particularly among men who had usurped authority, and men have been long in seeing its baselessness.
But the longer mankind existed the more complex grew its mutual relations, and the more evident it became that to resist by violence everything that is considered evil is unwise; that the struggle is not diminished thereby, and that no human wisdom can ever define an infallible standard of evil.