At lunch our hostess had told me the sad story of an unhappy marriage, and I had itched spiritually to find out what my friend, who seemed so far away from me, felt about such things. And now I determined to find out.
"Tell me," I asked him, "which do you consider most important—the letter or the spirit of Christ's teachings?"
"My dear fellow," he answered gently, "what a question! How can you separate them?"
"Well, is it not the essence of His doctrine that the spirit is all important, and the forms of little value? Does not that run through all the Sermon on the Mount?"
"Certainly."
"If, then," I said, "Christ's teaching is concerned with the spirit, do you consider that Christians are justified in holding others bound by formal rules of conduct, without reference to what is passing in their spirits?"
"If it is for their good."
"What enables you to decide what is for their good?"
"Surely, we are told."
"Not to judge, that ye be not judged."