l picture, we perceive (as the Church Universal
has always perceived and taught) that they are capable of realization
only in a Christian society cut off from the world, or in a world become
dominantly Christian. To give to all who ask, to lend indiscriminately
without expecting any return, would in society as at present constituted
not only speedily reduce ourselves to destitution; it would also
pauperize and demoralize those into whose hands our squandered wealth
should pass. To take no thought for the morrow, and to refuse to lay up
treasure on earth, would under existing economic conditions simply mean
that we should become useless burdens upon a thrifty and prudent
community. To ignore the legal and judicial institutions of our country
by neither judging nor going to law in cases where wrong has been
inflicted would be to foster the perpetration of crime in a world whose
very propensity towards crime has necessitated the establishment of the
courts. Similarly to decline to resist evil, where evil is rampant and
aggressive, would be to play the part of a traitor and to surrender the
world to the devil. The precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, however
liberally they may be interpreted, are, in short, the negation of civil
government; that is to say, they assume the existence of a community of
sanctified persons among whom civil government is unnecessary. The
irreducible minimum of civil government--as even the administrative
nihilists of the school of Herbert Spencer admit--involves three things,
viz., defence of life, protection of property, and enforcement of
contract. With these three things the precepts of the Sermon on the
Mount are, as they stand, incompatible.

All this is very obvious, and the consecrated common-sense of the Church
in every age has clearly perceived it. The political science of the
Apostles and the Early Fathers, and still more expressly that of their
successors, recognized the authority of kings, the jurisdiction of
courts, the justice of taxation, the rights of property, the majesty of
human law, the protective function of soldiers, and the necessity of
military service. All these were accepted as inevitable in society in
its present state of imperfect development; although it was proclaimed
that none of them would be required in the ideal Kingdom of God.

In the Sermon on the Mount itself, however, the truth as to the
relativity of Christian institutions is obscured by the faith of the
co