n your heart. It
is the spirit that sins. So keep your spirit pure. It is not enough to keep
your oaths: you should be so utterly and transparently sincere that there
is no need and no sense in supporting your words by great oaths. "Yea" and
"Nay" should be sufficient.

You will notice that the Sermon on the Mount has been divided in this
chapter into a number of paragraphs, each of which begins by a reference
to the old external law of conduct, and goes on to demand a more searching,
more spiritual and interior virtue. "Ye have heard that it was said by them
of old time.... But I say unto you."

"Ye have heard that it was said: 'Thou shalt not kill' ... but I say unto
you that whosoever is angry shall be in danger of the judgment. Ye have
heard that it was said: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' but I say unto
you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart.... Ye have heard that it was said:
'Thou shalt not forswear thyself,' but I say unto you: 'Swear not at all.'"

What is the significance of such teaching? Surely that we are not to be
satisfied with keeping the letter of the law, but are to keep it in our
hearts. So clear is this that the Church has completely abandoned the
letter of the last precept. No one except a Quaker refuses to take an oath.
Every bishop on the bench has done so, and every incumbent of a living.
Nowhere throughout the Sermon on the Mount have Christians felt themselves
bound to a literal or legal interpretation of its teaching. No one wants
a man to be tried for murder and hanged for hating his brother. No judge
grants a divorce because a man or woman has "committed adultery in his
heart." Christ Himself did not _literally_ "turn the other cheek" when
struck by a soldier. His disciples everywhere pray in places quite as
public as the street-corners forbidden in the next chapter of St. Matthew,
and give their alms publicly or in secret as seems to them best.

It may be contended that in this spiritual interpretation of Christ's
commands it is very easy to go too far and "interpret" all the meaning out
of them. It is certain, however, that the danger must be incurred, since
nothing could make sense out of an absolutely _literal_ interpretation. It
would mean a _reductio ad absurdum_.

Apply such a literalism, for example, to the point at which for centuries
the Church has sought to apply it--the indissolubility of marriage. It is