ssue of things it was the only law that justified itself.

Was Jesus right in these conclusions? Can human life proceed along the
lines He indicated? Certainly it has never yet done so. The woman who
is a sinner finds no Jesus to absolve her utterly among the priests of
His religion. The resentment of injury is regarded even by good men as
entirely justified when injury to the person involves the rights of
social order. Force is regarded by persons of the highest amiability
as necessary to the defense of society, and the Church applauds the
punishments inflicted by the civil magistrate, and even hastens to
bless the banners and baptize the deadly weapons of the warrior.
Meekness, which endures injury without resentment, is regarded as the
sign of a servile and cowardly spirit, and is the subject of ridicule
and contempt. No Christian society exists in which a Peter would be
freely pardoned his offense; the best that could be hoped would be the
infliction of humiliating penance, and a reluctant reinstatement in the
apostleship after a long period of bitter ostracism. Yet who would
venture to challenge the conduct of Jesus in these respects? Who would
not find his opinion of Jesus tragically lowered, and his adoration
practically destroyed, if some new and more authentic Gospel were
discovered by which we learned that Jesus smote with leprosy the
Pharisees who resisted Him, as Elisha smote Gehazi: that He sanctioned
the stoning of the adultress taken in the act of sin; or that He
branded Simon Peter for his perfidy, and drove him out forever from the
apostleship he had disgraced, denouncing him as a son of hell and a
predestined citizen of the outer darkness? Could such acts be
attributed to Jesus, though each act in itself would precisely
represent the common temper of Christian courts and so-called Christian
men under circumstances of similar and equal provocation, the worship
of Jesus would at once cease throughout the world.

The dilemma is truly tragic. A Jesus who should be proved to have
lived according to the conventions we respect, who did not rise above
conventional ideals of either love or justice, who approved force, and
resented injuries, who repudiated the friend who had betrayed Him, who
shunned the contact of persons whose touch dishonoured Him--such a
Jesus would cease to be our Jesus. He would no longer attract us, He
would not touch our hearts, He would barely command our respect.
Astounding