The same thing took place in my own case when I pointed out the injunction of the evangelical teaching about the nonresistance of evil by violence. This rule was laid down by Christ and after Him in all times by all His true disciples. But either because they did not notice this rule, or because they did not understand it, or because its fulfilment seemed to them too difficult, as time went the more completely this rule was forgotten, the farther the manner of men’s lives departed from this rule; and finally it came to the pass to which it has now come that this rule has already begun to seem to people something new, strange, unheard-of, and even foolish. And I, also, have the same experience as the man had who reminded men of the good, wise master’s prescription to refrain from mowing the weed, but to pull it up by the roots.
As the tenants of the meadow purposely shut their eyes to the fact that the counsel was not to give up destroying the weed, but to destroy it by a different method, and said, “We will not listen to this man, he is a fool; he forbids us to mow down the weeds and tells us to pull them up”—so in reply to my reminder that according to Christ’s teaching in order to annihilate evil we must not employ violence against it, but must destroy it from the root with love, men said: “We will not listen to him, he is a fool; he advises not to oppose evil to evil so that evil may overwhelm us.”
I said that, according to Christ’s teaching, evil cannot be eradicated by evil; that all resistance of evil by violence only intensifies the evil, that according to Christ’s teaching evil is eradicated by good. “Bless them that curse you, pray for them that abuse you, do good to them that hate you, love your enemies, and you will have no enemies!”
I said that, according to Christ’s teaching, the whole life of man is a battle with evil, a resistance of evil by reason and love, but that out of all the methods of resisting evil Christ excepted only the one unreasonable method of resisting evil with violence, which is equivalent to fighting evil with evil.