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!” 292