If it is urged that such things are natural to man—­“do not even the publicans the same?” (Matt. 5:46)—­Jesus carries the matter a long way further.  “Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain” (Matt. 5:41).  The man who would use such compulsion would be the alien soldier, the hireling of Herod or of Rome; and who would wish to cart him and his goods even one mile?  “Go two miles,” says Jesus—­or, if the Syriac translation preserves the right reading, “Go two extra.”  Why?  Well, the soldier is a man after all, and by such unsolicited kindness you may make a friend even of a government official—­not always an easy thing to do—­at any rate you can help him; God helps him; “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).  Ordinary kindness and tenderness could hardly be urged beyond that point; and yet Jesus goes further still.  He would have us pray for those that despitefully use us (Matt. 5:44)—­and in no Pharisaic way, but with the same instinctive love and friendliness that he always used himself.  “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).  There are religions which inculcate the tolerance of wrong aiming at equanimity of mind or acquisition of merit.  But Jesus implies on the contrary that in all this also the Christian denies himself, does not seek even in this way to save his own soul, but forgets all about it in the service of others, though he finds by and by, with a start, that he has saved it far more effectually than he could have expected (Mark 8:35; Matt. 25:37, 40).  The emphasis falls on our duty of kindness and tenderness to all men and women, because we and they are alike God’s children.

With his emphasis on tenderness we may group his teaching on forgiveness.  He makes the forgiving spirit an antecedent of prayer—­“when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25).  “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matt. 5:23, 24).  The parable of the king and his debtor (Matt. 18:23), painfully true to human nature, brings out the whole matter of our forgiveness of one another into the light; we are shown it from God’s outlook.  The teaching as ever is Theocentric.  To Peter, Jesus says that a man should be prepared to forgive his brother to seventy times seven—­if anybody can keep count so far (Matt. 18:21-35).  He sees how quarrels injure life, and alienate a man from God.  Hence comes the famous saying:  “Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. 5:39).  He would have men even avoid criticism of one another (Matt. 7:1-5).  Epigrams are seductive, and there is a fascination in the dissection of character; but