"I'm come to you for a bit of help though; I want light upon a question that's long troubled me. What do you think? How far does the command laid upon us, as to warefare between man and man, reach? Are we never to raise the hand to human being, do you think?"
"Well, I have thought a lot about it, and I dare not say that I'm just absolutely clear upon the matter. But there may be part clear where all's not clear; and by what we understand we come nearer to what we don't understand. There's one thing very plain--that we're on no account to return evil for evil: anybody that calls himself a Christian must understand that much. We're not to give any place to revenge, inside or out. Therefore we're not to give blow for blow. If a man hit you, you're to take it in God's name. But whether things might not come to a point where you're bound, still in God's name, to defend the life God has given you, I can't say--I haven't the light to justify me in denying it. There must surely, I have said to myself, be a time when a man may have to do what God does so often--make use of the strong hand! But it's clear he mustn't do it in rage--that's too near hate--and hate's the devil's own. A man may, if he live very near the Lord, be sometimes angry without sinning: but the wath of man worketh not the righteousness of God; and the wrath that rises in the midst of encounter, is not likely to be of the nature of divine wrath. To understand it, if it be possible, let's consider the Lord--how he did. There's no word of him ever lifting hand to protect himself. The only thing like it was for others. To make them let his disciples alone--maybe until they were enough like him not to run, he put out more than his hand upon them that came to take him: he struck them strongly with the power itself that moves all arms. But not very strongly either--he only knocked them down!--just to let them know they were to do as he bade them, and let his folk be;--and maybe to let them know that if he let them take him, it was not that he couldn't hinder them if he liked. I can't help thinking we may stand up for other folk. And I'm not saying we aren't to defend ourselves from a set attack with design.--But there's something of more importance yet than knowing the right of any question."
"What can that be? What can be of more importance than doing right in the sight of God?" said Donal.
"Being right with the very thought of God, so that we can't mistake, but must know just what he would have done. That's the big Right, the mother of all the rest of the rights. That's to be as the master was. Anyway, whatever we do, it msut be such as to be done, and it must be done in the name of God; when we do nothing we must do that nothing in the name of God. Someone may well say, `O Lord, thou hast not let me see what I ought to do, so I'll do nothing!' If a man ought to defend himself, but doesn't do it, because he thinks God wouldn't have him do it, will God leave him undefended for that? Or if a man stands up in the name of God, and faces an army of enemies, do you think God will forsake him because he's made a mistake? Whatever's done without faith must be sin--it can't help it; whatever's done in faith can't be sin, though it may be a mistake. Only let not a man take presmption for faith! That's a fearsome mistake, for it's just the opposite."
"I thank you," said Donal. "I'll consider with my best effort what you have said."
"But of all things," resumed the cobbler, "look that you love fair play. Fair play's a wonderful word--a grand thing constantly lost sight of. Man, I have been trying to understand the doing of the right this many a year, but I dare not yet let myself act upon the spur of hte moment where my own interest is concerned: my own side might blind me to the other man's side of the business. Anybody can understand his own right, but it takes trouble and throught to understand what nother counts his right. Two rights can't clash. It's a wrong and a right, or part wrong and part right that clash."
"If everybody did that, I think there would be few fortunes made!" said Donal.
"About that I can't say, not knowing; I dare not discover a low where I have no knowledge! But this same fair play lies, along with love, at the very root and foundation of the universe. The theologians had a glimmer of the fact when they made so much of justice, only their justice is such a miserable small bitty plaster image of justice, that it almost makes an honest person laugh. They seem to me like shepherds that rip down the door-posts, and then block up the door with them."
Donal told him of the quarrel he had with lord Forgue [where Donal forcibly unhorsed Forgue because he was being cruel to his horse], and asked him whether he thought he had done right.
"Well," answered the cobbler, "I'm as far from blaming you as I am from justifying the young lord."
"He seems to me a fine kind of a lad," said Donal, "though somewhat overbearing."
"The likes of him are more to be excused for that than other folk, for they have great disadvantages in the position and the upbringing. It's not easy for one that's brought up a lord to believe he's just one with the rest."