"He that hath two coats, let him impart to
him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." The
publicans, the renegades, who were farming the taxes of the Roman
conquerors, and making their base profit out of their countrymen's
slavery, came to him,--"Master, what shall we do?" He does not tell them
not to be publicans. He does not tell his countrymen to rebel, though he
must have been sorely tempted to do it. All he says is, Make the bad and
base arrangement as good as you can; exact no more than that which is
appointed you. The soldiers, poor fellows, come to him. Whether they
were Herod's mercenaries, or real gallant Roman soldiers, we are not
told. Either had unlimited power under a military despotism, in an
anarchic and half-enslaved country; but whichever they were, he has the
same answer to them of common morality. You are what you are; you are
where you are. Do it as well as you can. Do no violence to any man,
neither accuse any man falsely, and be content with your wages.
Ah, wise politician, ah, clear and rational spirit, who knows and tells
others to do the duty which lies nearest them; who sees (as old Greek
Hesiod says), how much bigger the half is than the whole; who, in the
hour of his country's deepest degradation, had divine courage to say, our
deliverance lies, not in rebellion, but in doing right.
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