then the Roman would have come upon it and crushed it with his power. To support it against the Roman legions with legions of angels was not a part of the counsels of God.
St. Peter says, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously: who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”[1] Is this an exhortation to modern society to establish, or suffer to be established, in the midst of Christianity, freedom, and equal law, an institution under which men are subject to the frowardness of masters, and under which they may be buffeted and made to suffer without regard to justice? If it be, it is equally an exhortation to modern society to embrace the whole circle of institutions which persecuted the Apostles and which crucified Christ.
“Submit yourselves,” St. Peter has said just before,
