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of America and Africa.1 The most influential men in history have eschewed physical force as an instrument.
What man of all has exerted the deepest, widest influence upon mankind?
Surely Jesus Christ from whom the very term “non-resistant” is derived.
And after him?
Siddartha, the Buddha, who absolutely condemned all violence.
What man to-day in the Russian Empire, that home of brute force, has the greatest import for the world?
Leo Tolstoy, without doubt, the man who would not lift his hand to compel.
And Garrison, how do you explain the fact that he, with his hands tied behind his back, was the main motive power in that movement which has dwarfed all the rest of our history?
Let us beware, however, of imitations and travesties of non-resistance.
It is no colorless, negative quality, and should have no taint of timidity, no suspicion of effeminacy.
Let us be quite sure that we are above violence, and not beneath it. It is far better to fight to the death than to decline the combat from cowardice, whatever may be the name behind which we mask it. A soft answer may, too, be turned into an offense, if the wrong emphasis is placed upon it. An apology
1 De Quincey in one of his articles on “Walking Stewart,” the eccentric traveller, quotes the latter to the following effect: “It was generally supposed, he said, that the civilized traveller among savages might lay his account with meeting unprovoked violence, except in so far as he carried arms for his protection. Now he had found it by much the safer plan to carry no arms.”
Chicago: the Public Publishing Company, 1905.
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