The apostle tells us clearly why we must not swear: the oath in itself may be unimportant, but by it men are condemned, and so we ought not to swear at all. How could we express more clearly the saying of Jesus and his apostle ?

My ideas had become so confused that for a long time I had kept before me the question, Do the words and the meaning of this passage agree ? it does not seem possible. But, after having read the commentaries attentively, I saw that the impossible had become a fact. The explanations of the com mentators were in harmony with those they had offered concerning the other commandments of Jesus: judge not, be not angry, do not violate the marital bonds.

We have organized a social order which we cher ish and look upon as sacred. Jesus, whom we rec ognize as God, comes and tells us that our social organization is wrong. We recognize him as God, but we are not willing to renounce our social institu tions. What, then, are we to do? Add, if we can, the words "without a cause" to render void the command against anger; mutilate the sense of another law, as audacious prevaricators have done by substituting for the command absolutely forbid ding divorce, phraseology which permits divorce; and if there is no possible way of deriving an equiv ocal meaning, as in the case of the commands, " Judcje not, condemn not" and " Swear not at all" then with the utmost effrontery openly violate the rule while allirmiug that we obey it.