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Indignation, resentment, the desire to punish other people or to see them punished, the desire to “get even,” the feeling “it serves him right”—all these things form a quite impenetrable barrier to spiritual power or progress. Jesus, dramatizing the thing in the Oriental way, says that if you are bringing a gift to the altar, and you remember that your brother has anything against you, you must put down your gift without attempting to offer it, and go away and first make peace with your brother, and then, when you have done that, your offering will be acceptable. It was the custom, as we all know, to take gifts of various kinds to the Temple, from bulls and cows down to doves and offerings of incense, or, where it might be more convenient, and offering of money equivalent in value to these things. Now, under the New Law, or Christian dispensation, our altar is our own consciousness, and our offerings are our prayers and treatments. Our “burnt sacrifices” are the error thoughts which we destroy or burn away in spiritual treatment. And so Jesus says that if, when we are about to pray, or remember that we have any wrong thoughts or hard feelings about our brother man, no matter who he may be, and irrespective of whether the object of our hostile thought be an individual or a body of people, we must pause there and treat ourselves until we have got rid of this sense of hostility, and have once more restored the seamless garment of our spiritual integrity.

Jesus builds up this tremendous lesson, again in the Oriental tradition, by employing a series of steps—three in this case. He says first that whoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger; second, that to be really or seriously—one may say vindictively—hostile to another, is to be in grave danger; and finally, that to hold so low an opinion about a fellow creature as to allow ourselves to consider him to be outside the pale, so to speak, is to shut ourselves off from any hope of spiritual fruit while we remain in this state of mind. To call a man a “fool” in this sense means that we consider that no good is to be expected from him; and to do this is to bring very serious consequences upon ourselves.

Note carefully that the Authorized, or King James version of the Bible, which is by far the best all-round edition for spiritual purposes, here makes a serious error, which has been corrected in the Revised version. It makes Jesus say, “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause,” which is a manifest absurdity. No sane person gets angry without what he deems to be a cause, however trifling or irrelevant the cause that he assigns may be. What Jesus said, of course, was that whoever is angry with his brother under any circumstances is in danger.

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.

Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

(Matthew V)

This paragraph is of the utmost practical importance, Jesus is stressing here the instruction contained in his injunction to “watch and pray.” It is ever so much easier to overcome a difficulty if you tackle it immediately, at its first appearance, than it will be after the trouble has had some little time to establish itself in your mentality—to dig itself in, as the soldiers say. Soldiers know that as long as troops are marching across open ground it is not hard for the enemy to scatter and destroy them; but once let them dig into the ground and entrench themselves, and they become exceedingly difficult to remove. So it is with evil. The moment it presents itself to your attention, you should immediately turn it out, repudiate it, refuse to accept it; and by quietly affirming the Truth, give it no chance to dig itself in. If you do this, you will find that it will have little or no power over you. This procedure will involve