Jesus Leaves Little For The Emperor
Then the Pharisees went away and conferred together as to how they might lay a snare for Jesus in the course of conversation. They sent their disciples, with Herodians, to say to him:
“Teacher, we know that you are an honest man, and that you teach the Way of God honestly, and are not afraid of any one; for you pay no regard to a man’s position. Tell us, then, what you think. Are we right in paying taxes to the Emperor, or not?”
Perceiving their malice, Jesus answered:
“Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin with which the tax is paid.” And, when they had brought him a florin he asked:
“Whose head and title are these?”
“The Emperor’s,” they answered: on which he said to them:
“Then pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor, and to God what belongs to God.”
They wondered at his answer, and left him alone and went away.
—Matthew.
Three Steps Of Life
Three steps there are our human life must climb.
The first is Force.
The savage struggled to it from the slime
And still it is our last, ashamed recourse.
Above that jagged stretch of red-veined stone
Is marble Law,
Carven with long endeavor, monotone
Of patient hammers, not yet free from flaw.
Three steps there are our human life must climb.
The last is Love,
Wrought from such starry element sublime
As touches the White Rose and Mystic Dove.
—Katherine L. Bates.