It is true, that the Saviour in the New Testament tells his disciples to turn the left cheek to be smitten, after they had received a blow on the right; but He was speaking to people divinely inspired, or whom He intended divinely to inspire--people selected by God for a particular purpose.

He likewise tells these people to part with various articles of raiment when asked for them, and to go a-travelling without money, and to take no thought of the morrow.

Are those exhortations carried out by very good people in the present day?
Do Quakers, when smitten on the right cheek, turn the left to the smiter?
When asked for their coat, do they say, "Friend, take my shirt also"?
Has the Dean of Salisbury no purse?
Does the Archbishop of Canterbury go to an inn, run up a reckoning, and then say to his landlady, "Mistress, I have no coin"?
Assuredly the Dean has a purse, and a tolerably well-filled one; and, assuredly, the Archbishop, on departing from an inn, not only settles his reckoning, but leaves something handsome for the servants, and does not say that he is forbidden by the gospel to pay for what he has eaten, or the trouble he has given, as a certain Spanish cavalier said he was forbidden by the statutes of chivalry.

Now, to take the part of yourself, or the part of the oppressed, with your fists, is quite as lawful in the present day as it is to refuse your coat and your shirt also to any vagabond who may ask for them, and not to refuse to pay for supper, bed, and breakfast, at the Feathers, or any other inn, after you have had the benefit of all three.
The conduct of Lavengro with respect to drink may, upon the whole, serve as a model.

He is no drunkard, nor is he fond of intoxicating other people; yet when the horrors are upon him he has no objection to go to a public-house and call for a pint of ale, nor does he shrink from recommending ale to others when they are faint and downcast.