To rule foreign peoples – let alone to plunder them of their wealth, or to settle their lands, or to hook their cities on opium – was also, for a Christian people, never quite to forget that their Saviour had lived as the slave, not the master, of a mighty empire. It was an official of that empire who had sentenced him to death; it was soldiers of that empire who had nailed him to a cross. Rome’s dominion had long since passed away. The reign of Christ had not.
