1} : S> Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/bookofpeacecolleOOamerrich ^^^ THE BOOK OF^PEACE: » # A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS 1k- WlR"AI^D PEACE. ... .♦ .^ BOSTON: * GEORGE C. BECKWITH, m CORNHILL. ^ PHILADELPHIA :— PERKINS AND PURVES. NEW YORK:— M. w! DODD. PORTLAND:— WM. HYDE. 1845. CONTENTS No. 1 .—Cause of Peace, . . . i 1- " 2.— A Sketch of War : what h w, and what it does, 9 '' '^. — Testimonies aeainst War, ^j^ . . . 21 " 4.— War and the Bible/ VT ... 33 " 5.— War Curable, 37 " 6.— Four Aspects of War, ..^ ■ T 49 " 7. — Universal Peace ; by David Bogue, D. D., 53 *' 8. — Military Discipline, 66 " 9.— Erasmus on War, .- 77 " 10. — Russian Campaign, 81 " 11. — Union in Peace, ^ 93 " 12. — Military Preparations, 101 " 13. — Progress of Peace, or how much already gained in the cause, . 105 " 14.— Waste of Property by War, 113 " 15.— Appeal to Cities, ^ . 125 « 16. — War Inconsistent with ChrisUanity ; oy Howard Malcom, D. D. 1S9 " 17. — War Unlawful under the Christian Dispensation j by J. J.Gumey,137 " 18.— Chalmers on Peace, 149 « 19.— Chief Evil of War j by WUliam E. Channing, D. D., . . . . 167 « 20.— Loss of Life by War, 161 " 21.— Witnesses for Peace 173 " 22.— Views of War; by Robert Hall, 177 " 23.— The Early Christians on War; by Thomas Clarkson, . . . . 181 " 24.— War-Dcbts of Europe 193 " 25.— Results of one War, 197 " 26 — Neckar on Peace, ^ 201 " 27.— Peace PracUcable, "; 209 " 28 — SubsUtutes for War, 213 " 29.— Arbitration as a Substitute for War, 217 " 30.— Congress qf Nations, . , 229 *' 31.— Extinction of. W'a?; by lion. JosiabQuyicy, L.L. D.,^. . .253 " 32 —War Unchris'titm, ...'..-.. .-*. •. '^. . . 257 " 33.— Insensibility to the Evils of Wa/; by W. E. Channing, D. D., 269 " 34. — Claims. cf li'ftar^ ©ji all -ChriKtians » 277 " 35 —The onV Rcii 'e jy: .or-.War^ by W. E. Chaining, D. D., . . . 289 " 36.— A Solemn Kevim of W'ar jbyNCah'^Voreester, D. D., . . . 293 « 37.— Sieges, j, .... 306 " 38.— A Glimpse of War ; b^- W. E. Channuifc D. D., . m . . . 313 « 39.— Military Hospitals, 825 « 40.— Safety of Pacific Principles, 333 « 41.— W.. ► 357 * 4*£-Cla on Women 361 « 43il.8ol. : by William Ladd, 373 - 44 —The liaul..-Fa-id f .... 393 *' 45.— lueffiracy of War j by Hon. William Jay, ... * 397 « 46.— Militia Drills 4O9 ** 47.— United Stales Navy— What is its usfe ? by Samuel E Coues, . 413 *' 48.— Mi'^lakr-j j>Ko«it PeFCP ^j. " 49.— p. Geo. C. heckwilh* !!!!.'!! 425 " 60. — f:r ward Malcom, D. D., 433 " 51.— W 449 " ftt — W :!canh, or the Influence of War on Domestic *' 53,— Th( .. •"' "f Nations ; by Charles Sumner * .* .* .* * 559 I c^ » 'PREFACE. There has been, since the time of the gifted Erasmus, a great deal of eloquent writing on Peace ; and the follow- ing pages contain the best productions on the subject not only of past ages, but of our own. No theme has ever waked a purer or loftier inspiration ; and on no topic in the whole range of morals, theology, or general literature, can there be found finer specimens of taste and eloquence. We have also culled from a wide as well as luxuriant field ; — from the gardens of intellect and learning in both hemis- pheres, from some of the best writers in the last three cen- turies, from men of every faith, Protestant and Catholic, Orthodox and Unitarian, Episcopal, Baptist and Presbyte- rian. The subject is itself a sort of Delos, whither the best spirits of every party, creed and clime gather to blend in sweet and hallowed sympathy ; and these pages exhibit a constellation of the peaceful pleiads pouring their mingled splendors on this common theme of religion, humanity and Christian patriotism. We have studied the utmost brevity possible, and have sometimes condensed quite a volume into a short essay, without the omission of any essential argument, illustra- tion or fact. Some of these tracts are of necessity selec- tions, yet give both the sentiments and language of their respective authors. We have only condensed for the sake of greater brevity, economy and force. The work is truly multum in parvo, a thesaurus of information on peace, 248934 PREFACE. contain ing a far greater amount of facts, statistics and arguments dk its various topics, than our own or any other language can furnish in tlii?ice the compass. Hardly any references are given, because they could not be without occupying too much space for such a work ; but we have authority, good and ample, for the most astounding statements in this volume, and our readers may rely on the substantial accuracy of them all. We cannot flatter our- selves, that they will assent at once to every position here taken on a subject so vast, and of such various aspects and bearings ; but we feel quite sure, that every intelligent, fair- minded Christian will readily respond to nine in ten, if not to ninety-nine in a hundred of the sentiments enforced, and that even in the remaining case there will be found a kind and Christian spirit, such as an Apostle would enjoin, and a martyr breathe. G. C. B. Office op the Am. Peace Soc, Boston, July 1845. No. I. THE CAUSE OF PEACE The cause of peace is as old as Christianity. Ancient prophets, in foretelling the Messiah's reign, caught a distant glimpse of its glory; and its principles, embodied by our Savior in his Sermon on the Mount, and thickly scattered throughout the New Testament, were so strictly put in practice by the early Christians, that not a few of them went to the stake rather than bear arms, on the supposition of its being inconsistent with their profession as disciples of the Prince of Peace. But the church, even before her union with the state under Constantine in the fourth century, had sadly degenerated in this as in other respects; and, ever since that fatal era, she has lent her sanction to the custom of war, with little thought of its being incom- patible with her religion of peace. Erasmus, the morning- star of the Reformation, wrote in behalf of this cause with an eloquence worthy of the first scholar in Christendom; and, though his voice was little heeded by the warring Christians of that age, the seed sown by his hand has begun, in the present century, to spring up more or less among Christians of every name, and to promise in the end a rich and glorious harvest. — Specific efforts in this cause are of recent date. The first effectual appeal was made in a pamphlet published in December, 1814 ; and the first Peace Society in modern times was organized in the city of New York, during the summer of 1815, and followed, in eight or ten months, by one in Massachusetts, another in Ohio, and a still more important one in London, all without any knowledge of each other's existence ; a striking proof that God had himself prepared the way. Similar societies have since been multiplied in England and America. Kindred efforts have been made to some extent in France, in Switzerland, and other parts of Christendom ; and their influence has reached the ex- tremities of the civilized world, and been felt in some degree by nations never blest with the light of the gospel. The American Peace Society, organized in 1828 as a 2 TUE CAUSE OF PEACE. bond of union among all the friends of peace throughout our country, and soliciting cooperation without regard to sect or party, has been cordially espoused by some among all the religious denominations in the land, and the pulpita of almost every sect have actually been occupied more or less by its agents in pleading the claims of this great evangelical enterprise. I. How MUCH ACCOMPLISHED ALREADY. SuCCCSS in this cause has been much beyond the means used, compara- tively greater than in any kindred enterprise. Few are fully aware how much has already been gained. In little more than twenty years preceding the commencement of our efforts, the wars of Christendom are supposed to have wasted more than $30,000,000,000, and sacrificed no less than nine millions of lives; but its general peace has been preserved since 1815 by the various agencies and influ- ences which constitute the cause of peace. The sentiments of the civilized world on this subject are very different now from what they were fifty years ago; and difficulties, which would then have involved nations in conflict, have frequently been settled with scarce a thought of shedding each other's blood for the purpose: Leading cabinets have become far more pacific than formerly ; their services have generously been tendered, in a variety of instances, to avert the threatened horrors of war ; and other expedients than a resort to the sword for the adjustment of international difficulties, are fast coming to form the established policy of Christendom. Let this process continue fifty years longer, and it will be well-nigh impossible to involve civilized nations in war. ' II. The sole object of the peace cause. — All the social relations of mankind may be reduced to three classes; — the relation of individuals to one another; the relation of individuals to society, of citizens to govern- ment; and the relation of one society or government to another. The principles of peace are applicable to all these relations; but the cause of peace is concerned only with the intercourse of governments^ and aims merely to prevent war between nations. Nor is such a restriction peculiar ; for it forms the very basis of united action among the friends of temperance. The principles of that reform are applicable to all kinds of drink and food ; but, in the cause of temperance, they are restricted to the use of alcoholic or intoxicating liquors. Its friends may, each for himself, extend it^ THE CAUSE OF PEACE. 3 principles as far as they please ; but the cause itself does not meddle with tea or coffee, tobacco, or opium, or ani- mal food. It may be said, for it has been, that its principles, if carried out, would lead to the utter exclusion of such articles ; but for such a conclusion, whether right or wrong, the friends of temperance do not, in their associated capacity, make themselves responsible. They go merely for the prevention of drunkenness ; and, however extensive or important may be the legitimate application of their principles, their cause is concerned with applying them solely to the use of such drinks as will intoxicate. It is thus with the cause of peace. However extensive- ly applicable its principles may be, we aim, as a society of peacemakers, at the application of them only to the con- duct of one nation towards another, and shall accomplish our whole object by persuading them to regulate their intercourse on the pacific principles of the gospel. If it be said, that wars can never cease so long as capital punishments disgrace the statute-books of Christendom, and strife continues among individuals, families, and churches, we reply, that tea, and coffee, and tobacco, and theatres, and gaming-houses, are all so many incentives to intemperance, yet no one deems it any part of the temperance cause to meddle with such things. This singleness of aim excludes a variety of objects which have sometimes been attributed to the cause of peace. If our only province is the intercourse of nations, and our sole object the prevention of international wars, then we have, as friends of peace, nothing to do with capital punishments, or the right of personal self-defence, or the question of discarding all physical force from the government of states, schools, and families. We go mere- ly against war ; and war is " a contest by force between nations." It is not only conflict unto death, but conflict between governments alone ; and neither a parent or teacher chastising his child or his pupil, nor a father defending his family against the midnight assassin, nor a traveller resisting the highway robber, nor a ruler inflict- ing the penalties of law upon a criminal, can properly be called war, both because in most of these cases there is really no conflict, and because the parties in them all are either individuals, or government and individuals, not nations alone. The cause of peace is not encumbered with such cases, but confines itself to the single object of abolishing the custom of international war. 4 THE CAUSE OP PEACE. III. Common principles, or basis of union among THE friends of PEACE. — If perfcct identity of views were necessary to concert of action, there could be no such concert in any cause. Such identity does not exist in the cause of temperance or anti-slavery, of Bibles, tracts, or education, in any enterprise of benevolence or reform. There is all the similarity of views requisite to union of efforts ; and it would be easy to find among the friends of peace, a platform of common principles suffi- ciently broad for them all to stand upon, and work together in consistent, harmonious, effective cooperation. 1, We all regard war as a mass of evils; as one of the worst scourges, if not the very worst, that ever smote our world ; as extremely pernicious in all its appropriate influences on the temporal and the spiritual interests of mankind. — 2. We hold war to be morally wrong; wrong in its origin, in its principles, in its motives, in its means, and all its legitimate results ; as a crying offence against God, and the chief sin of all ages and climes. The whole war-system we regard as a tissue of folly, guilt, and mischief. — 3. We all think war impossible without deep criminality on one side, if not on both, and sure in its progress to involve both parties in a series of the worst crimes ; for every war, however begun, is prosecuted on each side with essentially the same feelings, and by the very same deeds, — 4. We agree in our views concerning the moral character of nearly all the wars that have ever occurred. We unite in condemning every war of pride or jealousy, of avarice or ambition, of revenge, prevention, or redress ; and few, if any other wars can be found on the pages of secular history. — 5. Even wars called defensive, not a few of us regard as in all cases contrary to the gospel,' and none of us allow them except as a last *esort for the preservation of life ; for, if any other expedient, any amount of injury short of our o\vn destruc- tion, will suffice, the lowest views of peace would not justify a resort to the sword. — 6. We think, also, that nations ought, like individuals, to regulate their intercourse by the gospel ; and we have only to ascertain and apply its principles. — 7. Such an application of the gospel to international intercourse constitutes the sum of all the means we would employ in tlie cause of peace. — 8. We believe, too, that war can be banished entirely from Christian nations : but we think specific means indispensa- ble for the purpose, and the use of them incumbent on all THE CAUSE OF PEACE. 6 the inliabitailts of Christendom, especially on the professed disciples of the Prince of Peace. We differ, then, only on a single point of this great cause — the moral character of wars strictly defensive. Even this difference is mainly theoretical ; for we unite in condemning most of the wars called defensive, and can find very few that any friend of peace would attempt to justify. We may disagree concerning the strict inviola- bility of human life, on the subject of capital punishments, respecting the right of the magistrate to use the sword in suppressing mobs and insurrections ; but these points form no part of our cause, and it is no more responsible for the views of its friends concerning them, than the cause of temperance is for the religious or political creed of its supporters. We are concerned solely with the intercourse of one government with another ; and these questions be- long not to the cause of peace, but to the internal opera- tions of government, to its treatment of its own subjects. IV. Sphere and mode of action. — Christendom is our only field. Our efforts are restricted to countries blest with the light of revelation, and our hopes will be fully realized, when wars shall cease wherever Christianity pre- vails. All our means for the accomplishment of this object are included in a right application of the gospel to the inter- course of nations. But communities are composed of individuals ; and the pacific influences of the gospel must be brought to bear first upon individuals, in rectifying their views on this subject, and in forming such a public senti- ment as shall discard the war-system, and introduce pacific expedients for the adjustment of all international disputes. Public opinion is the grand instrument ; it does more to control Christendom than all her bayonets ; and, could it through the civilized world be arrayed against this custom as it is now in New England against the kindred practice of duelling, rulers would soon find means enough to settle their differences without the sword. We would take the best measures thus to change the war-sentiments of mankind ; but we decline, for many reasons, the use of tests and pledges for this purpose. 1. The pulpit we would place in the van of our auxiliaries; for it is in the power of ministers alone to revolutionize on this subject the views of all Christendom. To this duty we urge them by the strongest motives ; for the living 6 THE CAUSE OF PEACE. voice is needed to waken inquiry, and preparS tlie way for all our other instrumentalities. — 2. Tlie press, an engine of vast moral power, we would set and keep at work until, through books, and pamphlets, and tracts, and newspaperH, and every class of periodicals, it shall speak in the ear of all reading communities on this subject. — 3. We would especially enlist churches of every name. We regard them as societies appointed by God himself for the uni- versal spread of peace ; and they should all examine this subject till their views are settled, and then let the world know what they think concerning the incompatibility of war with their religion. They should also train up all under their care in the principles of peace, pray much for its universal prevalence, and hold forth before the whole world the light of their own consistent example. Let them do only these things, and war would soon cease from Christendom forever. — 4. We would also solicit the aid Of pious parents, of teachers in Sabbath schools, and instructors in all Christian seminaries of learning. Here are the chief nurseries of peace; and in these must one day be trained up a generation of such peacemakers as shall spontaneously keep the peace of the world. — 5. Still more do we rely on women. They mould the ch-iracter of the young ; and, if they will infuse the principles of peace into every mind under their care, wars must of necessity cease with the very next generation. — G. The formation of peace societies we do not urge ; but, wherever is found a degree of intelligence and interest sufficient to sustain them well, we would encourage a simple organization. We insist on the necessity of means. God accomplishes no ends without them ; and the means of his own appoint- ment are just as necessary for the spread of peace as for the conversion of the world. Only such means we aim to use ; and we would fain keep at work in this cause a system of operations very like those in the temperance reform. Agents, and tracts, and periodicals, and other instrumentalities, must be employed on a large scale ; and these \yill require, not so much money as the leading enterprises of Christian benevolence, but far more than most persons suppose. It would cost some $5,000 to put a smgle tract, at one cent apiece, in every family of New England alone, and about $30,000 for the whole country, besides a still larger sum to sustain such other instru- mentalities as the cause demands. These funds raust THE CAUSE OF PEACE. 7 come, if at all, from the professed friends of peace ; and the Christian community ought to form plans and habits of regularly contributing to this cause, as to kindred enterprises of benevolence and reform. V. Possibility of abolishing war. — Our argument here is short. No fault of individuals or communities is incorrigible under the means of God's appointment ; cus- toms very like war, such as knight-errantry and judicial combats, have already been done away ; certain kinds of war have actually been abolished, and even international war has lost some of its worst features, and undergone changes greater than would now suffice for its entire abolition ; a vast variety of causes are at work through the world, sufficient under God for its ultimate extinction ; and God has settled the question by promising an era when " nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither sliall they learn war any more." VI. Substitutes for war. — We would not leave nations without means of protection or redress ; and, in recommending pacific expedients, we propose not the sacrifice, but the greater security of their rights, just as the substitution of law, with its courts and prisons, in place of private revenge, has every where increased the security both of peison and property. There are better means for such ends than the sword. 1. Negotiation. Nations could, if they would, settle all their differences by amicable agreement among themselves ; and, should public opinion require them to do so, war would seldom, if ever, occur. — 2. Arbitration. When the parties become too much excited to adjust the matter themselves, they may refer it to an umpire mutually chosen ; and this expedient alone, if properly used, would prevent more than nine wars in ten. — 3. Mediation. When rulers withdraw from official intercourse, and think they must fight their quarrel out, a third power, friendly to both, may offer its services as mediator ; an expedient frequently tried of late, rarely without success, and sufficient, if employed in season, to prevent more than forty-nine wars out of fifty. Christen- dom is fast coming to adopt these substitutes as her settled policy, and would do so very soon, should the people universally demand it. — 4. But the perfection of expe- dients would be a congress of nations. Nor would such a tribunal be an entirely new experiment ; for its principle has been in occasional, successful operation for ages. It was adopted in the Amphictyonic Council of ancient 8 THE CAUSE or PEACE. Greece ; it has been at work, with well-nigh complete success, in the Confederacy of Switzerland, for more than five hundred years; and, in less than two centuries, there have been fifty congret^scs in Europe, all more or less on the principle of such a tribunal as we propose. The thing caw be done, and iuiU be, whenever the voice of Christen- dom shall demand it. VII. Testimonies to the cause of peace. — A dis- tinguished English missionary in India attributes to us '* the honor of inventing two of the most valuable institutions that ever blessed mankind, — the Peace Society, and the Tem- perance Society; and, if every American viewed thein as I do, he would join them both immediately." Dr. Reed, the well-known messenger from the churches of England, de- scribes the cause of peace as " a field of service worthy of the church, worthy of angels," and calls upon Christians to *' glorify their religion by banding together as an army of pacificators." Ecclesiastical bodies, representing nearly every Christian denomination in our country, have borne their testimony to this cause, — Congregational ists, both Unitarian and Orthodox, Baptists, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, Methodists, Free-will Baptists, and Christians. They " commend this cause to the Christian community as worthy of a place among the benevolent enterpri^^es of tlie age," and regjird " the American Peace Society as eminently entitled to the cordial cooperation and support of all the churches of Christ." They deem it " the duty of ministers to preach in favor of the cause of peace, as a prominent part of the gospel, and of Christians to pray for the spread of peace through the world." They think, idso, " that the subject of peace, being in its strictly evangelical principles and bearings a part of the gospel, ought to be discussed in the pulpit on the Sabbath, just like the other principles of the Bible ;" and that ** minis- ters should continue to preach, Christians to pray, and all to contribute in favor of universal and permanent peace." Disciple of Jesus ! what will you do ? Will you correct your own views and feelings? Will you try to rectify those of all the persons under your care or influence 1 Will you pray? Will you contribute? Will you do a// you ran 1 ♦♦ Blessed are the peacemakers ; for they shall be called the children of God." AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. n. SKETCH OF WAR: WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT DOES. Few among us know much about the evils of war. Have you ever visited its camps and fleets, or witnessed its sieges and battles ? Have you followed the march of its armies, or looked in upon the anguish of its hospitals ? Have you seen its nameless vices, its savage barbarities, its countless hardships, dangers, and sufferings ? Did you ever behold it firing villages, and sacking cities, and desolating province after province, and butchering men, women, and children, by thousands 1 If not, you know little of wax ; and we wish to furnish you with a brief sketch of its nature and effects. I. Mark, then, the waste of property by war. It not only demands for its support vast sums of money, but dries up the main sources of a nation's wealth. Its victims are mostly men in the vigor of life. It cripples almost every species of business. It cuts the sinews of enterprise in every department of gainful industry. Fields lie untilled ; factories stand still ; the shop and the counting-room are deserted ; vessels rot at the wharves ; every kind of trade is interrupted or deranged ; immense masses of capital are withdrawn from use ; the entire energies of a nation are turned into the channel of war, and its resources whelmed in this mighty vortex of ruin. Look at the loss occasioned in the single department of commerce. This main source of wealth war dries up, and exposes to capture an incalculable amount of property on the ocean. Our exports and imports now (1836) exceed two hundred millions of dollars every year ; and one half of all this, besides a great variety of products interchanged along our coast, would be liable in war to be seized by the enemy. The imports in the single city of New York amounted, during one quarter of 1835, to thirty-six millions of dollars ; and a war suddenly occurring would probably have found afloat on the ocean more than twice that amount destined to the same port, and one or two hundred millions belonging to the whole nation. The commissioners ap- pointed to adjust the demands of British merchants for property destroyed by Denmark alone during the late wars 2 A SKETCH OF WAR I of Europe, received claims to tlie amount of about twenty- five hundred millions of dollars ! Such estimates as these would prove that the direct expenses of war, though im- mense, are a mere fraction, rarely more than a fourth part, of the sum total which it wastes. But look at the enormous expenditures of war. Those of our last war have been variously estimated ; but they could not have been less than ybr^y or fifty millions of dol- lars every year. Our revolutionary war cost England six hundred millions of dollars ; and in the wars occasioned by the French revolution, she spent more than five THOUSAND MILLIONS ! The public debt of Great Britain, incurred solely by war, is even now about ybwr thousand millions of dollars ; and that of all Europe amounts to nearly eight thousand millions ! The wars of Christendom during only twenty-two years cost merely for their support not much less than fifteen thousand millions of dol- lars ! Quadruple these sums by the indirect and inci- dental losses of war, and we shall have an amount that would almost tempt us to suspect figures themselves of falsehood, and facts of deception — a sum so vast that the bare interest upon it would be more than enough to defray the necessary expenses of governing every nation on earth, to furnish every family in the world with a Bible, to provide the means of common education for all its children, and to support one minister of the gospel for every thousand souls. Seldom do the people inquire or imagine how much our own Republic spends for the war-system even in a time of peace. In 18'27, our expenditures for war were about nine times as much as for all other purposes. In 1832, we expended for civil offices $1,800,758; for intercourse with other nations, $325,181 ; for miscellaneous objects, $2,451,203; for the military establishment, $5,446,035; for the naval service, $3,956,320 ; for revolutionary pen- sions, $1,057,121 ; for various other pensions, $127,301 ; for the Indian department, $1,352,420; for the national debt, $17,840,309; more than thirty millions and a half in one form or another, for war ; seventeen times as much as for the whole civil list^ and about ten times as much as for all the other purposes of our government. From 1791 to 18:12, the aggregate of our expenditures, with less than three years of actual warfare, was $842,250,691 ; and merely 37,158,047, a twenty-third part of the whole, were for the civil list, almost the only department that would be necessary, if the war-system were entirely abolished WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT DOES. 3 II. But reflect on the loss of life by war. The bat- tle-field will by no means tell us the whole number of its victims. Cruel treatment, bad provisions, unhealthy en- campments, forced marches, frequent exposures to extremes of heat and cold without shelter, and fatal diseases genera- ted by such causes, destroy vastly more than the sword. Often has a single march cut off" more than half of an army. The hardships of war shorten from ten to twenty years the life of those who escape the sword, and thus occasion an immense loss that is never reckoned in the usual estimates of its havoc. But how vast the multitude of its immediate victims ! At Borodino there perished in one day 80,000 ; and in the siege of Mexico more than 100,000 in battle, and more than 50,000 from the infection of putrefying carcasses. The Moors of Spain lost in one engagement with Chris- tians 70,000, and in another 180,000, besides 50,000 prisoners. In the battle of Chalons there fell 300,000 of Attila's army alone; in ancient times it was no very un- common slaughter for one or two hundred thousand to be left dead on a single field ; and the Old Testament records an instance where one side lost 500,000.* We shudder at the thought of Alexander's sacrificing three millions of lives; but his successors occasioned the destruction of twenty millions^ the Saracens, sixty millions, and the cru- sades alone, forty millions of nominal Christians ! ! III. Glance, now, at some of the personal sufferings incident fo^war. Think of the violence practised in pro- curing seamen and soldiers. Where the war-spirit is pre- dominant, they are forced into the army and navy at the pleasure of their rulers, and doomed to all the hardships, perils, and sufferings of war, with little or no hope of re- lease till death. Do you know how soldiers are generally treated? They are subjected to the most iron-hearted despo- tism on earth, to a bondage far worse than that of a Turkish peasant, or a domestic slave. They are at the mercy of every superior, from the commander-in-chief down to the pettiest officer. They have little or no protection against hourly abuse, insult, and violence, nor any adequate secu- rity for life itself against the lawless passions of officers seldom called to account in war for the worst treatment of soldiers. Their punishment is still more barbarous. ' Sail- orst are subject,' says a well-known writer, ' not only to a torrent of imprecations and curses, but to the boatswain's * 2 Chron. xiii. 3—17. 4 A SKETCH OF WAR: cat-o'-nine-tails. The least complaint brings them to tlie gangway ; and sometimes a sailor is sentenced to receive five hundred, and even a thousand lashes, to be inflicted day after day, as he may be able to bear them. He is at- tended at each whipping by a surgeon, who determines how much can be inflicted at once without immediate danger to life! Often does the flagellation proceed till the victim faints ; and then he is respited, to renew his sufferings an- other day. I have often shuddered at the recital of whip- pings through the fleet, the keel-hauling, the spread-eagle, the gagging, the hand-cuffing, and other punishments in- flicted on sailors who have been trepanned or forced into a service from which death is the only release.' The pun- ishment of soldiers is equally cruel and shocking with that of seamen ; but we will not describe flogging, the gaunt- lope, the picket, the wooden-horse, and other forms of pun- ishment, the very thought of which is enough to make one's blood boil with indignation, or curdle with horror. • One instance, however, we will select from our own land. In 1814, a soldier was shot at Greenbush, New York, for going thirty or forty miles from the camp, without leave, to visit his wife and three small children. After the usual pre- liminaries in such cases, his coffin, a box of rough pine boards, was borne before him on the shoulders of two men to the place of execution. He wore, as a winding-sheet, a white cotton gown, having over the place of his heart the black image of a heart, as a mark for the executioners to aim at. His countenance was as pale as his winding-sheet, and his whole frame trembled with agony. Hi^ grave was dug, the coffin placed by its side, and the deserter, with a cap drawn over his eyes, required to kneel upon the lid. At this signal, the eight soldiers, drawn by lot for the bloody deed, stepped forward within two rods of their victim; and, at another signal from the officer, all fired at the same instant The miserable man, with a horrid scream, leaped from the earth, and fell between his coffin and his grave. The sergeant, to insure immediate death, shot him through the head, holding his musket so near that the cap took fire ; and there the body lay, with the head sending forth the mingled fumes of burning cotton and hair. The soldiers, after passing close by the corpse in a line to let every one see for himself the fate of a deserter, marched back to the merry notes of Yankee Doodle ! and all the officers were imnediately invited to the quarters of the commander, and tretted with grog ! ! WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT DOES. p Imagine the sufferings incident to marches. Trace the French army in the Russian campaign. On halting at night, the soldiers threw themselves down on the first dirty straw they couM find, and there perished in large numbers with hunger and fatigue. From such sufferings, and from the infection of the air by putrefied carcasses of men and horses that strewed the roads, there sprang two dreadful epidemics, the dysentery and typhus fever. So fatal were these combined causes, that of 22,000 Bavarians, only 11,000 reached the Duna, though they had been in no ac- tion ; and the flower of both the French and the allied armies perished. A division of the Russian army, amount- ing, at the commencement of the pursuit of the French, to 1^,000 men, could not, on the frontier of the Duchy of Warsaw, muster 35,000 ; and a re-enforcement of 10,000, that had marched from Wilna, arrived with only 1500, of whom one half were the next day in the hospitals. Some battalions retained less than fifty men, and many companies were utterly annihilated ! The march of the French both to and from Moscow, was horrible beyond description. * Overwhelmed with whirlwinds of snow,' says Labaume, ' the soldiers could not distinguish the road from the ditches, and often fell into the latter, which served them for a tomb. Other;S, eager to press forv/ard, dragged themselves along. Badly clothed and shod, having nothing to eat or drink, groaning and shivering whh the cold, they gave no assistance, and showed no signs of compassion to those who, sinking from weakness, expired around them. Many of these miserable creatures struggled hard in the agonies of death. Some, in the most affecting manner, bade adieu to their brethren in arms, and others with their last breath pronounced the name of their mother and their country. Stretched on the road, we could only see the heaps of snow that covered them, and formed undulations in our route like those in a grave-yard. Flocks of ravens flew over our heads croak- ing ominously ; and troops of dogs, which had followed us all the way from Moscow, and lived solely on our bloody remains, howled around us, as if impatient for the moment when we should become their prey, and often contended with the soldiers for the dead horses which were left; on the road.' * Every day furnished scenes too painful to relate. The road was covered with soldiers who no longer retained the 2 A* 6 A SKETCH OF WAR : human form. Some had lost their hearing, others their speech ; and many, by excessive cold and hunger, were re- duced to such a state of stupid frenzy, that they roasted the dead bodies for food, and even gnawed their own hands and arms. Some, too weak to lift a piece of wood, or roll a stone towards the fire, sat down upon their dead compan- ions, and gazed with countenances unmoved upon the burn- ing logs. These livid spectres, unable to get up, fell by the side of those on whom they had been seated. Many, in a state of delirium, plunged their bare feet into the fire to warm themselves ; some, with convulsive laughter, threw themselves into the flames, and, with shocking cries, per- ished in most horrible contortions; others, in a state of equal madness, followed their example, and shared the same fate ; while many were so maddened by the extremes of pain and hunger, that they tore the dead bodies of their comrades into pieces, and feasted on the remains.' * The soldiers often fired in the morning the buildings in which they had lodged during the night ; and on one occa- sion there were three large barns filled chiefly with wounded soldiers. From two of these they could not escape without passing through the one in front, which was on fire. The most active saved themselves by leaping out of the windows ; but all those who were sick or crippled, not having strength to move, saw the flames advancing rapidly to devour them. Touched by their shrieks, some of the least hardened en- deavored in vain to save them. We coiild see them half- buried under the burning rafters. Through whirlwinds of smoke, they entreated their comrades to shorten their suf- ferings by putting them to death ; and from motives of hu- manity we thought it our duty to do so ! But some still survived; and we heard them with feeble voices crying, *' Mre on us! Jire on us! at the head! at the head! don't miss ! " The sufferings of the wounded left after battle on the open field, or crowded into hospitals, are shocking. Fifty days after the battle of Borodino, no less than 20,000 of the slain were found lying where they had fallen ; and the whole plain was strewed with half-buried carcasses of men and horses, intermingled with garments dyed in blood, and with bones gnawed by dogs and vultures, * As we were marching over the scene of the battle,' says Labaume, * we heard a piteous sound at a distance ; and, on reach- ing the spot, we found a French soldier stretched on the WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT DOES. 7 ground, with both his legs broken. " I was wounded," said he, " on the day of the great battle ; and finding myself in a lonely place, where I could gain no assistance, 1 dragged myself with my hands to the brink of a rivulet, and have lived nearly two months on grass and roots, arid a few pieces of bread which I found among the dead bodies. At night I have lain in the carcasses of dead horses ; and with the flesh of-these animals I have dressed my wounds." ' Even a hospital is scarcely less terrible. An eminent surgeon, present in the hospitals after the battle of \V ater- loo, says, * The wounded French continued to be brought in for several successive days ; and the British soldiers, who had in the morning been moved by the piteous cries of those they carried, I saw in the evening so hardened by the repetition of the scene, and by fatigue, as to become indifferent to the sufferings they occasioned ! ' ' It was now the thirteenth day after the battle. It is impossible to conceive the sufferings of men rudely carried at such a period of their wounds. When I first entered the hospital, these Frenchmen had been roused and excited in an extraordinary degree ; and in the glance of their eyes there was a character of fierceness which I never ex- pected to witness in the human countenance. On the second day, the temporary excitement had subsided ; and turn which way I would, I encountered every form of en- treaty from those whose condition left no need of words to stir compassion: Surgeon Major ^ oh! how I suffer ! Dress my wounds ! do dress my wounds ! — Doctor, I commend myself to you. Cut off my leg! Oh! I suffer too much! And when these entreaties were unavailing, you might hear, in a weak, inward tone of despair, I shall die ! I am a dead man ! ' In the hospitals of Wilna there were left more than 17,000 dead and dying, frozen and freezing. The bodies of the former were taken up to stop the cavities in the windows, floors, and walls ; and in one corridor of the Great Convent, above 1500 were piled up transversely like pigs of lead or iron ! ! An army after its capture is often doomed to every variety of suffering. A French army in Spain had no sooner grounded their arms, than multitudes were murdered in cold blood. Some were burnt alive, and all the survivors subjected to a series of such extreme privations and suf- ferings as thinned their ranks with fearful rapidity. * Fa- 8 A SKETCfi OF WAR : tigue and insufficient provision,' says one of the victims, * rendered many incapable of rising after a night's halt, to renew their march, and dawn exhibited to us the stiffened limbs of numbers whom death had released from their troubles. The survivors were so gaunt and emaciated, that a poor fellow would sometimes drop to the earth in the ex- tremity of weariness and despair. No effort was made to assist these sufferers ; but they were either left behind to perish, or bayoneted on the spot. On our arrival at St. Lucar, we were thrown, some of us into prison-ships, and others into stinking casements. Here the extremity of our anguish exceeded all powers of description. With scarce strength enough to crawl to our detestable dungeons, many of us reached them only to lie down, and die broken- hearted ; and the fare was so wretched as to be refused in many cases by men fainting with weariness, and famished with hunger. We were not only crowded together like cattle amidst vermin and pestilential eflBuvia, but treated with such unrelenting severity, that many of my compan- ions sought refuge from their misery by plunging into the sea.' * When landed on the desolate island of Cabrera, we were exposed to every species of privation. Without shelter, or sufficient clothing, or a regular supply of food, we some- times resorted to grass and dust to answer the wants of na- ture." A great many died; and we buried them immedi- ately in the sea under the horrible apprehension that, should their bodies remain before us, the savage longings of the cannibal would rise in our hearts. A cuirassier was in fact killed for food by a Pole, who was discovered and shot. He confessed he had before done the same by two other comrades.' As the French army on their march to Moscow approach- ed Rouza, * we met,' says one of them, ' a great number of carts brought back by the cavalry, loaded with children, the aged, and the infirm. In our advance to the centre of the town, we found soldiers pillaging the houses, regardless of the cries of those to whom they belonged, or the tears of mothers, who, to soften their hearts, showed them their children on their knees. Those innocents, with their hands clasped, and all bathed in tears, asked only that their lives might be spared. In another instance we saw, on one side, a son carrying a sick father, and on the other, women pour- ing the torrent of their tears upon the infants whom they WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT DOES. 9 clasped to their bosoms. They were followed by most of their children, who, fearful of being lost, ran crying after their mothers. Old men, seldom able to follow their fami- , lies, laid themselves down to die near the houses where they V were born. On our return from Moscow, we overtook*; crowds carrying off their infirm parents. Their horses hav- ing been taken from them by the troops, men, and even women, were harnessed to the carts which contained the wrecks of their property, and the dearest objects of their affection. The children were nearly naked, and as the soldiers approached them, ran crying to throw themselves into their mothers' arms.' Still worse was the capture of Magdeburg, as related by 5 Schiller in his history of the 'thirty years' war.' Exasper- ' ated by its long resistance, the commander of the besieging army, on entering it, abandoned the city to the unrestrained rage and lust of his soldiers ; and * a scene of horror ensued which history has no language, poetry no pencil, to portray. Neither the innocence of childhood, nor the helplessness of old age, neither rank, sex, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors. Wives were dishonored in the ' arms of their husbands, and daughters at the feet of their parents ! Nothing could afford any protection. Fifly-three women were found beheaded in a single church ! Some of the soldiers amused themselves with throwing children into the flames, and others with stabbing infants at their moth- ers' breasts ! ! Heaps of dead bodies strewed the ground ; streams of blood ran along the streets ; and the city being fired at once in several places, the atmosphere soon glowed with such intolerable heat as compelled even the soldiers themselves to seek refuge in their camps. More than Jive thousand bodies were thrown into the river to dear the streets; there perished in all not less than thirty thousand; Magdeburg, one of the finest cities in Germany, was a heap of ashes ; and the next day some of the few survivors were seen crawling out from under the dead, children wandering about with heart-rending cries in search of their parents, and infants still sucking the dead bodies of their mothers ! ' In gratitude to the God of Peace ! for success in this work of blood and desolation, * a solemn mass was per- formed the next day, and Te Deum sung amidst the dis- charge of artillery ! ! ' Do facts like these give an exaggerated view of war ? No ; they will hardly enable us adequately to conceive even 2* 10 A SKETCH OF WAR: its ordinary atrocities and horrors. Such evils are not merely incidental to war ; they are inseparable from any of its forms, and constitute its grand, essential elements. They are a part of the system. Misery is its object, or its means ; and war, without a fearful waste of property, life, and happiness, is an utter impossibility. Its whole business is to plunder, and burn, and butcher by wholesale ; and to talk of a war that did not perpetrate such atrocities,and inflict such miseries, would be as direct a contradiction in terms as to speak of vision without light, or of fire without heat. Can you estimate the guilt, the folly, the madness of em- ploying such an arbiter of international disputes as war? Burn villages, demolish cities, lay waste empires, send hundreds of thousands into an untimely grave, into a ru- ined eternity, all for the settlement of difficulties which can be adjusted only by an appeal to reason ! What should we think of two neighbors who should propose to settle a point in dispute, not by reasoning the case between them- selves, nor by referring it to an impartial jury, or to um- pires mutually chosen, but by shooting at each other, and butchering each others' wives and children 1 Yet such is the war-system still supported by all Christendom ; and, if the stealer of a horse or a coat deserves a prison, and the pirate who destroys but one vessel, or the assassin who murders a single victim, is deemed worthy of the gallows, what must be the criminality of nations in continuing a custom which multiplies such crimes and woes by thousands and by million"*! On whom do the evils of war fall ? Are its guilty abettors the men that pay its expenses, bear its hardships, and suffer its countless woes? No; these come upon the people. It is their earnings that are wasted, their blood that is poured out like water, their dwellings that are burnt to ashes, their fathers and brothers, husbands and sons, that are driven away like cattle to be butchered by thousands ; while the authors of all these evils, sitting aloof from the storm upon their sofas of ease and luxury, read without a sigh of the miseries they have themselves occasioned. How lonjr will the prnplr, bear such cold-blooded oppression ? Tell us not th;it war is a necessary evil. Necessary for whom ? For civilized, Christian men like ourselves? Are wc unwilling to regulate our intercourse, or settle our dis- putes, without bloodshed ? Why is war necessary ? Merely because nations choose it ; just as intemperance is neces- sary to the drunkard, piracy to the pirate, and duelling to WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT DOES. 11 the duellist. There is no other kind of necessity for war ; and it must cease of course whenever men shall resolve to have it cease. There is no more need of war in Christen- dom than there is of duels in New England; it would be just as easy for nations, if they chose, to settle all their disputes without the sword and the cannon, as it is for us to adjust ours without pistols and daggers. But do you deem it impossible thus to change the war- choice even of Christendom 1 Human nature is as corri- gible on this subject as upon any other ; there is nothing to render the extinction of this custom impossible by the right use of the requisite means ; and the promises of God make its ultimate abolition perfectly certain. * It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow unto it ; and then shall they beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into prun- ing-hooks ; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' Isa. 2 : 2-4, 9:4-9. Mic. 4:1-4. But how is this promise to be fulfilled ? By miracle ? We can expect no more miracles. By some unparalleled interposition of Providence ? God has promised no such interposition. Without the use of appropriate means? Such means are just as indispensable for the prevalence of peace as for the spread of the gospel. % But what are these means ? Such an application of the gospel to the subject as shall revolutionize the war-senti- ments of Christendom, fill every Christian community with deep abhorrence of this custom, and lead rulers to employ only pacific expedients in settling international disputes. And who shall use the^e means ? We cannot rely on men of the ^cvoridj-except as occasional coadjutors ; it is the ap- propriate work of Christians ; and they must do it, or it never will be done. But how shall they do it? Is it enough for them merely to support and to prop^ate the present form of their religion ? It has for ages tolerated the war-system, and suffered Christendom to remain a vast hot-bed of war. Will such a religion, if spread through the world, put an end to war ? No sooner than a rum- drinking and a slave-holding Christianity would put an end to intemperance and slavery. The gospel will abolish nothing which it sanctions and supports ; and, if men are not converted to peace, as fast as they are to God, such a conversion of the whole world could not insure the univer- 13 A SKETCH OF WAR. sal and permanent reign of peace. We must restore the pacific principles of the gospel, and incorporate them once more, where Christ and his apostles left them, in the faith and character of his disciples as a body, before the spread of Christianity will insure the abolition of war. The gospel is a sovereign remedy for all the moral maladies of our world ; but it must be applied to war, before it can cure this deep and deadly gangrene of our race. It has not been applied for fifteen centuries; and so long as Chris- tians persist in this neglect, we cannot expect to see peace coextensive with Christianity. But do you ask what specific things must be done? Let every man cease from lending his countenance to the war-system in any way or degree, and every possible means be used to render it deeply and universally odious. Let every Christian examine the subject till his own views, feelings, and habits, are cast in the pacific mould of the gospel. Let the pulpit and the press proclaim, with trumpet-tongue, the folly, guilt, and horrors of war before every Christian community on earth. Let instructors in all Christian seminaries of learning, from the highest to the lowest, infuse the pacific principles of the gospel into the forming minds under their care. Let teachers in every Sabbath-school through the world do the same to their pupils. Let every parent train his children to a love of peape, and a deep, unmingled abhorrence of war. Let all classes, high and low, old and young, male and female, unite to bring this custom into general contempt and exe- cration, as a mass of folly, sin, and misery. Such a process would soon bring war in Christendom to a perpetuaJ end. How* much longer, then, will the friends of God and man slumber over this subject? Will they never open their eyes to the abominations and miseries of war, and combine their efforts to sweep it from every land blest with the light of revelation ? Can they still lend their countenance to such a wholesale destroyer of prop- erty, and fife, and virtue, and religion, and unmortal souls? Disciples of Jesus, we leave these questions on your con- science before the God of peace. Have you done what you could ? Are you now doing all that you can ? If not, will you keep hold of the subject till you learn and do your whole duty as a follower of the Prince of peace ? AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. III. TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR Wars come solely because men choose to have them ; and, could we change the choice of the world on this subject, the custom would soon die of itself. Men can put an end to it whenever they please ; and we wish so far to revolutionize the war-sentiments of mankind that they will no longer tolerate this terrible scourge. It has always resulted from a public opinion grossly perverted ; this opinion in favor of war must be radically changed, before peace can become permanent or general ; and, among other means adapted to produce such a change, we wish, as the friends of temperance have done in their cause, to show you how men the most distinguished in all ages for their learning, wisdom, and virtues, have regarded the custom of war. EMINENT PAGANS. We could not expect the heathen to denounce a custom so emphatically their own ; yet we find the wisest and best of them reprobating it in the strongest terms. Minutius calls it " the part of a wild beast, not of man, to inquire how bite may be returned for bite, and evil for evil." Cicero speaks of war, " contention by violence, as belong- ing to the brutes,'^ and complains bitterly of its effects on liberal arts, and peaceful pursuits. " All our noble studies, all our reputation at the bar, all our professional assiduities, are stricken from ou*r hands as soon as the alarm of war is sound*;d. Wisdom itself, the mistress of affairs, is driven from the field. Force bears sway. The statesman is despised ; the grim soldier alone is caressed. Legal pro- ceedinr^s cease. Claims are asserted and prosecuted, not according to law, but by force of arms." Skneca, the great moralist of antiquity, is still more strong in his condemnation of war. '' How are we to treat our fellow-creatures? Shall we not spare the effusion of blood ] How small a matter not to hurt him whom we are A 2 TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. bound by every obligation to do all tlie good in our power! — Some deeds, which are considered as villanous while capable of being prevented, become honorable and glorious when they rise above the control of law. The very things which, if men had done them in tlieir private capacity, they would expiate with their lives, we extol when perpe- trated in regimentals at the bidding of a general. We punish murders and massacres committed among private persons; but what do we with wars, the glorious crime of murdering whole nations? Here avarice and cruelty know no bounds ; enormities forbidden in private persons, are actually enjoined by legislatures, and every species of barbarity authorized by decrees of the senate, and votes of the people." WARRIORS. The testimony of a warrior against his own profession is like the concessions of an enemy, or the confession of a criminal ; but still we have heard a general of our own calling ** a battle a hell," and Napoleon himself, in mo- ments of chagrin and serious reflection, denouncing war as " the business of barbarians." Sir Walter Raleigh, a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier, declares " there is no profession more unpropitious than that of warriors. Besides the envy and jealousy of men, the spoils, rapes, famine, slaughter of the innocent, devastations and burnings, with a world of miseries laid on the laboring man, they are so hateful to God, as with good reason did Monluc, the Marshal of France, confess, * that, were not the mercies of God infinite, it were in vain for those of his profession to hope for any portion of them, seeing the cruelties by them permitted and perpetrated are also infinite.' " The Buonaparte family was a nursery of warriors ; yet from Louis Buonaparte we have, after years of experience and reflection, this indignant testimony against war : " I have been as enthusiastic and joyful as any one else after victory ; still I confess that even then the sight of a field of battle not only struck me with horror, but even turned me sick. And now that I am advanced in life, I cannot understand, any more than I could at fifteen years of age, how beings who call themselves reasonable, and who have so much foresight, can employ this short existence, not in loving and aiding each other, and passing through it as TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. 3 gently as possible, but in striving, on the contrary, to destroy each other, as though time did not do tjiis with sufficient rapidity. What I thought at fifteen years of age, I still think, that war, and the pain of death which society draws upon itself, are but organized barbarisms, an inherit- ance of the savage state, disguised or ornamented by ingenious institutions, and false eloquence." We might quote Wellington himself, the conqueror of Napoleon, deploring the evils of this custom, and express- ing his willingness, "even by the sacrifice of his life, to prevent one month of war in a country to which he was attached ; " but it is more refreshing to hear such a patriot- warrior as our own Washington " reflecting how much more delightful to an undebauched mind is the task of making improvements on the earth, than all the vain-glory which can be acquired from ravaging it by the most unin- terrupted career of conquests. How pitiful, in the eye of reason and religion, is that false ambition which desolates the world with fire and sword, compared to the milder vir- tues of making our fellow-men as happy as their frail condi- tions and perishable natures will permit them to be ! It is time for knight-errantry and m^d heroism to be at an end." Immediately after the battle of Germantown, Warner Mifflin, in behalf of the duakers, carried to the opposing generals, Washington and Howe, the testimony of his brethren against war ; and when Mifflin, after Washington was raised to the presidency of the United Ststes, visited him in New York, the President, having received him with much respect, said, ** Will you please, Mr. Mifflin, to inform me on what principles you were opposed to the Revolution ? " " Yes, Friend Washington ; on the same principle that I should now be opposed to any change in this government. All that rvcr was gained hy revolutions, is not an adequate compensation to the poor mangled soldier for the loss of life or liuih" — how much more truly he might have added, " for the loss of his soul, a gem of more value than all the kingdoms of this world." Washington, after some pause and reflection, replied, " Mr. Mifflin, I honor your sentiments ; there is more in them than man- kind have orenerallv considered." STATESMEN. Macchiavel himself denounces war as " a profession by which men cannot 'live honorably ; an employment by 4 TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is ohllffed to be false, and rapacious, and cruel. Nor can any man, who makes war his profession, be otherwise than vicious. Have you not a proverb, that war makes villainSy and peace brings them to the gallows ? " Lord Clarendon, illustrious in the annals of England, is very explicit in his denunciations of this custom. " Of all the punishments and judgments which the provoked anger of the divine providence can pour out upon a nation full of transgressions, there is none so terrible and destroy- ing as war. A whole city on fire is a spectacle replete with horror ; but a whole kingdom on fire must be a prospect much more terrible. And such is every kingdom in war, where nothing flourishes but rapine, blood and murder. We cannot make a more lively representation and emblem to ourselves of hell, than by the view of a kingdom in war." " They who allow no war to be lawful, have consulted both nature and religion much better than they who think it may be entered into to comply with the ambition, covet- ousness, or revenge of the greatest princes and monarchs upon earth ; as if God had inhibited only single murders, and left mankind to be massacred according to the humor and appetite of unjust and unreasonable men. It is no answer to say, that this universal suffering is the inevitable consequence of war, however warrantably soever entered into, but rather an argument that no war can warrantably be entered into. It may be, upon a strict survey and inquisition into the elements and injunctions of the Chris- tian religion, that no war will be found justifiable ; and, at all events, what can we think of most of those wars which for some hundreds of years have infested the world so much to the dishonor of Christianity, and in which the lives of more men have been lost than might have served to people all those parts of the earth which yet remain without inhabitants?" Necker, the great French financier, exclaims, *' With what impatience have I wished to discuss this subject, and to expatiate on the evils which always attend this terrible calamity ! War, alas! impedes the course of every useful plan, exhausts the sources of prosperity, and diverts the attention of governors from the happiness of nations. It even suspends, sometimes, every idea of justice and hu- manity ; and, instead of gentle and benevolent feelings, it substitutes hostility and hatred, the necessity of oppression, and the rage of desolation." TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. 6 *' In every situation where men are impelled by circum- stances, neither their first choice, nor their first impulse, is to be considered in this argument. We must study their sentiments in those moments when, distracted by a thou- sand excruciating pains, yet still lingering in existence, they are carried off in heaps from the fatal field where they have been mowed down by the enemy. We must study their sentiments in those noisome hospitals where they are crowded together, and where the sufferings they endure to preserve a languishing existence, too forcibly prove the value they set upon their lives, and the greatness of the sacrifice to which they had been exposed. We ought more especially to study their sentiments on board those ships on fire, in which there is but a moment between them and the most cruel death ; and on those ramparts where subterraneous explosion announces, that they are in an instant to be buried under a tremendous heap of stones and rubbish. But the earth has covered them, the sea has swallowed them up, and we think of them no more. What unfeeling survivors we are! While we walk over mutilated bodies, and shattered bones, we exult in the glory and honor of which we alone are the heirs." " This subject is immensely important to every nation. War multiplies the calamities of mankind. Several states are already converted, as it were, into a vast body of barracks ; and the successive augmentation of disciplined armies will be sure to increase taxes, fear and slavery in the same proportion." Thomas Jefferson both wrote and acted with great decision in favor of peace. '* I stand in awe," he says in 1798, " at the mighty conflict to which two great nations," (France and England,) " are advancing, and recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than force ? Are there no means of coercing injustice more gratifying to our nature than a waste of the blood of thousands, and of the labor of millions of our fellow-creatures ? — Won- derful has been the progress of human improvement in other respects. Let us then hope, that the law of nature will in time influence the proceedings of nations as well as of individuals, and that we shall at length be sensible, that war is an instrument entirely inefficient towards redressing wrongs and multiplies instead of indemnifying losses. Had the money which has been spent in the present war, been 3 A* 6 TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. eniployed in making roads, and constructing canals of nav- igation and irrigation through the country, not a hovel in the Jlighlands of Scotland, or the mountains of Auvergue, would have been without a boat at its door, a rill of water in every field, and a road to its market-town. Were we to go to war for redress of the wrongs we have suffered, we should only plunge deeper into loss, and disqualify our- selves for half a century more for attaining the same end. These truths are palpable, and must in the progress of time have their influence on the minds and conduct of nations." We might quote from a long list of English statesmen — Burke, Fox, Canning, McTntosh, and others ; but a single paragraph from a speech of Lord Brougham is all we have room to give. " My principles — I know not whether they agree with yours ; they may be derided, they may be un- fashionable ; but I hope they are spreading far and wide — my principles are contained in the words which that great man. Lord Faulkland, used to express in secret, and which I now express in public — Peace, Peace, PEACE. / abominate war as unchristian. I hold it to be the greatest of human crimes. I deem it to include all others — violence, blood, rapine, fraud, every thing which can deform the character, alter the nature, and debase the name of man.'' PHILOSOPHERS. We need not quote largely from philosophers ; but in the van of them all we will place the great philosopher of common sense, our own Franklin, a stanch opposer of the war-system. " If statesmen," says he, '* were more accus- tomed to calculation, wars would be much less frequent. Canada might have been purchased from France for a tenth part of the money England spent in the conquest of it ; and if, instead of fighting us for the power to tax us, she Iiad kept us in good humor by allowing us to dispose of our own money, and giving us now and then a little of her own by way of donation to colleges or hospitals, for cut- ting canals, or fortifying ports, she might easily have drawn from us much more by occasional voluntary grants and contributions, than ever she could by taxes. Sensible people will give a bucket or two of wiiter to a dry pump, in order to get from it afterwards all they want." *' After nmch occasion to consider the folly and mis- TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. ♦ chiefs of a state of warfare, and the little or no advantage obtained even by those nations which have conducted it with the most success, I have been apt to think there never has been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace. — All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. When will mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration 1 Were they to do it even by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other. — We daily make great improvements in natural philosophy; there is one I wish to see in moral — the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one another's throats," Benjamin Rush, a name dear to science and patriotism, philanthropy and religion, wrote with great force against war, and was the first to suggest the idea of associated efforts for its abolition. In a very ingenious essay, he proposed *' an office for promoting and preserving per- petual peace in our country," and recommended, among many other ' appropriate and horrific emblems of the war- office, that " there be in the lobby painted representations of all the common military instruments of death ; and also human skulls — broken bones — unburied and putrefying dead bodies — hospitals crowded with sick and wounded soldiers — villages on fire — mothers in besieged towns eating the flesh of their children — ships sinking in the ocean — rivers dyed with blood — and extensive plains without a tree, or fence, or any object but the ruins of deserted farm-houses. Above all this group of woful figures, let the following words be inserted in red charac- ters, to represent human blood — national glory ! ! " Jeremy Bentham, a peculiar but powerful mind, says, that " nothing can be worse than the general feeling on the subject of war. The church, the state, the ruling few, the subject many, all seem in this case to have combined to patronize vice and crime in their widest sphere of evil. Dress a man in particular garments, call him by a particu- lar name ; and he shall have authority, on divers occasions, to commit every species of offence — to pillage, to murder, to destroy human felicity ; and, for so doing, he shall be rewarded. The period will assuredly arrive, when better instructed generations will require all the evidence of history to credit, that in times deeming themselves en- lightened, human beings should have been honored with public approval in the very proportion of the misery thev 8 TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. caused, and the mischiefs they perpetrnted ; that men there were, men deemed worthy of popular recompense, who for some small pecuniary retribution, hired themselves out to do any deeds of pillage, devastation and murder, which might be demanded of them ; and that such men-destroyers were marked out as the eminent and illustrious, as the worthy of laurels and monuments, of eloquence and poetry." MEN OF LETTERS. Erasmus, the glory of his age, wrote against war with unrivalled beauty and force. " What infernal being, all- powerful in mischief, fills the bosom of man with such insatiable rage for war ! If familiarity with the sight had not destroyed all surprise at it, and custom blunted the sense of its evils, who could believe that those wretched beings are possessed of rational souls, who contend with all the rage of furies? Robbery, blood, butchery, desola- tion, confound without distinction every thing sacred and profane." " Behold with the mind's eye savage troops of men horrible in their very visage and voice ; men clad in steel, drawn upon every side in battle-array, and armed with weapons that are frightful in their clash and their very glitter. Mark the horrid murmur of the confused multi- tude, their threatening eyeballs, the harsh, jarring din of drums and clarions, the terrific sound of the trumpet, the thunder of cannon, a mad shout like the shrieks of bed- lamites, a furious onset, a cruel butchering of each other ! See the slaughtered and the slaughtering, heaps of dead bodies, fields flowing with blood, rivers reddened with human gore !" " I pass over, as comparatively trifling, the fields of grain trodden down ; peaceful cottages and rural mansions burnt to the ground ; villages and towns reduced to ashes ; innocent women violated ; old men dragged into captivity ; churches defaced and demolished ; every thing laid waste, a prey to robbery, plunder and violence. Nor will I mention the consequences of the justest and most fortunate war — the unoffending common people robbed of their little, hard-earned property ; the great laden with taxes ; old people bereaved of their children, more cruelly killed by the murder of their offsjiring than by the sword ; women far advanced in ajje, left destitute, and put to death in a worse form than if they had died at once bv the point TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. 9 of the bayonet; widowed mothers, orphan children, liouses of mourning, and once affluent families reduced to extreme penury." ** Do you detest robbery and pillage? These are among the duties of war. Do you shudder at the idea of murder ? To commit it with despatch, and by wholesale, constitutes the celebrated art of war. Do you regard debauchery, rapes, incest, and crimes of a dye still deeper tiian these, as foul disgraces to human nature 1 Depend upon it, vv;ir leads to all of them in their most aggravated atrocity. Is im- piety, or a total neglect of religion, the source of all villany ? Religion is always overwhelmed in the storms of war." "The absurdest circumstance of all is, that you see in wars amons: Christian nations the cross irlitterin^ and waving on high in both the contending armies at once. What a shocking sight ! Crosses dashing against crosses, and Christ on this side firing bullets at Christ on the other ! Cross against cross, and Christ against Christ, and prayers at the same time from both armies to the sime God of Peace ! ! " Well does Burton, Johnson's favorite author, ask, *' Is not this a mad world ? Are not these madmen who leave such fearful battles as memorials of their madness to all succeeding generations ? What fury put so brutish a thing as war first into the minds of men? Why should creatures, borii to exercise mercy and meekness, so rave and rage like beasts rushing on to their own destruction ? So abominable a thing is war ! And yet warriors are the brave spirits, the gallant ones of this world, the alone admired, the alone triumphant ! These have statues, and crowns, and pyramids, and obelisks to their eternal fame ! ! " JTHEOLOGIANS. The early fathers of the church were unanimous in de- nouncing war as inconsistent with a profession of faith in Christ. " Custom," says Tertullian, " can never sanc- tion an unlawful act. And can a soldier's life be lawful, when Christ has pronounced that he who lives by the sword, shall perish by the sword? Can any one who professes the peaceable doctrines of the gospel, be a soldier?" Such views prevailed among all the ministers and churches of Christ during the purest era of our religion, and ceased not to regulate their conduct till near the fatal union of 3* 10 TB8TIMONIE» AGAINST WAR. Church and State, under Constantine, early in the fourth century. Jeremy Taylor holds war to be incompatible with tlie gospel. " The Christian religion hath made no particular provision for the conduct of war, under a proper title; and, if men be subjects of Christ's law, they can never go to war with each other. As contrary as cruelty is to mercy, tyranny to charity, so is war and bloodshed to the meekness and gentleness of the Christian religion ; and such is the excellency of Christ's doctrine, that, if men would obey it, Christians would never war one against another." Bishop Watson exclaims, •* Would to God that the spirit of the Christian religion would exert its influence over the hearts of individuals in their public capacity, as much as, we trust, it does over their conduct in private life ! Then there would be no war. When the spirit of Christianity shall exert its proper influence over the minds of individuals, and especially over the minds of public men in their public capacities, war will cease throughout the Christian world." Cecil assures us " there is something worse than the plunder of the ruffi'm, than the outrage of the ravisher, than the stab of the murderer. These are comparatively but the momentary evils of war. There is also a shocking moral append aire which naturally grows out of national conflicts. Instead of listening to the counsels of divine mercy, and concurring in the design of a kingdom of heaven set up on earth in * righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,' the spirit of warlike discord tends to entomb ever-y such idea. It tends rather to set up some- thing like a kingdom of hell, 7l reign of violence where destruction is the grand enterprise ; where the means of death and desolation are cultivated as a science; where in- vention is racked to produce ruin, and the performance of it is ennobled by public applause. Moloch seems once more enthroned ; while ambition, revenge and oppression erect their banners amidst groans and tears, amidst cities desolated, or smoking in their ashes." RoBF.RT Hall, the first preacher, if not the first mind of his ajre, has filled many a page with strains of eloquent denunciations against war. ** But how is it possible to give you an idea of its horrors ? Here you behold rich harvests, tlie bounty of heaven, and the reward of industry, con- sumed in a moment, or trampled under foot, while famine and pestilence follow in the steps of deso ation. There the TESTIMONIES AGAINST WAR. 11 cottages of peasants given up to the flames ; mothers expir- ing through fear not for themselves, but their infants ; the inhabitants flying with their helpless babes in all directions, miserable fugitives on their native soil ! In another part you witness opulent cities taken by storm ; the streets, where no sounds were heard but those of peaceful industry, filled on a sudden with slaughter and blood, resounding with the cries of the pursuing and the pursued ; the palaces of nobles demolished, the houses of the rich pillaged, the chas- tity of virgins and of matrons violated, and every age, sex and rank mingled in promiscuous massacre and ruin." ** War is also the fruitful parent of crimes. It reverses, with respect to its objects, all the rules of morality It is nothing less than a temporary repeal of the principles OF virtue. It is a system out of which almost all the vir- tues arc excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are in- eluded. Whatever renders human nature amiable or re- spectable, whatever engages love or confidence, is sacrificed at its shrine." " While the philanthropist is devising means to mitigate the evils, and augment the happiness of the world, the war- rior is revolving in the gloomy recesses of his capacious mind, plans of future devastation and ruin. Prisons crowded with captives, cities emptied of their inhabitants, fields des- olate and waste, are among his proudest trophies. The fabric of his fame is cemented with tears and blood ; and, if his name is wafted to the ends of the earth, it is in the shrill cry of suffering humanity, in the curses and impre- cations of those whom his sword has reduceci-to despair." Chalmers, one of the first minds that Scotland ever produced, is very full on this subject, and truly says, that " the prophecy of universal peace will meet its accomplish- ment only by the activity of men, by the philanthropy of thinking and intelligent Christians. It is public opinion which in the long run governs the world ; and, while I look with confidence to a gradual revolution in the state of pub- lic opinion from the omnipotence of gospel truth working its silent but effectual way through the families of mankind, yet much may be done to accelerate the advent of perpetual and universal peace by a distinct body of men embarking their every talent and acquirement in the prosecution of this as a distinct object. This was the way in which, a few years ago, the British public were gained over to the cause of Africa ; and it is in this way, I apprehend, that 12 TESTIMONIES Ai.AINST WAR. the propliecy of universal peace will receive a speedier ful- filmeut." Well does James, one of the most popular religious wri- ters in England, deem " it high time for the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus to study the genius of their re- ligion. A hatred of war is an essential feature of prar- tical Christianity ; and it is a shame upon what is called the Christian world, that it has not long since borne universal and indignant testimony against that enormous evil which still rages not merely among savages, but among scholars, philosophers, Christians and divines. Real Christians should come out from the world on this subject, and touch not the unclean thing. Let them act upon their own prin- ciples, and become not only the friends but the advocates of Peace. Let ministers from the pulpit^ writers from the presSy and private Christians in their intercourse with each other and the worlds inculcate a fixed and irreconcilablt ab- horrence of war. Let the Church of God be a soci- ety FOR THE DIFFUSION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF UNIVER- SAL Peace." In view of such testimonies, we cannot regard the cause of Peace as a trivial or a friendless enterprise. The great- est and the best men of every age have given it their full sanc- tion, their warmest wishes ; all the glorified spirits above are its deeply interested patrons ; God himself has taken it under his special care, and promised it eventual triumph through the world. It is the noblest enterprise that ever tasked the powers of man ; and loudly does it call upon every friend qf God and a bleeding race to- come to its support. Mark how far the extracts above go against war. They do not directly touch the vexed question concerning wars purely defensive ; but they are strong against the whole war- system, and would, if carried into practice, entirely demcj- ish this enormous engine of guilt, bloodshed and misery. Breathe the spirit and sentiments of these extracts into the people of Christendom ; and you work such a change in public opinion as would ere-long banish this custom from every land blest with the light of the gospel. Such is the change which the friends of peace are laboring to produce ; and fain would we entreat every lover of his country, his species, or his God, to lend this cause his utmost aid. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. IV. WAR AND THE BIBLE. The Bible is our only infallible guide ; and by it every custom must eventually be tried. Many have already been brought to this test ; and it is high time for Christians to look at war in the light of revelation. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. War contra- venes all such precepts. It sprang from paganism ; its spirit is essentially pagan still ; and its laws every where re- quire soldiers to obey their officers rather than God him- self. Does it not thus dethrone Jehovah from the hearts of an army ? Are not soldiers notorious for their neglect of God ? Can war be any thing else than a vast nursery of irreligion ? Every man, whether a private, an officer, or even a chaplain, is bound by his oath to yield implicit obe- dience to his superiors. He is not permitted to follow his conscience. A British officer was once cashiered by Prot- estants for refusing to join in what he deemed the idolatries of Popery ; nor must soldiers scruple, at the bidding of a superior, to commit the grossest outrages ever recorded in the annals of crime. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. War is a school of impiety and profaneness ; blasphemy is the well-known dialect of the army and navy ; you can hardly enter a camp or a war-ship without meeting a volley of oaths, or find a warrior on land or sea who does not ha- bitually blaspheme the name of God. An eye-witness, speak- ing of one of our own armies, says we should not wonder at their frequent defeats, " if we could witness the drunken- ness and debauchery from the general to the private, and hear them strive to outvie each other in uttering the most horrid imprecations and blasphemy, and ridiculing every thing like religion." Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. War scorns to acknowledge any Sabbath. Its battles are fought, its marches continued, its fortifications constructed, all its la- bors exacted, all its recreations indulged, quite as much on this as any other day of the week. It is the chosen time for special and splendid reviews ; all the millions of sol- diers in Christendom are compelled to violate the Sabbath ; and, where the war-spirit ^s rife, it will be found well nigh impossible to preserve, in any degree of vigor, this main- spring of God's moral government over our world. 2 WAR AND THE BIBLE. Thou shall not commit adultery. War is a hotbed of the foulest licentiousness. It is deemed the soldier's privilege ; and, wherever an army is encamped, a war-ship moored, or 1 city taken, he is permitted to indulge his lusts at will. In 1380, some English troops, while wind-bound near Portsmouth, and waiting for provisions, forcibly carried off men's wives and daughters ; and, among other outrages, their commander went to a nunnery, and demanded admit- tance for his soldiers ; and, being refused, they entered by violence, compelled the nuns to go with them, and afterwards threw them into the sea ! When an English man-of-war was accidentally sunk near Spithead, she carried down with her no less than six hundred lewd women ; and amidst the fires of captured Magdeburg and Moscow were heard continually the wild, despairing shrieks of ravished mothers and daughters. War is a Sodom ; and, could all its impu- rities be collected in one place, we might well expect another storm of fire and brimstone. Thou shall not steal. War is a system of legalized na- tional robbery ; the very same thing, only on a larger scale, and under the sanction of government, for which individuals are sent to the prison or the gallows. To plunder, burn, and destroy, is the soldier's professed business ! At Hamburg, 40,000 persons were driven from their homes without clothes, money, or provisions, of which their enemies had despoiled them. ** Out of a plentiful harvest," says a Saxon nobleman, ** not a grain is left. The little that remained, was consumed in the night fires, or was next morning, in spite of tears and prayers, wantonly burned by the laughing fiends. Not a horse, not a cow, not a sheep is now to be seen." The French troops, on their return from Moscow, often destroyed every building for leagues together ; and around Leipsic nothing was spared, neither the ox, nor the calf two days old, neither the ewe, nor the lamb scarcely able to walk, neither the brood-hen, nor the tender chicken. Whatever had life, was slaughtered ; and even the meanest bedstead of the meanest beggar was carried off. All this accords with the laws of war ; and every government, in its letters of marque and reprisal, licenses men to commit pi- racy at pleasure ! Thou shah not kill. It is the very object, the main busi- ness of war to kill men. It is the most terrible engine ever contrived for the wholesale ^destruction of mankfnd ; incomparably more destructive to life than the inquisrtion or the slave-trade, than famine, or pestilence, or any form WAR AND THE UIULE. 3 of disease that ever swept over the earth. Survey the butcheries of the baiJe-field — 50,000 at Eylau; 80,000 at Borodino ; 300,00'i) at Arbela ; 400,000 of the enemy alone by Julius Caesar in a single engagement ; more than 5,000,000 in the invasion of Greece by Xerxes ; 1,600,000 by Jenghiz-khan in the district of Herat, 1,760,000 in two other cities with their dependencies, and, during the last twenty-seven years of his reign, an average of more than 500,000 every year ! Look at the French butcheries in Spain or Portugal under Napoleon. Peaceful inhabitants massacred without distinction or mercy ! " Often were the ditches along the line of their march," says an eye-witness, " literally filled with clotted, coagulated blood as with mire; the dead bodies of peasants, put to death like dogs, were lying there horribly mangled ; little naked infants of a year old or less, were found besmeared in the mud of the road, transfixed with bayonet-wounds ; matrons and young women dead with cruel, shameful wounds ; and priests hanged on the trees by the way-side like felons ! ! " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But can the boldier do this, and still continue his trade of human butch- ery 1 Love is said to be the fulfilling of the law because it woi^keth no ill to his neighbor ; but the soldier is required, as a matter of alleged duty, to do his neighbor all the ill he can ! He is hired for this sole purpose ; and he must do it, or die himself for neglect of duty ! ! Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you^ do ye even so to them. But would you like to have a gang of men burn your dwelling over your head, butcher your whole family, and then send a bullet or a bayonet through your own heart ? This is the whole business of war ; its grand maxim is to do unto others just what we would not have done to ourselves. Aveng^ not yourselves. Is not war a vast engine of vengeance '' t proceeds in all cases on the principle of injuring others, either because they have injured us, or because we fear they will^ unless we prevent it by injuring them in advance Love your enemies. War requires and almost compels us to hate them. Do good unto all men. War does them evil^ only evil. Lay aside all malice. War cherishes malice. Overcome evil loith good. War overcomes evil only with evil. Whoso smiteth thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also. War bids us kill the man that smites us, or attempts to smite us. Imagine a soldier repeating the Lord's prayer. Our Father in heaven ! And does the soldier, while butchering men, women and children, think to resemble Him who send- 4 WAR AND TUK BIBLE. , eth rain upon the evil as well as the good, and causcth his sun to rise alike on the just and the unjust ? Halloioed be Ihy name. Hallow God's name by plunder and bloods'ied ! Thy kinfrdom come. That kingdom which consisteth in i ijrhteonsness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, come by th^lt and violence, by the bloody strife and countless miseries of war I Thy ivUl be done on earth as it is in heaven. By hating, robbing, and killing his brethren ! Forgive tw our trespasses^ as we fors^ve t/wse who trespass against us. Forgive by doing them allUie injury in our power! \Vould soldiers like to be forgiven in this way — by God's making them as miserable as he can ? Thus the soldier, if he i>rays consistently, must ask God to help him plunder, and bum, and ravage, and kill, and commit almost every species of wickedness ! Should the pirate pray for success, would he not ask for the very same things? Let us learn the soldier's duties (!) from Suwarrow^s Cate- chism, a series of directions by that great general to his soldiers. " Push hard with the bayonet. The ball will lose its way ; the bayonet never. The ball is a fool ; the bayonet a hero. Stab once ; and off with the Turk from the bayonet ! Stab the second! Stab the third ! A hero will stab half a dozen ! If three attack you, stab the first, fire on the second, and bayonet the third ! " Are such things only perversions of war? No; they are inseparable from any of its forms ; and as well might you talk of fire without heat, as of a war without fraud, and robbery, and murder, and misery by wholesale. Do you deem it possible for the deeds of war to be done from good motives, in a Chris- tian spirit ? What ! biixn villages, plunder cities, butcher men, women and children, send thousamls at once into eternity in unforgiven guilt, all fi-om motives acceptable to a God of peace and love! A Christian way to do such things! A way in which Paul or Christ would have done them ! ! Now, tell us the difference between what are called offensive and defensive wars. Do they not both cherish the same spirit, employ the same means, perjietrate the same atrocities, and inflict the same miseries? Wherein do they differ? If gov- ernment cannot license us to blaspheme God, and worship idols, can it authorize us to break those precepts of the Bible which every species of war must trample in the dust ? Reader, are you a disciple of the Prince of Peace ? How then can you have any thing to do with such a system of wholesale robbery and murder? Are you a parent? Can you train your children to the love and practice of war ? Are you a teacher ? Can you instruct your pupils in the science of human butchery, or fill them with a thirst for the glory of plunder and blood- shed ? Are you an ambassador of the Prince of Peace ? Is it consistent for you to act as a military chaplain ? Would you be chaplain to a horde of robbers, or a gang of pirates? AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. V. WAR CURABLE, OR "* THE POSSIBILITY OF ABOLISHING THIS CU«TOM. The evils of war none will deny ; but not a few seem to doubt the possibility of abolishing a custom so long-con- tinued, so deeply rooted in the worst passions of mankind, and so universally wrought into the very texture of society and government. Our object is so good, they will not oppose us ; but they have so little faith in its practicability as to withhold their active co-operation, and even tell us, we might as well think to chain up the lightning, or hold down the earthquake, as dream of banishing war from such a world as ours. This skepticism is not peculiar to the cause of peace. We can hardly name an enterprise of benevolence or reform, that was not obliged at its outset to encounter the same ob- stacle from multitudes even of good men. " How apt," says Dr. Rush, " are mankind to brand as visionary every proposition for innovation. There never was an improve- ment in any art or science, nor a proposal for meliorating the condition of man in any age or country, that has not been considered as an Utopian scheme." The present meth- ods of treating the small-pox, fevers, and other diseases, were at first viewed, not only with distrust, but absolute hor- ror ; and every one knows, that efforts in the cause of tem- perance, and for the abolition of the slave-trade, were for a time regarded as utterly visionary and hopeless. The use of the magnet in navigation, the application of steam to mechanical purposes, a multitude of inventions and improve- ments, now familiar as household words, were at first treated with utter incredulity and contempt. Our own Congress refused Fulton the use of 'the Representatives' Hall, to explain his scheme of applying steam to navigation. ' What,' said members of the French cabinet to Fulton, when so- liciting their patronage, ' do you presume to think you can ever propel a boat by steam, at the rate of four miles an hour ? ' * Yes, indeed,' replied the enthusiast ; ' and if you'll furnish me the means, I will eventually reach even six miles p. T. NO. v. WAR CURABLE. 88 an hour.' The wise men of France turned their backs on the poor inventor , and, in less than twenty vears, thousands of steam-vessels, moving at the rate not of Mc, but fifteen or twenty miles an hour, were every where proclaiming the enthusiast to have been far wiser than the skeptic, and in- finitely more useful to mankind. But what do the friends of peace seek to accomplish? Only the abolition of war among- nations professedly Chris- tian. Here is our whole object. We dream not of ex- tending our efforts beyond the limits of Christendom ; we rely for success entirely on the gospel as God's sovereign remedy for all the moral maladies of mankind ; and our highest hopes will be realized when war shall be banished from every Christian land, and peace be made, as a part of our religion, to go hand in hand with the gospel over the whole earth, and the world thus be, — what it never yet has been in a single case, though it ought to have been in every case, — converted to peace as fiist as it shall be to God. Now, is such an object unattainable? Do you really think it impossible for peace to prevail wherever the gospel itself does? If so, where lies the impossibility 2 In the nature of man ? Then show us in what part of his nature. In his intellect, his conscience, his heart? Has he any principle, any passion, any habit, that defies the utmost power of God's truth and spirit? No; none of his faults are absolutely incorrigible ; and, if war be the work of men, it surely can be done away by a right use of the requisite means. To suppose the contrary would be a gross libel on human nature, and an impious limitation of His power who hath the hearts of all entirely in his hands, and doeth his pleasure alike in the armies of heaven, and among the in- habitants of the earth. Let us look next at the nature of war itself, and see if we can find there any thing to forbid the possibility of its abo- lition. It is a custom ; and all customs are from their very nature siibject to the will of men, liable to change, and ca*-- pable of being entirely reformed. These properties are essential to any custom, and include of course the possibility of its abolition. I know very well how common it has been, if it is not 5till, to represent war, unlike any other custom, as a nat- ural, necessary evil that can be resisted no better than a pestilence, a tempest, or an earthquake. Strange miscon- ception ! Did you ever hear of a war, without any human 89 WAR CURABLE. S agency, bursting upon mankind like lightning from the cloud, or like the eruptions of a volcano ? Does it, like a tornado or the cholera, spring from causes beyond our con- trol ? A war without human hearts to will it, or human hands to carry it on ! Is it not so entirely dependent on the will of men as to come and go just at their bidding ? Is there any physical necessity which compels them, whether they will or not, to butcher one another ? Such questions answer themiselves, and prove that war comes solely from the wrong choice of men, and must of necessity cease whenever they shall choose to discard it. Can civilized. Christian nations never be persuaded to abstain from the wholesale butchery of one another as a means of settling their dis- putes? The advocates of war tell us they never can be; but we, relying on the corrigibility of hu^an nature, fully believe they can be thus persuaded, and will be, under the influences of the gospel rightly applied. But do you still plead for the necessity of war ? Neces- sary for what ? For the gratification of bad passions 1 But these passions may be restrained, or taught to gratify them- selves in other ways than the wholesale butcheries of war. Necessary for the vindication of our rights, for the redress of our wrongs, for the protection of our interests ? Better means than the sword for all these purposes are clearly possible, and fast coming to be adopted. Necessary for a nation's honor? The plea of the duellest ; and, when public sentiment shall be thoroughly Christianized, it will be as disgraceful for a nation to wage war, as it is now in New England to fight a duel. Necessary for the safety of nations? All their danger arises from the war-system itself; and, were that system universally relinquished, there- would be no aggression to resist. War necessary because nations have been so long accustomed to it ? This argu- ment would prove the impossibility of any reform, improve- ment or change. If war cannot be abolished because it has continued so long, then every form of idolatry, all the bar- barous customs of our own ancestors, all the errors and sins of past ages, must have remained to this hour. War neces- sary because nations recognize no other arbiter of their disputes ? The assertion is not strictly true at the present day, since they are at length beginning to employ other um- pires ; but, if it were true, it would not disprove the possibility of superseding this custom. Once individuals had no other means than brute violence for the redress of their wrongs, WAR CURABLE. 40 or the adjustment of their difficulties; but, if that old prac- tice of private wars gave place, ages ago^ to codes and courts of law between individuals, it is equally possible for nations, if they choose, to provide similar methods for the settlement of their disputes without the effusion of blood. Nor does society or government oppose any insuperable obstacles to the prevalence of peace. What if the spirit and principles of war are through the world wrought into the very texture of them both ? So were a multitude of other customs that have already been banished from Chris- tian and even from pagan lands. Society and government, each the work of men, are necessarily moulded to their will, and not only may, but absolutely must receive just such modifications as they shall choose. Only let them universally demand the change requisite for the permanent peace of the world'; and such a change would soon pervade, as a matter of course, every society and government on earth. Need we, then, despair in view of the influences which have for so many ages been leagued all over the globe in support of the war-system ? True, these influences are exceedingly powerful ; but they are all dependent entirely on the will of men ; and such a change in their views and feelings as we seek to produce, would enlist every one ot them on the side of peace. Only turn the popular current : and on its bosom war would ere-long float spontaneously from Christendom forever, just as the tide of a regenerated public sentiment h;is drifted away a variety of kindred practices. But do you deem it impossible thus to revolutionize the war-sentiments even of Christendom ? The history of man, the. promises of God, and the acknowledged power of his gospel, all forbid such a supposition. True, the means requisite for this purpose, are not now in use to any great extent ; but the Bible prescribes and provides such means ; and, if the friends of God and man would only use them aright, we might confidently expect ultimate, if not speedy success. Glance at the history, of kindred reforms. Long was knight-errantry the admiration of all Christendom ; but where is it now ? Vanished from the earth ; its very name a term of reproach ; its memory living mainly in those works of genius which ridiculed its follies from the world. Nearly the same might be said of the crusades, and all wars of religion, the prosecution of which was once re- Sll WAR CURABLE. garded as the highest service a Christian could render to the God of peace ! For ages did the trial by ordeal and judicial combat prevail. The accused was required to fight his accuser in single combat, or plunge his arm into boiling water, or lift a red-hot iron with his naked hand, or walk bare-footed over burning plough-shares, or pass through other trials equally severe and perilous. Such trials were conducted with ceremonies the most solemn ; the ministers of religion were wont to be present ; the Almighty was invoked to interpose in behalf of the innocent ; and whoever escaped the ordeal unhurt, or came from the combat victorious, was said to be acquitted by " the judgment of God." This custom, sanctioned by every class in society, by the wisest monarchs, and the highest dignitaries in the church, pre- vailed for centuries all over Europe ; nor is it more than two hundred years since it ceased entirely from Christendom. Even matters of religion were submitted to this strange test. In the eleventh century, the question was agitated in Spain whether the Musarabic liturgy so long used there, or the one recommended by the See of Rome, contained the form of worship most acceptable to God. On this '^int a violent contest ensued between the Spaniards and the Popes ; the nobles proposed to decide the controversy by the sword ; the king seconded their suggestion, and the champions in full armor entered the lists. The Musarabic liturgy was victorious ; but the vanquished party succeeded in procuring another and a different trial. A great fire was kindled ; a copy of each liturgy was thrown into the flames ; and it was agreed, that the one which stood this test, should be received in all the churches of Spain. The Musarabic still triumphed, and, if we may credit the writers of that age, came out of the fire unhurt, while the other was burnt to ashes. But .4et us leave those dark ages, and come down to the dawn of the nineteenth century. Long had Christians themselves, apparently without remorse, and certainly without reproach, continued to engage in the slave-trade ; and nearly all the apologies now pleaded for war, were then reiterated to justify that atrocious traffic in the bodies and souls of men. Prejudice, and passion, and interest, and inveterate custom, all clamored loud in its be- half, and covered with obloquy and reproach the few that dared to beard the monster in his very den. But humanity WAR CURABLE. 42 and religion could bear it no longer ; and the fireside, the pulpit and the senate, the cottage and the palace at length rang in thunders of denunciation against the vampyre gorged for so many ages with the blood of a continent. A regenerated public opinion decreed its doom ; and the re- sult is on record. The slave-trade is now regarded as pira- cy ; the slave-trader is put under the ban of the civilized world as fit only for the gallows ; and, though Africa still bleeds at many a pore from the same cause, yet that prac- tice has doubtless received its death-blow. It were easy to multiply examples ; but why allude to in- temperance, and persecution, and witchcraft, and other evils already abolished, or put in a train which promises their ultimate abolition? I need not surely specify any more cases ; for if such customs as knight-errantry, judiciiil combat, and the slave-trade have already been wholly, or but partially done away, is there no possibility of putting an end to war ? Is this custom, unlike any other, proof against the combined power of earth and heaven arrayed against it? Review, next, the meliorations of war itself Bad as the custom still is, it has already lost more than half its primi- tive horrors, and undergone changes much greater than would now suffice to abolish it entirely. Its former atroci- ties are well nigh incredible. Belligerents employed what- ever means would best subserve-their purposes of conquest, plunder or revenge. They poisoned wells, and butchered men, women and children without distinction. They spared none. Prisoners they massacred in cold blood, or tortured with the most exquisite cruelty ; and, when unable to reduce a fortified place, they would sometimes collect before it a multitude of these victims, and, putting them all to the sword, leave their carcasses unburied, that the stench might compel the garrison to retire ! Such atrocities were practised by the most polished nations of antiquity. In Rome, prisoners were either sold as slaves, or put to death at pleasure. Kings and nobles, women* and children of high birth, chained to the victor's car, were dragged in triumph through the streets, and then doomed to a cruel death, or left to end their days in severe and hopeless bon- dage ; while others less distinguished, were compelled as gladiators to butcher one another by thousands for the amusement of Roman citizens I But such barbarities are indignantly discarded from the present war-system of Chris- 43 ' WAR CURABLE. 7 tendom ; and if thus ten steps have already been taken — they confessedly have — towards abolishing this custom, is there no possibility of taking the six more that alone are requisite to complete its abolition ? Nor is even this all ; for certain kinds of war have ac- tually been abolished. Private or feudal wars, once waged between the petty chieftains of Europe, and frequently oc- casioning even more mischief than flows now from the col- lision of empires, continued for centuries to make the very heart of Christendom a scene of confusion and terror. There was no safety, no repose. Every baron claimed the right, just as nations now do, of warring against his neigh- bor at pleasure. His castle was his fortress, and every one of his vassals a soldier bound to take the field at the bid- ding of his lord. War was their business ; and all Europe they kept in ceaseless comipotion or alarm. The evil seemed intolerable ; and the strongest influences of Chris- tendom were arrayed against it. Checks were devised, and restrictions gradually imposed ; the Royal Truce, and the Truce of God were introduced ; associations were formed for promoting peace, and bonds for mutual security were given ; the emperor and the pope, the magistrate and the priest, the ruler and the citizen, all combined against it, and succeeded, though not till after the lapse of four or five centuries, in exterminating a species of war as dreadful as any tliat ever scourged our world. And would not similar efforts bring international wars to an end 1 Glance at some of the causes now at work to hasten such a result. I have not time even to name a tithe of these causes; it would require a volume to do any sort of justice to this part of our subject ; and it must for the pres- ent suffice to know, that all the means of general improve- ment, all the good influences of the age, are so many hand- maids to the cause of peace, and harbingers of its universal spread and triumph. The progress of freedom, and popu- lar education; — the growing influence of the people, always the chief sufferers from war, over every form of govern- ment ; — the vastly augmented power of public opinion fast becoming more and more pacific ; — the spirit of free in- quiry, and the wide diff'usion of knowledge through presses, and pulpits, and schools; — the- disposition to force old usages, institutions and opinions through the severest ordeals;' — the various improvements which philanthropy, genius, and even avarice itself are every where making in 8 WAR CURABLE. 44 the character and condition of mankind ; — the actual dis- use of war, and the marked desire of rulers themselves to supersede it by the adoption of pacific expedients that promise ere-long to re-construct the international policy of the civilized world; — the pacific tendencies of literature, science, and all the arts that minister to individual, comfort, or national prosperity ; — the more frequent, more extended intercourse of Christians and learned men in different parts of the earth ; — the wide extension of commerce, and the consequent interlinking over the globe of interests which war must destroy ; — the rapid spread of the gospel in pagan lands, the fuller development of its spirit in Christendom, and the more direct, more efficacious application of its principles to every species of sin and misery ; — all the en- terprises of associated benevolence and reform, but espe- cially the combined efforts mnde to disseminate the princi- ples of peace, to pour the full light of heaven on the guilt and evils of war, and thus unite the friends of God and man everywhere against this master-scourge of our race; — such are some of the influences now at work in behalf of universal and permanent peiice. Nor have these causes been at work in vain. " Already is the process begun, by which Jehovah is going to fulfil the amazing predictions of his word. Even now is the fire kindled at the forges where swords are yet to be beaten into plough-shares, and spears into pruning-hooks. The teachers are already abroad who shall persuade the nations to learn war no more. If we would hasten that day, we have only to throw ourselves into the current, and we may row with the tide. There may be here and there a counter- current ; but the^ main stream is flowing steadily on, and the order of Providence is rolling forward the sure result." The gospel, rightly applied, is amply sufficient for such a result. It is God's own power at work for the world's eventual deliverance from all forms of error, sin and misery. There is no passion it cannot subdue, no vice it cannot re- form, no evil custom it cannot abolish, no moral malady it cannot cure, no inveteracy of error or sin from which it cannot reclaim. Its history, as well as its nature, proves its power; and a libel would it be on God himself to sup- pose his chosen instrument for a world's spiritual renova- tion, inadequate to the task of exterminating war from every land blest with its heavenly light. On this point God has taken care to leave no room for 45 WAR CURABLE. 9 doubt. Expressly, repeatedly has he promised, that *the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of his name, even as the waters cover the sea ; that the kingdoms of this world shall all become the kingdom of our Lord and Sa- vior, Jesus Christ ;' and then * shall they beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall no longer lift up sword against nation, neither shajl they learn war any more.' Thus has God promised the world's eventual pacification as explicitly as he has the world's conversion, or even the salvation of any believer in Jesus ; and we must either discard the whole Bible, or be- lieve in the possibility, the absolute certainty of universal and permanent peace. It is not incumbent on us to show hoiv these prophecies, any more than how the other promises of God, are to be ful- filled ; and yet it were easy to point out a variety of expedients that might, with safety and success, take the place of war. There is in truth no more need of this custom among Chris- tian nations than there is of paganism itself They could, if they would, settle all their difficulties without war as well as the members of a church can theirs without duels. There is no impossibility in the case. Substitutes far bet- ter than the sword for all purposes of protection and re- dress, might be made to supersede entirely the alleged ne- cessity of war between nations, just as codes and courts of law did the practice of war between individuals. Let us analyze this plea of necessity. Men in our Southern States, insist on the necessity of duelling ; but are they really compelled, whether they will or not, to shoot, and stab, and hew each other down in cold blood ? There is no such compulsion in the case; they must solely be- cause they will. And why will they ? Why does excited passion at the South vent itself in duels 1 Custom there has hewn out this channel of blood into which excited pas- sion flows. But why in New England does the same de- gree of passion never lead to duels ? Public opinion here frowns upon the duellist as a cool, calculating murderer. Yet is human nature the same in South Carolina that it is in Massachusetts ; the whole difference arises from the dif- ferent education of the two communities ; and, were all mankind educated to regard war as we at the North do the kindred custom of duelling, nations would no more dream of venting their passions, or settling their disputes by war, than Christians do theirs by duels. 10 WAR CURABLE. 4& Mark the result in'both customs. What settles a quar- rel between duellists ? Not the shots or stabs interchanged, but the explanation subsequently given and accepted. They fight merely to make it honorable to explain ; and that explanation, should custom so decide, might come just as well before as after fighting. So in war, the fighting, in every case of civilized warfare, is only preliminary to steps for settling the dispute on grounds of equity and rea- son. Nations, like duellists, fight solely to render it honor- able, or themselves willing to negotiate, or refer, or employ some other pacific expedients that might be used even more successfully before the war than after it. We cannot here dwell on these substitutes for war — ne- gotiation^ where the parties adjust their own difficulties with- out the aid of others ; arbitration, when they refer the points in dispute to an umpire ; mtdiation, when a third power friendly to both, offers its services as mediator ; or, better than all, a congress of nations, designed first to frame a specific, authoritative code of international law, and next to apply that law, and adjudicate whatever cases might be voluntarily referred to its decision. Here are substitutes enough, all founded on the principle of amicable agreement between the parties themselves, or that of reference to a third party mutually chosen ; expedients essentially the same with those which are so generally adopted by men of sense and virtue in social life ; expedients that have in past ages been occasionally employed by nations with signal suc- cess; expedients that are certainly possible, and, if so, render war entirely unnecessary, except from the wrong choice of men. But is there no possibility of changing this choice ? Is Christendom itself, with its Bibles, and Sabbaths, and churches, its preachers of peace, and all its instrumental- ities for the reformation of mankind, such a kennel of blood-hounds as never to be won from the love of mutual butchery ? Let us bring the question home to your own bosom. Will you acknowledge yourself to be such an in- satiate blood-leech, that you never can, never will give up war ? No : you abhor the custom, and would gladly super- sede it entirely by better methods for the adjustment of national difficulties. Go to your neighbor ; and will he not readily respond to these views ? Go through the land, traverse the civilized world ; and how few could you find that did not feel, or might not easily be made to feel, your own abhor- 47 WAR CURABLE. 11 rence of war, and desire for peace. Where then is the impossibility of changing the war-choice of mankind ? Is there no power in the family, the school, or the church, none in the press, or the pulpit, none in civilization, or Christianity, to reclaim the inhabitants even of Christendom from their love of war, and persuade them to adopt other means than the sword for the settlement of their disputes? True, such a result we do not expect, as no man in his senses can expect any moral result, without the use of ap- propriate means. The moral suasion of the gospel, the power of Christian truth and love, must be applied long and, well to this custom. Light must be poured upon it from reason and history ; its enormous guilt must be set forth in the full blaze of revelation ; its immeasurable evils for time and eternity, must be spread as far as possible be- fore every class in the community ; and such a process of exposure must be continued, until the mass of minds in every Christian land shall come to regard this relic of a bloody and barbarous paganism with a portion of God's own unmingled abhorrence. Christians must as a body gird themselves in earnest for this work as peculiarly their own ; preachers of the gospel must enforce its pacific, just as they do any of its other truths, and pour down upon this mass of crime and misery a flood of heaven's own light ; the press must be made to teem with facts, and arguments, and appeals in behalf of this cause ; teachers in all our schools must instil the sentiments of peace into the young minds under their care; and all pious parents must care- fully guard their own children against the manifold delusions of war, and let them sport with no more of its toys, and listen to no more of its songs, and gaze at no more of its pic- tures or glittering armor, and be present at no more of its fascinating displays, and witness no more of its pomp, parade or splendor, but honestly teach them to regard every shred of this custom as steeped in pollution, blood and tears. All this can be done ; and, if done, God's promised bless- ing would make sure the result. Let the gospel, wherever preached, be rightly applied to this custom; let the press be fully enlisted in behalf of this cause ; let every minister of the Prince of Peace do his whole duty on this subject ; let Christians of every name all come up to this work as one man, and put forth their utmost energies ; let asso- ciations, if necessary, be formed, and scores of selected advocates plead, and the friends of humanity all rally with their gifts, and prayers, and personal efforts for the 12 WAR CURABLE. 49 use of such means as God hath appointed for the spread of peace co-extensive with our peaceful religion ; let books, and tracts, and pamphlets, and periodicals, full of stir- ring facts, and of logic all on fire, be scattered far and wide in every city and town, in every village, hamlet and habi- tation ; let every church, every Sabbath and common school, every academy and college, every seminary of learning, from the highest to the lowest, every fire-side in Christendonv, be- come a nursery of peace, to train up a whole generation of peace-makers ; let all these hold up war before every class in the community as a giant offender against God, as the master-scourge of our world ; and could this or any other custom long stand before such an array of influences ? Such are the instruments which the friends of peace have begun to employ against war ; and the God of peace has crowned their efforts with a degree of success, even greater in proportion to the means used, than in any other enterprise now before the community. Scarce a tenth part as much has been done for this cause as for any other ; and yet have we already (1844) reached results vastly important, and prospects still more cheering. Our own country has been saved from several wars that threatened it : the general peace of Europe has, for a wonder, been preserved for nearly thirty years ; public sentiment on this subject is widely dif- ferent from what it was even at the beginning of the present century ; difficulties which would once have plunged nations in blood, are now adjusted with scarce a thought of resort- ing to arms ; negotiation, reference, and mediation, are ac- tually taking the place of war, and gradually effacing the tradi- tional belief of its necessity ; the leading cabinets of Christen- dom seem disposed to adopt these substitutes as their settled, permanent policy ; and this course, if continued only half a century longer, will probably supersede in time the whole war-system, by accustoming nations to settle their disputes in essentially the same way that individuals now do theirs. It can be done. Give us the means, and it shall be done. Let us have not a tenth, nor even a hundredth, but only a thousandth part of the money and moral power now wasted upon the war-system even in peace ; and we will, with the promised aid and blessing of God, set at work such a train of influences as shall ere-long banish this custom from every Christian land, or so far neutralize its power as to leave only its skeleton to show future ages what the monster was ! ■■•*■■■ ■! — 'f" r \ g ag AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTO.V, MASS. No. VI. FOUR ASPECTS OF WAR. I. Does War forgive ? — A friend of peace once asked a general on a muster-field, ' What do you mean by this array of swords, muskets and cannon .? ' — " We mean to be avenged on our enemies, should they insult or invade us." — ' But we are bound to forgive our enemies, should they injure us.' — "So we will," said the general. — ' But, if you really forgive them, what do you want of swords, rifles and cannon ? ' — " To stab and shoot them." — ' But, if you forgive them, how could you at the same time shoot and stab them ?' — " I think," said the general, " I can feel forgiveness in my heart towards my enemy, while I ajn slioot- ing and stabbing him. Can I not .^ " — ' If you can, you take a queer way of showing it. How can you show your forgiveness by swords and guns ? ' — " I am sure," he replied, " it's more than I can tell." — ' Perhaps,' said the peace-man, ' you have the art of shooting and stabbing your forgiveness into the hearts of your enemies ; and it may be the object of your review to perfect your- selves in this art. Is it so ? ' — " I tliink," replied he very honestly and truly, " we are more likely to perfect ourselves in the art of killing them." * Could you,' inquired a peace-man of a military officer, ' could you, after a battle in which you had stained your hands with the blood of your brethren, ask God to forgive you as you had forgiven your enemies ? ' — " I am not a Christian," said he, " nor do I pro- fess to forgive the wrongs done to me and my country ; but I know I should be a hypocrite and a blasphemer, if I should ask God to forgive me as I had forgiven my enemies, 'after I had been killing them. When I ask Him to forgive me as I have my ene- mies, I will cease to kill them, or to encourage others in doing so." II. CaxN we reconcile War with Christianity? — Let us put the main aspects of the two side by side, and see how far they agree. Christianity saves men ; war destroys them. Christianity elevates men ; war debases and degrades them. Christianity pu- rifies men ; war corrupts and defiles them. Christianity blesses men ; war curses them. God says, thou shalt not kill ; war says, thou shall kill. God says, blessed are the peace-makers ; war says, blessed are the war-makers. God says, love your enemies ; war says, hate them. God says, forgive men their trespasses ; war says, forgive them not God enjoins forgiveness, and forbids revenge ; while war scorns tJie former, and commands the latter. God says, resist not evil ; war says, you may and must resist evil. God says, if any man smite' thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also ; war says, turn not the other cheek, but knock the p. T. NO. VI, 2 FOUR ASPECTS OF WAR. 50 smiter down. God says, bless those who curse you ; bless, and curse not : war says, curse tliose who curse you ; curse, and bless not. God says, pray for those who despitefully use you ; war says, j.ray against them, and seek then- destruction. God says, see tliat none render evil for evil unto any man ; war says, be sure to render evil for evil unto all that injure you. God says, overcome evil with good ; war says, overcome evil with eviL God says, if thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink : war says, if you do supply your enemies with food and clothing, you shall be shot as a traitor. God says, do good unto all men ; war says, do as much evil as you can to your enemies. God says to all men, love one another ; war says, hate and kill one another. God says, tliey that take the sword, shall perish by tlie sword ; war says, they that take tlie sword, shall be saved by the sword. God says, blessed is he that trusteth in the Lord ; war says, cursed is such a man, and blessed is he who trusteth in swords and guns. God says, beat your swords into ploughshares, your spears into pruning-hooks, and learn war no more ; war says, make swords and spears still, and continue to learn war — until all mankind have ceased from learning it, i. e., fight, all of you, until all of you stop fighting ! I III. The Soldier and the Lord^s Prater. — ^Let us, said the celebrated Erasmus more than three centuries ago, let ua imagine we hear a soldier among these fghting Christians saying the Lord's Prayer just before battle. Our Father ! says he. O, liardened wretch ! can you call God Father, when you are just going to cut your brother's tliroat ? — Hallowed be thy name. How can the name of God be more impiously t/nhallowed than by mu- tual bloody murder among his sons ? — Thy kingdom come. Do you pray for the coming of his kingdom, while you are endeavor- ing to establish an earthly despotism by spilling the blood of God's sons and subjects ? — Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. His will in heaven is for peace ; but you are now meditating WAR. — Give us this day our daily bread. How dare you say this to your Father in heaven at the m(5ment you are going to bum your brother's corn-fields, and would rather lose the benefit of them yourself than suffer him to enjoy them unmolested ? — For- eive vs our trespasses as tee forgive those who trespass against us. With what face can you pray thus when, so far from forgiving your brother, you are going with all the haste you can, to murder him in cold blood for an alleged trespass which, after all, is but imaginary r — Lead vs not into temptation. And do you presume to deprecate temptation or danger — you who are not only rushing into it yourself, but doing all you can to force your brother into it ? — Deliver us from evil. You pray to be delivered from evil, that is, from the e\'il being, Satan, to whose unpulses you are now submitting yourself, and by whose spirit you are guided in con- triving tlie greatest possible evil to your brother ? IV. What is the difference between a professed Sol- dier and a hired Assassin ? — ^Let us state the case. Every 51 FOUR ASPECTS OF WAR. 3 reader in America remembers the " Salem Tragedy." Joseph and Francis Knapp, distant relatives of a rich old gentleman in Salem by the name of White, instigated Richard Crowninshield, by the orfer of a thousand dollars of the plunder, to kill the old man, and seize his treasures. Crowninshield, entering the house of his victim at midnight, and creeping softly up stairs to the room wliere he was sleeping, sti'uck him over the head witli a bludgeon, and then turning down tlie clothes, stabbed him several times in the heart with a dagger. Every body called him a hired assassin ; and he would have be&n hung as an atrocious murderer, if he had not in his prison hung himself. The two Knapps were tried, con- victed and hung for hiring Crowninshield to assassinate Mr. White. Here is a clear case of hired assassination ; and wherein does it differ from the profession of a soldier ? Doubtless there is some difference ; but in what does it consist, and to what does it amount ? How far are the two professions or acts alike ? Let us look at the facts. Here is a nation of ten, twenty or fifty millions, that hire you as one of their soldiers to kill whom- soever they may wish to have killed, and promise to give you, besides your food and clothing, some ten or twenty cents a day. The nation, indignant that the Chinese spurn their opium, or that the Afghans reject their favorite ruler, or tliat the Seminoles will not give up their lands, the inheritance of fifty generations, to some avaricious white men, order you to go and kill them, bum their dwellings, and butcher, without distinction or mercy, thou- sands o*f unoffending men, women and children. We see now the facts in the two cases ; and what is the differ- ence ? The deed is the same, except that in one case a single man was killed, and in the other thousands, or scores of thousands. The motive, too, is essentially the same — w^ith the employers, self- aggrandizement ; witli tlie hired agents, pay. The difference, for there is some, will not redound much to the soldier's credit over the assassin. The soldier hires himself to millions of men called a nation ; Crowninshield hired himself to only two men. The soldier hires himself out to kill whomsoever the nation may wish to have killed at any time ; tlie assassin engaged to do a specified ad, to kill a single man at a given time, and tliat man named before- hand. The soldier is hired to kill by the month or year ; the assassin w^as hired by the job. The soldier is a day-laborer in the work of blood ; the assassin is a jobber at the same trade. The assassin is better paid than the soldier ; for the former was prom- ised a thousand dollars for killing one man, while the latter might kill a hundred in a day without getting half a dollar for the whole. The soldier agrees to kill any and all whom the nation may bid ; and, if required to shoot his own father or mother, brother or sis- ter, wife or child, he must shoot them, or be shot himself; whereas the assassin, had he refused to kill -the old man according to agree- ment, would not himself have been liable to be hung. The soldier makes a fearful bargain ; for, though aware that, if he refuse to kill any whom the nation may bid him kill, he must 4 FOUR ASPECTS OF WAR. 62 himself be put to death, he nevertheless enters into the bloody compact, not knowing but he may be ordered to shoot or stab his own parents, Avile or children. Nofr so bad tiie assassin's bargain. Had Crowninshield engaged to kill at any time any body whom the Knapps might wish to have killed, with the understanding tliat he should himself be put to death if he ever refused to kill any one tliey should bid, there would be a pretty close analogy betw>een his c:ise and that of ttie professed soldier. But the assassin's posi- tion was not so terrible. The soldier must kill whomsoever his employers may bid him kill, or the terms of his contract make him liable to be shot or hung himself. v Now, let every reader judge between tlie two, and tell us, if he can, why a hired assassin, like Crowninshield, should be hung as a monster of wickedness, while the soldier, hired by twenty, millions to do tlie same deed hxf wlmltsale^ is admired and eulogized as a hero ? To kill mtdtUudes at the bidding of millions, is deemed patriotic, glorious. Christian, wortliy of songs, and eulogies, and monuments ; but to kill one m-m at the bidding of another one, is denounced as base, infamous, diabolical, deserving of the gallows, of eternal infamy. Well did Bishop Porteus say, " One murder makes a villain ; Millions, a hero." Will the professed soldier never be classed with the hired as- sassin ? How nmch longer will men of any principle, conscience or self-respect, hire themselves out to tlie work of robbery and murder.' How long will professed Christians, or any Christian community, respect or even tolerate the military profession, the trade of hmnan butcher}' ? Jesus Christ. — My kingdom is not of this world ; if my king- dom were of this world,-then would my servtintsfght. Ire-\-¥:us, a. D. 180. — Cliristians have changed their swords into instruments of peace ; and they know not how to fight. Tertullian, a. D. 197. — Can one who professes the peace- able doctrine of tlie gospel, be a soldier 7 Jesus Christ, by disarm- ing Peter, disarmed every soldier afterwards ; for custom can never sanction a wrong act Jeremy Taylor. — As contrary as cruelty is to mercy, tyranny to charity, so is war to tlie meekness and gentleness of the Chris- tian religion. Robert Hall. — War reverses all the rules of moralUy. It is nothing less than a temporary. repeal of the principles of virtue. Lord Brougham. — I abominate war as unchristian. I hold it to be the greatest of human crimes. I deem it to include all others — violence, blood, rapine, fraud, every tiling which can de- form the character, and debase the name of man. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. VII. UNIVERSAL PEACE. - BY REV. DAVID BOGUE, D. D., LONDON. " In the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills ; and people shall flow unto it And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths ; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall tliey learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree ; and none shall make them afraid ; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it." f Here is a prophetic sketch of the millennium. During that period, " nation shall not lift up sword against nation." Universal harmony will prevail. No desire of conquest will then be found. Contented with tlieir own territory, none will seek to encroach on their neighbors' lands. Over the face of the whole earth, peace shall reign, and the nations shall form a holy brotherhood, emulous to promote each other's prosperity and happiness. The art of murdering will then cease ; " they shall learn war no more." No naval nor military colleges shall then exist ; no time, no labor, no skill be employed to teach the stripling and the recruit how to fight, and how to wound and slay. The study then -among Christ's disciples will be after the example of their Master, " who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." So discordant is this description with the general sentiments, and feelings, and practice of mankind in the present day, that some may still be inclined to disbelieve the existence of such a state, and be ready to exclaim with the v(^ice of incredulity, " it is impossible." The spirit of God, foreseeing tliis obduracy of heart, in order to remove every doubt, inspired the prophet Micah to add these omnipotent words, " For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken * This tract is taken from one of a series of Discourses on the Millennium, delivered in 1813 when Napoleon was at the acme of his career. Dr. Bogue, born in Scotland 1750, settled in London 1774, and removed in 1777 to the superintendence of the Missionary Seminary at Gosport, died in 1825, one of the best men of his age, and a master-spirit in starting and sustaining the great enterprises now at work for the world's conversion. — Am. Ed. t Mieahiv. 1—4. 2 UNIVERSAL PEACE. 54 It" He whom the word of the faithful God will not satisfy, has no hig-hcr evidence to receive, and must be left to the curse of his unbelief; but surely every Christian must say, "the Lord hath spoken, and I believe his word." Let your heart. Christian, sweetly repose on this delightful scene ; for wearied and harassed you must be with the din of arms, with the sight of slaughter, and the widely extended range of human misery. Turn your eyes away from the hateful specta- cle, and look forward to the joyful season, when war shall be unknown but in tradition ; and when all the nations of the world shall dwell together in peace and love. Now tlie aim of every ruler in Christendom is to do all the injury in his power to the nations with which he is at war. Now men of the most gigantic and highly cultivated minds, arc employing all tlieir energies, night and day, to invent metliods by which slaughter and desola- tion may be most widely scattered. Now hundreds of tliousands of men are enduring fatigues, suffering privations, and exposing themselves to dangers and deaths beyond what words can express, to carry tlie plans of others into execution, by spreading destruc- tion as extensively as possible. How solacing is it to look forward to the period predicted in the passage we have quoted from the prophet I Then the rulers of the world, while their first cares are employed for the happiness of their own people, will also extend tlieir concern to other nations, and strive to promote tlieir welfare and prosperity as widely as they can. Then men of superior talents wDl exercise them in endeavoring to make discoveries by which other countries as well as their own may reap essential benefit Then the energies of our youth will be engaged in the peaceful occupations of domestic life ; and such as leave their native land, will endeavor to promote the happiness of the regions to v/hich tliey go. But still some may ask, " How can these things be ?" So dif- ferent is tliat state of things from tlic present, or from any which the world has yet exhibited, that it may appear to some a mere chimera, a Utopian dream. But let such persons weigh the fol- lowing considerations : 1. The natural result of tlie doctrines and precepts of the Gos- pel. Hear its language. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all tliy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind : This is tlie first and great commandment And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.* Ye have heard that it hath been s;iid. Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them tliat iiate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.f Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wratli ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saitli the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he tliirst, give hira • Matt, xxil 37, 38, 39. f Matt. v. 43, 44. 65 UNIVERSAL PEACE. 3 drink ; for in so doing thou slialt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." * Of the spirit and commands of tiie Gospel, these passages furnish a fair specimen, and teach us what Christians ought to be. Do these encourage or even permit a disciple of Jesus to take away the precious life of the inhabitant of another country, more than of cue of his own, or indeed to injure him in the smallest degree ? If all mankind were under the influence of these principles, would they not produce universal peace ? 2. The nature of Christianity will be better understood in all its parts. When the religion of Jesus was first propagated in the world, some of its doctrines and precepts were peculiarly in oppo- sition to the sentiments and dispositions both of the Jews and Gentiles, and hence they were either rejected or perverted. Against these corruptions several of the Epistles of the New Testament are directly levelled ; but alas ! too many of them have retained their influence to the present day. This has been espe- cially the case with respect to that love which the disciples of Christ ought to bear to the whole human race ; and particularly as to the manner in which Christians, considered in tlieir relation as subjects of civil society, ought to demean themselves towards the members of other communities, or subjects of other govern- ments. How many Christians, who, acting as individuals, would be filled with horror at the thought of taking away the life of a man of another country, can, when acting as members of the commonwealth, put to death men of other lands without remorse, and even glory in tlie deed ! The obligation of the followers of Jesus to the exercise of universal love and good-will, will then be both clearly understood and deeply felt. It will be ascertained, that individual accountableness runs through every relation in which man can be placed ; that a Christian cannot lend his influ- ence or his energies to execute the designs of caprice, avarice, ambition or revenge ; and that when mixed with a hundred tliou- sand of his species, he is no more justified in taking away the life of a man of another countr}'- for those ends, than if he acted by himself alone. 3. In consequence of such a change of views, tlie true spirit of the Gospel will be imbibed by every Christian individual ; and the number of these individuals will be so great, as to Qomprehend the generality of mankind. To love tlie whole family of Adam, and to manifest this love to them in every relation, both public and private, will be the predominant temper in civil society. To abstain from doing injury to men of odier countries, will have equal authority over his conscience, as not to commit adultery, and not to be guilty of sacrilege. To exercise benevolence towards all, and to endeavor, by every means in his power, to promote the happiness of all, will be accounted of like obligation by the Chris- tian, as loving his brothers and sisters, and honoring his father and his mother. * Rom. xii. 19, 20, ^1. ' * UNIVERSAL PEACE. 66 4. Those evil principles which now reign in the hearts of the mass of mankind, and which are the causes of war, shall be then destroyed. " From whence come wars and figlitings among you ? Come they not hence, even from your lusts that war in your mem- bers ? " * But what are those lusts of which the Apostle speaks ? Are they a peculiar form of malignity ? Has the evil spirit first kindled them in the flames of hell, hastened with them t» earth, and thrust them still burning into the heart of one whom he had before marked as fit for his purpose on account of his singular wickedness ? No such thing. They are only the ordinary pas- sions of the human heart — pride, ambition, caprice, false honor, avarice, sensuality, malice, envy and hatred. These lusts raging in the breast of a mean man, form a drunkard, an adulterer, a thief, a robber, or an assassin ; when they operate with all their strength in the bosoms of the rulers of the "world, they produce war and slaughter. Let these evil passions be subdued, and " wars will cease unto the ends of the earth, the bow will be broken, the spear cut asunder, and the chariot burned in the fire." That such will be the case, we may naturally conclude, when it is considered, that in the place of those hateful lusts, love to God and love to man, meekness, humility, forgiveness of injuries, and ardent benevolence to every thing human, will fill the soul, and bear absolute sway over all its powers. 5. These principles will regulate the conduct of nations in all their intercourse with each other. Multitudes of individuals in their transactions with their fellows, have acted under the influ- ence of the precepts of the Gospel ; but to individuals the opera- tion of them has been confined. No nation has yet administered a system of goverrmient according to Christian principles, or pur- sued a regular succession of political measures nnder tlie influence of the spirit of Christian benevolence.f An objection has been often raised, that if a nation were to act upon these principles, and refuse to go to war, it would soon be swallowed up by other nations. In answer to this, let the follow- ing things be considered : 1. No instance of this pacific spirit in a community has yet * James iv. 1. \ We may quote the example of Pennsylvania, which settlement w^as established, and long conducted on Gospel principles. See Clarkson's Life of Penn. The Edinbuigh Review, in their critique of this work, say, in allusion to Penn's celebrated Treaty with the Indians, " Such indeed waa the spirit in which the negotiation was entered into, and the corresponding settlements conducted, that for the space of more than seventy years, and so long indeed as the Qua- kers retained the chief power in the government, the peace and amity which had been thus solemnly promised and concluded, never was violated ; and a large, though solitary example afforded of the facility with which they who are really sincere and friendlv in their views, may live in harmony with those who are supposed to be peculiarly fierce and faithless.'* 57 UNIVERSAL PEACE. 5 occurred in the history of the world ; no proof can therefore he brought against it from facts. It is an untried system. Long has the method of nation injuring nation been practised, and practised without any lasting good effect. Let men noAv try the Avay of abstaining from injury, and of conferring benefits, and thus heap coals of fire upon tlie heads of their enemies. It cannot possibly succeed worse ; but it may have unspeakably happier results. 2. A person of a humble, pacific spirit, leads the most quiet life. Is it not seen, that an inoffensive deportment, especially when united to uprightness and sanctity, preserves its possessor from many quarrels in which others are involved, and from many inju- ries which the quarrelsome sustain ? But why should it not be so with nations too ? Like causes produce like effects ; and if na- tions were as exemplary in those virtues as individuals are, as careful to avoid giving offence, and as slow in taking it, the num- ber of tlieir wars would be astonishingly diminished. If the most peaceable have recourse to law for the redress of grievances, why could not a council of modem Amphictyons be established in Europe to settle national disputes ? Surely the benign spirit of the Gospel should long ere now have taught Christendom to adopt an institution of which the pagan wisdom of ancient Greece set them so charming and instructive an example.* 3. The hitherto untried exercise of active benevolence by such a nation, would tend still more effectually to preserve peace and prevent war. There have been individuals who, by adding to dignity and sanctity of personal character a course of unwearied compassion for the distressed, have risen to so high esteem, that the very worst of men have felt an awe of reverence even for their name, and been afraid not only to do them an injury, but even to offer them an insult. Why should not this be the case also with communities ? It would, if they pursued a similar conduct. Great Britain has often sent fleets, and fire-ships, and bombs, and armed men to burn and destroy cities, and put the defenders to death. The natural consequence has been, tlat multitudes of them have been slain ; numerous families of peaceable inhabitants, consisting of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, and infants at the breast, have been buried under the ruins of their dwellings, or dashed to pieces in the streets, while the surrounding country has been mournfully desolated. What is the effect of this warfare 7 .Every survivor's heart is filled with hatred of the invaders, burns with revenge, and transmits the same spirit as an inheritance to his children. Let us suppose that, instead of such an armament, our rulers were to commission ships laden with corn, and clotlies, and money, at only half the amount of expense, and to accompany the ffift witli a letter to the government of a neighboring country to this effect : " Through the goodness of God, we have had an * Here is the germ of our plan for a Congress of Nations ; a sub- stitute for war contemplated by the friends of peace from the first. Bee our Tracts and Volumes on the subject. — Am. Ed. 6 UNIVERSAL rr.ACE. , 59 abundant harvest; and hearing that you have not, we send a present of com to the widows and the fatlierless, tlie orjjhan, the blind, and the lame. As many of them may be unprovided with raiment for the inclemency of winter, accept the clothing which will be delivered to you by our fleet, and divide among those who are in the greatest distress, the money which our messengers carry in their hands." What influence would such conduct bave upon the people of that country ? Would it leave any sting behind in their souls ? No. It would conciliate the esteem and affection of all. Tell them after this, "Britain wishes to injure you." No, they would say, it cannot be ; it is impossible tliat the people of that land should desire to do us harm. Command them to buckle on their armor, and wage war with the English. They would an- swer, " We camiot fight them ; the weapons would drop from our hands ; we love them too well to hurt them ; continue in peace." If any State woiUd act in this way to its neighbors, it would have no enemies. 4. A nation ^o much under the influence of the Gospel as to feel the obligation to live at peace with its neighbors, would dif- fuse, in a considerable measure, the same spirit among them. No people can arrive at so exalted a state of wisdom and goodness, witliout making a powerful impression on all the countries around. By diplomatic characters, tlie principles would be conveyed into the cabinets of the rulers of these countries, propagated in conver- sation by travellers in ten thousand respectable domestic groups, and, above all, disseminated in books tlirough the mass of the people by converts to the cause. The natural force of these prin- ciples wUl recommend them to men of intelligence, their excel- lence to philanthropists, and their claims of submission from the authority of God, to all who regulate their conduct by the Divine will. Hence there would be a progress towards the spirit of peace in every land. From the growth of the pacific principle in neigh- boring regions, the facility of liv-ing at peace would be astonish- ingly increased ; and the wise and happy nation, determined to act on the maxims of the Gospel, would find its difiiculties diminished from year to year, and its syslem of love gaining ground from day to day ! O that our country would set the example to the world, and commence the reign of peace on earth, and good- will towards men of every land ! 5. To all these considerations, add the existence and nature of divine Providence. Is it at all unreasonable to suppose, that a nation uniformly acting according to the pacific principles of the Gospel, would experience the peculiar protection of the great Governor of the world ? How remarkable, in this respect, was his care over Israel of old, when they faithfully kept his covenant and his testimonies ! During the time of the theocracy, it was only when they rebelled against God tliat they felt the scourge of war, and the hostile rage of the people around them. Is it irrational to conceive, that if any one country were to be regulated in all its domestic measures, and in all its foreign relations, by the spirit of 69 UNIVERSAL PEACE. 7 the Gospel, it would be the peculiar charge of God, and enjoy the smiles of his approbation, and the guardianship of his providence, in a degree hitherto unknown ? Individuals will have rewards and punishments dispensed to them in a future state ; but there na- tions, as such, will have no existence. Is it improper then to argue, that virtuous and pious nations wiU consequently have their reward in the present world ? And what is more reasonable than to conclude, tliat on a nation, the lover and advocate of peace, the God of peace will bestow the blessings of peace ? But another objection is frequently brought forward. " If the love of peace, producing the most determined enmity to war, be the spirit of Clmstianity, and tlie very essence of one part of its principles, how comes it to pass, that so little of it has appeared in the dispositions, the deportment, or the writings of persons pro- fessing to be the disciples of Christ ? " The following considera- tions will, I hope, furnish a satisfactory answer : Tliat there has been, in tlie minds of the mass of persons pro- fessing Christianity, a gross ignorance of this feature of the Gos- pel, is too evident to be denied ; and we can sufficiently account for its existence from a variety of causes operating with mighty force upon the human heart in its deep and malevolent depravity. To the spirit of peace, the prejudices of education are all opposed. The books which the scholar learns to read, were in general writ- ten under the influence of that ferocious depravity. They teach the child to hate or despise every nation but his own ; they represent war as the tlieatre of glory ; they tell him to rejoice in the miseries inflicted on the people of another country by those of his own ; and they render him passionately ambitious to wear the ensanguined laurels of victory, by achieving something in the. work of destruction which will be above the common standard. Unhappy youth ! who receives such lessons from his master and his books, and has his soul so early contaminated, and his princi- ples polluted in their source ! Though he may afterwards become a Christian, how seldom are these unchristian sentiments eradi- cated from his breast ! The spirit of the men of the world has likewise had considera- ble influence in preventing the growth of the spirit of peace. Hitherto, those who deny themselves, take up their cross, and fol- low Christ, have been few in number compared with the ungodly ; and their strength has not lain among those classes in society which, pre-eminent in rank, wealth, and literature, sway the pub- lic mind almost without control. On this account, not only the sentiments of Christians have had little weight, but they them- selves have sustained no small injury from the influence of those exalted personages, especially in reference to the subject before us. This I consider as one very powerful cause of tbe unchris- tian spirit of the disciples of Jesus in respect to war. An unhappy misconception of the Jewish economy has also led many into error respecting the doctrine of Christianity on this 8 UNIVERSAL PEACE. 60 point The state of that people was singular. The land of Ca- naan was their inheritance by the free gift of Jehovah himself; and they were autliorized by liim to take possession by extirpating the nations that inliabited it, whose iniquities were full. After- wards, when tliis land, the heritage of the Lord, was invaded, they were commanded to go to war, and expel the invaders with the edge of the sword. All this is peculiar to that people, and has no parallel in tlie history of mankind. From not attending to this difference of circumstances, many Christians have conceived themselves justified in being the advocates of war, and bound to approve the wars in which Sieir country was engaged, supposing theirs was like Canaan of old, God's favorite land. Hence they have made Jehovah a party in their quarrels. How large a por- tion of the disciples of Cluist have been hereby led astray from the pacific spirit of the Gospel ! Should I not rather say, how smaL is tlie number of Christians who have not been drawn away from the simplicity of Christ, and have escaped tlie contagion of this Jewish spirit which has for ages overspread and defiled the Chris- tian Church. From the prevalence of a pagan spirit, multitudes that profess Christiani{;y have lost sight of me peaceful genius of the Gospel, and become tlie advocates of bloodshed and of war. The ancient writers of Greece and Rome are tlie idols of modem times in most countries in Europe. To the generous youtli in the middle and superior classes of society, they are the books of education in our public schools. And in what veneration are they held I From them, among other evils, tlie youth imbibe a pagan morality that, far from being peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, more resembles that from beneatli, " which is earthly, sensual, devilish." This morality, instead of inculcating humility, meekness, benevolence and peace, — those essential at- tributes of tlie Gospel, — is selfish, proud, ambitious, savage, hates other nations, despises the mass of mankind, and seeks distinction and honor on the field of battle. With such sentiments have the greater part of statesmen and nobles come from the school and college into the senate and the cabinet Such is the morality most commonly found in the speeches of public men ; and the maxims generally recommended, accord much more with the sen- timents of the, Grecian and Roman classics, than with the spirit of Christ From the influence of such a morality, millions of the youth of Europe have been brought to an untimely grave. But instead of a paragraph, a volume would be necessary to delineate all tlie evils which have sprung from the prevalence of a pagem morality in the higher walks of life. From them it has descended to the humbler stations of society, and tlius has pervaded the general mass of the community. From these sources have flowed the ig- norance and the dislike of the pacific spirit of the Gospel, and the approbation and ardent love of war, which have so much diishonored the Christian name. 61 UNIVERSAL PEACE. If peace be the doctrine of the New Testament, how much is it to be lamented, that multitudes who profess to be Christians, are opposed to it both in sentiment and in practice. If we trace wars to their origin, the apostle James tells us what that is ; and it is so bad, that it ought not to find one advocate among those who name the name of Jesus. But alas ! ilie generality of them enter as keenly into the quarrels of nations, as any of the men of the world can. Yet surely tlie influence of Christian principles, the feeling of that love which is due to all the children of men, and the awful thought of multitudes of immortal souls being hurried unprepared to the tribunal of God, should repress this spirit, and produce an unquenchable desire of peace on earth. But what is still more to be bewailed, ministers of Christ, who ought to be patterns of peace and love, have drunk into the spirit of war, and sought to make their God a party in every contention in which their country happened to be engaged. They pray to him for victory over its enemies ; they give him thanks when ten or twenty thousand of their foes are destroyed, and in louder strains, if still more have been slain ; and in their discourses to their flock, they endeavor to inspirit them to battle and to blood- shed. How displeasing to God must such conduct be! How greatly is he dishonoredby it ! What miseries does war bring on the bodies, and especially on tlie souls of men ; and these not pre- vented, but encouraged, by persons who profess to love God with all their heart, and their neighbor as themselves. We have reason t§ bless God, that the number of those Chris- tians who perceive and feel their obligations to seek the peace of mankind, is increasing from day to day. In the first ages of the Church, there were some who understood this to be the doctrine of the Gospel. At the Reformation, it had also its advocates ; but they unhappily appended to it other sentiments which were un- founded, and thus detracted from the weight of tlieir testimony to peace. Since that time, none have been so faithful witnesses to the pacific spirit of tlie religion of Jesus as the Quakers ; and, had all the rulers of Christendom been of that denomination for the last hundred and fifty years, the oceans of blood shed in wars would have had no existence. And how much happier a countenance would Europe have worn than she now wears ! For more than a century after their rise, few besides themselves adopted their peaceful creed ; but of late, it has been embraced by considerable numbers amon^ every sect ; and there is reason to conclude, that if it has made converts in the most unfiivorable circumstances, its progress will be rapid when the state of tlie world, by the restoration of peace, shall be more congenial to its claims. All the disciples of Christ should imbibe the spirit of peace. It displays unspeakable mercy in God, that while individuals, who have been made partakers of his grace, maintain sentiments inju- rious to his honor, and the happiness of man, he should yet com- passionately hold communion with them. But these unchristian 10 UNIVERSAL PEACE. 6& opinions certainly prevent them from enjoying tliose full commu- nications which God Avould otherwise impart. Let these old things wliich belong to the old man, be done away, and all tilings become new. Understand your calling, brethren. It is from darkness into marvellous light, that ye may shine as lights in the world, that ye may do no harm to any person of any country, but all the good in your power to all mankind. This was the spirit of your Master and of his religion ; let it be yours ; and let the ardor and universality of your benevolence continually increase. Above all, let the ministers of Christ be men of peace, and ad- vocates for the peace of the world. If we seek to inflame the malevolent passions of the soul, who shall be found to cool tliem ? The people of the world talk of glory from victory and conquest ; but we know that honor and happiness can arise only from doing the will of God, and living in subjection to him, and in peace with men. Let us tell the world so, and call them away from their angry contests for mastery to dwell in love. O that those who preach to emperors and kings, to ministers of state, to senates and to parliaments, would lift up their voice like a trumpet, and proclaim to them from the great JehovaJi, and from Jesus Christ who shed his blood to save sinners from -misery, that the religion of the New Testament is a religion of peace ; and that for the blood of every man slain in war, the Almighty Ruler of the uni- verse will demand an account from those who direct the affairs of nations. ^ The co-operation of all enlightened Christians to diffuse tliese benevolent principles, would do much to promote the peace of the world. The great changes in the moral world, which are preg- nant with happiness to man, are to be brought about only by the most vigorous exertions of moral principle in the breast of the wise and the good. It is from the operation of such principles, that the peaceful state of the world is to be produced ; and these principles must be disseminated by those in whose hearts they reign. Few they may be at first; but the number will continually increase. Let every one consider what he can do to promote the grand work, and let him do it without delay. He that has nothing else, has a tongue to plead the cause of peace in his domestic circle, and in- fuse his sentiments into the minds of his neighbors too, his ac- quaintances, and those he meets with in the way. Another can write clearly and forcibly ; let his letters to his friends bear testi- mony to his zeal, and let him compose tracts to enlighten society on the subject A third has a talent for poetry ; let him in tune- ful numbers touch the reader's heart with a delineation of the mis- eries of war, and the blessings of peace. A fourth possesses wealth ; let him give his money to purchase these publications, and spread them far and wide. A fit>h is a man of genius, and could in a fuller and more elaborate treatise give an extensive as well as an impressive view of tlie doctrine ; let him consecrate his powers to this service in honor of the Prince of Peace. A sixth 63 UNIVERSAL PEACE. ll' has the eloquence of Apollos, and can stand up m a public assem- bly, arrest the attention, and move the heart of every hearer ; let him cry aloud, and merit the title of the orator of peace. The ministers of Christ from the pulpit, (and it is no improper theme for that halloAved place,) can lead their audience to a sight of the sources of wars, — tliose lusts which war in our members, — unveil their deformity, and display the charming- beauties of peace on earth, and good-will to men. To collect the force of all these into one centre from which the rays of light and heat may be emitted in every direction with more powerful energy, is a thing of high importance. This effect ai> association will produce ; and as we live in an age of societies to combine individual efforts for public benefit, why should not one be formed for promoting peace among the nations of the earth ? * The subject, every one will allow, merits all the attention that can be given it. O that God would call forth some wise, pious, en- lightened, ardent philanthropist, who shall form tliis determination in his heart, and carry it into execution ! — "To convince mankind that Christianity forbids war, to banish tlie idea of its lawfulness from their creed, and the love of its practice from their heai-ts, and to make all men seek peace witli tJieir whole soul, and pursue it with all their might, till it establish an universal reign over hu- man nature, shall be the grand object of my existence on earth." And how exalted an object of benevolence would he choose : The suffering of the tenants of a prison-house, in comparison with the miseries of war, is but as the anguish of a single family pin- ing away and dying for want, when placed by the side of a whole populous province desolated, by famine which has consumed all its inhabitants. Even the more extensive calamities of the African slave trade, drawn up in array before the ravages, and tortures, and horrors of war, are hut like the hill Mizar compared to Leba- non. What blessings will not descend on the man who devotea himself to the destruction of this monstrous foe of human happi- ness ! The influence of the female sex is universally acknowledged and felt. I want that influence to diffuse peace and love over the face of the earth. I scarcely know how to address myself to re- spectable matrons who, after nursing their sons with the tenderest affection, send them away to tlie work of desolation, and rejoice at tlieir success, when they make women like yourselves widows, and their children fatherless, or overwhelm an aged father and mother with sorrow, because their boy perished in the field by your young hero's sword ; and then they praise God for what their sons have done ! A thousand times rather would I that God had said concerning me, " write this man childless," than that a son of mine had ever imbrued his hands in the blood of man his brother. * This was written before the formation of Peace Societies. — Am. Ed. 12 UNIVERSAL PEACE. 64 A grreater number of celebrated female writers than the present, no age has produced. But what grave essay in prose, or what poetic effusion of yours, do we find to bring war into disgrace, and to awaken the horror of every feeling heart against its miseries and its crimes ? In whicJi of your works have you come forth as the advocates of humanity, and tiiO champions of peace ? Tell me, that I may withdraw tlie censure. You are silent ; you blush at this reproach, and well you may : — tliey may justly be the most burning blushes that ever reddened the female cheek. Had you employed your tender eloquence in the cause of humanity and peace, ten thousands of ingenuous youths, whose hearts' blood was poured out on the ground, and whose faces were bloodless and pale in death, as they lay in the open field, had been spared, and now adorning both the domestic circle and society with their presence and their affection. To speak thus grieves me to the heart ; but I am compelled to do it, for there are seasons when truth must be spoken, however painful it may be both to the speaker and the auditor. You blush for your neglect ; but I must have more than bluslies ; I want fruits meet for repentance. My earnest wish is to see you become the determined foes of war, and the most ardent friends of peace. I long to hear you plead with all your souls (and who can plead like you ?) for the harmony of the world, and peace among tlie nations. If every intelligent, pious and benevolent female would engage heart and hand in the work, the success would be great beyond conception. Oh ! if all the ministers of the Gospel would unite in this labor of love, and work of peace, what wonders Avould be done ! What an amazing change for the better would be produced ! Shall I bring arguments to convince, or motives to induce you to lifl up your voice for the peace of the world ? I will not bring one. If you refuse your aid, "go, strip yourselves of the robes of office, depart and officiate at the altars of some savage idol who delights in slaughter and blood." But why do I speak thus ? Surely none »f you, my brethren, will refuse to come fortli to the help of the Lord against so mighty a foe of human happiness, but will each endeavor to excel every otlier in maintaining the honor of the Prince of Peace, and strive that there may not be an indi- vidual in his flock who has not imbibed the principles of peace. Such a union of efforts will, through the divine blessing, infallibly gain the day; and in prayer for this blessing, let every heart be continually lifled up to the God of all grace ! AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. \ No. VIII. MILITARY DISCIPLNE. From a system like that of war, we can expect nothing but cruelty in the treatment of its agents as well as its victims. Nei- ther kindness nor lenity is compatible with its spirit, its principles or its aims. It is the law of violence dictated by malice, and executed by revenge ; and an intimate acquaintance with its ope- rations, whether in a time of war or of peace, would fill a benevo- lent mind with disgust and horror. I shall not describe in detail the different kinds of punishment, but only give from eye-witnesses a general view of their barbarous and brutal severity. Such testimony, like the rum-seller testifying against his own business, is given with reluctance. " But for my desire," says one of these witnesses,* " to present the reader with a true exhibition of life on board a British man-of-war, it would bo my choice to suppress tliese disgusting details of cruelty in punishment. This, however, is impossible ; I must either draw a filse picture, or de- scribe them," " Our short passage from Gravesend to Spithead gave opportu- nity for one of those occurrences which are a disgrace to the naval service of any nation — a flogging. A poor fellow had fallen into the very^ailor-like offence of getting drunk. For this the captain sentenced him to the punishment of four dozen lashes. He was first placed in {ro7is all night ; and the irons used for this purpose were shackles fitting round the ankles, through the ends of which was passed an iron bar some ten or twelve feet in length, with a pad- lock at the end of the bar to hold the prisoner securely. Thus placed in 'duress vile,' he was guarded by a marine until the cap- tain bade the first lieutenant prepare tiie hands to witness the pun- ishment. Upon this, the lieutenant transmitted the order to the master at arms. He then ordered the gTating or hatch full of square holes, to be rigged ; and it v/as placed accordingly between the main and spar decks, not far from the mainmast, " While these preparations were going on, the ofiicers were dressing themselves in full uniform, and arming themselves with their dirks ; and the prisoner's messmates carried him his best clothes, to make him appear in as decent a manner as possible, in the hope of thus moving the feelings of the captain favorably to- wards tlie prisoner. This done, the hoarse, dreaded cry of ' All hands ahoy to witness punishment ! ' from the lips of the boat- swain, peals along the ship as mournfully as the notes of a funeral knell. At tliis signal the officers muster on the spar deck, the men on the main deck. Next came tlie prisoner ; guarded by a " Samuel Leech, in his Thirty Years from Home. P. T. NO. VIII. 2 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 66 marine on one side, and the master at arms on the other, he "vvas marched up to the grating. His back was made bare, and his eliirt laid loosely upon liis back, when the two quarter-masters pro- ceeded to seize him up ; that is, they tied his hands and feet with spun-yams, called the seizings, to the grating. The boatswain's mates, whose office it is to flog on board a man-of-war, stood ready with their dreadful weapon of punishment, the cat-o'-nine- tails. This instrument of torture was composed of nine cords, a quarter of an inch round, and about two feet long, the ends whipt with fine twine. To these cords was affixed a stock, two feet in length, covered with red baize. The reader may be sure that it is a most formidable instrument in the hands of a strong, skilful man. Indeed, any man who should whip his horse with it, would commit an outrage on humanity, which the moral feeling of any community would not tolerate ; he would be prosecuted tor cruel- ty ; yet it is used to whip me>- on board ships of war ! " The boatswain's mate is ready, with coat off, and whip in hand. The captain gives the word. Carefully spreading the cords with the fingers of his left hand, the executioner throws the cat over his right shoulder ; it is brought down upon the now uncov- ered shoulders of the bian. His flesh creeps ; it reddeijs as if blushing at the indignity ; the sufferer groans ; lash follows lash, until the first mate, wearied with the cruel employment, gives place to a second. Now two dozen of these dreadful lashes have been inflicted ; tlie lacerated back looks inhuman ; it resembles roasted meat burnt nearly black before a scorching fire ; yet still the lashes fall ; the captain continues merciless. Vain are the cries and prayers of the wretched man. ' I would not forgive the Savior,' was the blasphemous reply of one of these naval demi- gods, or rather demi-fiends, to a plea for mercy. The executioners keep on. Four dozen strokes have cut up his flesh, and robbed him of all self-respect ; there he hangs, a pitied, self-despised, groaning, bleeding wretch ; and now the captain cries, forbear ! His shirt is thrown over his shoulders ; the seizings are loosed ; he is led away, staining his path with red drops of blood ; and the hands, ' piped down ' by the boatswain, sullenly return to their duties. Such was the scene witnessed on board the Macedonian, on the passage from London to Spithead ; and such, substantially, is every punishment scene at sea, only carried sometimes to a greater length of severity." "It is generally understood," says Rev. J. C. Webster in his account of his voyage across the Atlantic in one of our war-ships,* " that the word of a commanding officer is law. He can punish at will ; his autliority is well mgh absolute ; for the process of redress for a common sailor, under any ordinary circumstances, by an appeal to a court-martial, would be so tardy and dubious, as hardly to be considered a qualification of the statement that the system is one of unlimited despotism. From the time Jack signs • Advocate of Peace, vol. iv. p. 48. 67 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 3 his shipping papers, during a three or four years' Cruise, till he is discharged, he virtually surrenders his own free agency. He is kept like a criminal within tlie walls of a prison during most of the time ; and I have known it to be with tlie utmost difficulty that a boy could get liberty to go on shore in a foreign land, and see a mother or sister whom he had not seen for years. No confidence is placed in Jack, and so none is begotten in him towards his officers. " The summary and barbarous practice of flogging upon the bare back is the means used to secure obedience to the laws. The principal offences for which this penalty is incurred are, want of cleanliness, intoxication, stealing, neglecting the watch, desertion, and disobedience of a superior officer. And sometimes Jack suflers deservedly, and sometimes he does not ; for it requires but little ingenuity in a superior officer to get a man flogged for the satis- faction of a mere personal grudge. When I went upon deck be- fore breakfast, I seldom failed to see some poor felloAv smarting under the boatswain's lash at the gangway. The instrument used is a handle twelve inches long, with nine thongs attached to one end. When we lay at Portsmouth, Eng., several men sought an opportunity to desert the ship ; most of them were retalcen, and put in irons until we had gone to sea again. On the morning of the twelfth of July, I heard the order throughout the ship of ' all hands to witness punishment.' I had no disposition to ' witness the barbarous process ; but even in the cock-pit I was not out of tlie reach of the sound of the lash, and the cries of the wretched suflerers. Seven men received three dozen lashes each, and one, who proved to be a ring-leader of the rest, four dozen " " One night," says McNally,* " it fell calm ; and the officer of the deck ordered the forecastle men and foretop men to man the fore clew garnets and buntlines, and stand by to haul up the fore- sail. The word was given, and the sail hauled up, but not so quickly as he wished it to be. The yards were braced sharp up ; and, as there was no wind, the fore tack and sheet blocks caught in tlie lee fore rigging, on the ratlines, and a man had to clear them. Nothing, however, would be taken as an excuse ; and he flogged the whole watch of the forecastle and foretop men, giving them one dozen each, and ordered tliem forward to set the sail again. It was set, and they were ordered to man the clew garnets and buntlines, to haul it up again. The lee clew caught in the rigging as before, and he flogged them all again. Once more the sail was set, and hauled up with the same results ; in fact, it was a moral impossibility to run the lee clew right up, as the heavy blocks would catch in the rigging ; and the men were flogged three times in less than one hour. There were eleven in the fore- top, and twelve on the forecastle, making twenty-three men, pun- ished with three dozen each, for no offence under heaven. ^ Evils and Muses in the JVaval Service^ &c., as quoted in the' Advocate of Peace, vol. iii. p. 188 et seq. 4 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 68 " During the three years' cruise of the Fairfield, I do not believe a ^single day elapecd that punishment by flogging did not take place. At that time there was a custom in the service, directly contrary to law, whereby any officer of the deck could in- flict punishment This was not with the cat, as the law directs, but with what is termed a colt, a piece of eighteen-thread ratline, or one-inch rope, which generally has one or two hard twine whip- pings upon each end. Twelve lashes with this, over a thin frock or shirt, gave greater pain, and bruised the flesh more tlian the cat would have done ; and it was with tliis instrument that the deck officers of the Fairfield punished the men, and there was no limit to the number of lashes, but just as many as, it might please the officer to order — sometimes one dozen, and at other times three. Such punishment frequently brought tlie blood through the shirt, and often left the flesh black for two or three weeks, and then yellow for as many more, before it healed perfectly. " Never let citizens in the Northern States rail at slavery, or the punishment inflicted on slaves, or say tliat it is wrong, so long as their own sons, their own flesh and blood, their own seamen, their own free citizens, and the men to whom they look for protec- tion in case of war, are daily subject to tlie same treatment as the southern slaves. The late John Randolph openly declared in tlie legislative halls of Congress, that he had witnessed, in a few months, more flogging on board the man-of-war that carried him to Russia, tlian had taken place during ten years on his plantation, where there were five hundred slaves. " I was on board the Lexington from 1821 to 1824. The cap- tain was a kind man, but often very passionate, and, when so, very unjust He allowed no punishment on board except what he in- flicted himself; but he sometimes went far beyond the law in punishing petty ofiences. When we were at the Falkland Islands, the men were put on allowance in consequence of tlie provisions on board being likely to run short. Having gone from a warm climate to a cold one, tlieir appetites increased, and made the allowance too little ; and this created a ferment among the crew. One day they had been called aft;, and a vehement lecture read them by the captain ; tliey were sent forward, and one man made some remark, wliich was overheard by the lieutenant who imme- diately reported it to the captain. All hands were instantly called to witness punishment The marines were turned out with fixed bayonets, and the captain brought a pair of ship's pistols from the cabin, loaded with ball cartridges, which he laid upon the capstan. The man was then ordered to strip, which he did without a mur- mur, as he knew that to attempt to appease the captain, would be like trying to stop tlie sea from raging. He was seized up, and received twenty-four lashes without a stop. The weather was extremely cold, being in so high a latitude ; but the man bore his punishment in silence ; his lips writhed, but no complaint escaped nim. He was taken down, and warned not to grumble about pro- visions again, under penalty of receiving twice the number of 69 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. O lashes. He spoke not ; but those who looked upon his calmness, knew that it was the calmness of resolution. Had Captain D. lived until that man returned to the United States, it would have been bad for both of them. This punishment was inflicted directly contrary to law, for it declares that a captain shall punish only a private, and this man was a petty officer ; he shall not punish be- yond twelve lashes, and yet he inflicted twenty-four. " About the same time a more severe punishment took place. Wm. Mclntire, a tailor, who was employed by the captain in liis cabin, had persuaded one of the cabin boys to give him some of the captain's brandy, which the ste-ward missed, and reported. The man was not drunk ; but he had drank the brandy, and for so do- ing- was brought to the gangway, and punished with three dozen lashes upon the bare back. It was his first and last flogging ; he did not long survive it ; it sank deep into his heart, and he never more held up his head. He sleeps the sleep of death on the bleak barren Falkland Islands, far from his home and friends. I dare the medical men that were on board tliat ship, to say that he did not die in consequence of the flogging he received, the victim of cruelty and oppression." " The worst species of punishment," says Leech, " is Jlogging through thejleet This is never inflicted without due trial and sen- tence by a court-martial, for some aggravated offence. After the oflfender is thus sentenced, and the day arrives appointed by his judges for its execution, the unhappy wretch is conducted into the ship's launch — a large boat — which has been previously rig- ged up witii poles and grating, to which he is seized up ; he is at- tended by the ship's surgeon, whose duty it is to decide when the power of nature's endurance has been taxed to its utmost. A boat from every ship in the fleet is also present, each carrying one or two officers and two marines fully armed. These boats are connected by tow lines to the launch. " These preparations made, the crew of the victim's ship are ordered to man the rigging, while the boatswain commences the tragedy. When he his administered one, two or three dozen lashes, according to the number of ships in the fleet, the prisoner's shirt is thrown over his gory back ; the boatswain returns on board, the hands are piped down, the drummer beats a mournful melody, called the rogue's march, and the melancholy procession moves on. Arriving at the side of another ship, the brutal scene is re- peated, until every crew in the fleet has witnessed it, and from one to three hundred lashes have lacerated the back of the broken- spirited tar to a bleeding pulp. He is then placed under the sur- geon's care, to be fitted for duty — a ruined man — broken in spirit ! all sense of self-respect gone, forever gone! If he survive, it is only to be like his own brave bark, when winds and waves con- spire to dash her on the pitiless strand, a wretched, .hopeless wreck ; a living, walking shadow of his former self. " No plea of necessity can be successfully urged in behalf of whipping men ; for, if subordination is expected to follow such 6 MILITARY DISCIPLINE, 70 terrible examples, I know, from my acquaintance with the sufferers themselves, that the expectation is vain. One of two results always follows — the victim either lives on, a lone, dark-minded, broken-spirited man, despising liimself, and hating every one, because he thinks every one hates him ; or he lives with one fear- ful, unyielding purpose, a purpose on which he feeds and nourishes his galled mind, as food affords life and energy to his physical constitution. That purpose is revenge. I have heard them swear — and Uie wild flashing eye, the darkly frowning brow, told how finn was the intent — that if ever they should be in battle, they would shoot their officers. I have seen them rejoice over the mis- fortunes of their persecutors, but more especially at their death. That it has frequently led to mutiny, is well verified. I have known such severity to result in actual murder. While we lay at Lisbon, a sergeant of marines, on board a seventy-four, made himself obnoxious by repeated acts of tyranny. Two marines de- tennined upon his deatli. One night, unperceived by any, they seized him, hurried him to the gangway, and pitched him over- board. The tide was running strong ; and the man was drowned ! But for themselves, his fate would have remained a secret until tlie day of judgment ; it was discovered by an officer, who ac- cidentally overheard them congratulating each other on their achievement He betrayed them. A court-martial sentenced them. They Avere placed on deck with halters on their necks. Two guns were fired ; and when the smoke cleared away, two men were seen dangling from the fore-yard-arm. " The case of our ship's drummer will illustrate the hopelessness of our situation. Being seized up for some petty offence, he demand- ed, what no captain can refuse, to be tried by a court-martial, in the hope, probably, of escaping altogether. The officers laughed among each other ; and when, a few days afterwards, the poor, affrighted man offered to withdraw the demand, and take six dozen lashes, they coolly remarked, ' The drummer is sick of his bar- gain.' He would have been a wiser man, had he never made it ; for the court-martial sentenced him to receive two hundred lashes tlirough the fleet — a punishment ostensibly for his first offence, but really for his insolence (?) in demanding a trial by court-martial. Such was the administration of justice (?) on board the Macedo- nian." The men on board a man-of-war are continually exposed to such treatment " With my return to active service after my sickness," says Leech, " came my exposure to hardships, and, what I dreaded still more, to punishment Some of the boys Mere to be punished on the main deck ; the rest were ordered forward to witrtess it, as usual. Being so far aft that I could not hear tlie summons, I remained, as a matter of course, at my post The hawk-eye of tlie lieutenant missed me, and in a rage he ordered me to be sent for to receive a flogging for my absenge. Excuse was in vain ; for such was the fiendish temper of this brutal offi- cer, he only wanted the shadow of a reason for dragging the poor 71 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 7 lielpless boys of liis charge to the grating. While I stood m trem- bling expectation of being degraded by the hated cat, a summons from tlie captain providentially called off our brave boy-flogger, and I escaped. The offence was never mentioned afterwards.- The reader can easily perceive how such a constant exposure to tlie lash must embitter a seaman's life." Mark the severity visited upon the slightest offences. " A mid- shipman named Gale, a most rascally, unprincipled fellow, found his pocket handkerchief in possession of one of the crew. He charged the man with stealing it. It was in vain that the poor wretch asserted that he found it under his haimnock. He was reported as a tliief ; a court-martial sat upon him, and returned the shamefully disproportionate sentence of three hundred lashes through the fleet, and one year's imprisonment ! Nor was that sentence a dead letter ; the unhappy man endured it to the letter. Fifty were laid on alongside of the Macedonian, in conformity witli a common practice of inflicting the most strokes at the first ship, in order that the gory back of the criminal may strike the more terror into the crews of the other ships. This poor tortured man bore two hundred and twenty, and was pronounced by the attending surgeon unfit to receive the rest. Galled, bruised, and agonized as he was, he besought him to suffer the infliction of the remaining eighty, that he might not be called to pass through the degrading scene again ; but this prayer was denied ! He was brought on board, and when his wounds were healed, tlie captain, Shylock-like, determined to have the whole pound of flesh, or- dered him to receive the remainder ! " " I liave heard," says the late William Ladd, " the captain of a British man-of-war order one of his men to receive a dozen lashes for having on blue trowsers. Sailors are subject every moment of their lives, not only to a torrent of imprecations and curses, but to the boatswain's cat-o'-nine-tails. The least complaint brings them to the gangway ; aiid not unfrequently is a sailor sentenced to receive five hundred and even a thousand lashes, to be inflicted day after day as he may be able to bear them. He is attended at each whipping by a surgeon to determine how much he can bear without immediate danger to life ; and often does the flagellation proceed till the victim faints, and then he is respited to renew his sufferings another day. This acfcount I had from a British surgeon. I have often shuddered at the recital of the whippings through the fleet, the keel-hauling, the spread eagle, the gagging, the hand-cuffing, and other punishments inflicted on sailors who have been trepanned or forced into a service from which death is the only release." * Nor is the punishment of soldiers much less revolting. " One day," says the same writer, " I was on parade when preparation was making for a kind of punishment called the gauntlet. All the soldiers of the regiment were placed in two ranks facing each * Essays on Peace and War, No. 22. 9 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 72 Other, and about five feet apart. To each soldier was given a stick three feet long, or more. I could not bear to stay and witness the execution ; but I was afterwards informed that the culprit, stripped naked to his waist, and his hands tied before hun, was marched between tlie ranks, preceded by a soldier walking backwards with a bayonet at the sufferer's breast, to keep him from going too fasL In this way he was struck once by every soldier, officers going down on the outside of the ranlvs to see that each man did his duty ! and, if any one was merely suspected of not laying on hard enough, he received over his own head a blow from tlie officer's cane. Sometimes the criminal has to retrace his steps ; and, as a regiment consists of six hundred or a thousand men, and some German regiments of two thousand, he must receive from twelve hundred to two or even four thousand blows ! The punishment often proves fatal ; and to such a pitch of despair were those sol- diers carried by their sufferings, that many of them committed suicide ; and one poor fellow shot himself near my lodgings." " Flogging is certainly a tremendous punishment. The delin- quent is stripped to tlie waist, tied up by his hands, and then flog- ged with a whip having nine lashes, with three knots each, so that each stroke makes twenty-seven wounds ; if a capital sentence is awarded, he receives nine hundred and ninety-nine of tliese stripes ; and, at every twenty-five strokes, the drummer, Avho inflicts them, is changed, in order to insure a more energetic enforcement of the penalty. This punishment occurs-very frequently in the English army, drunkenness and other acts of insubordination being often punished with from one to two hundred lashes." * "One wintiy mom," says another eye-witness, f "when the bleak wind whistled along the ranks of a refriment paraded to see corporal punishment inflicted, every eye was turned in pity to- wards tlie delinquent " — his offence was drunkenness — " until the commanding officer, with stentorian lungs, cried out, ' Strip, sir.' The morning was so bitterly cold, that the mere exposure of a man's naked body was itself a severe punislimeiit When the offender was tied, or rather hung, up by tlio hands, his back, from intense cold and previous flogging, exhibited a complete black- and-blue appearance. On the first lash, the blood spirted out several yards ; and, after he had received fifty, his back from tlie neck to the waist, was one continued stream of blood. When taken down, he staggered, and fell to the ground. The poor man never looked up again ; his prospects as a soldier were utterly destroyed : and so keenly did his degradation i)rey upon Iiis spirits, that he at length shot himself in his barrack-room." I will now give a specimen from our own country. A surgeon, stationed during the war of 1812-14 at Greenbush, N. Y., says, " One morning several prisoners confined in the provost guard- house, were brought out to hear their sentences. Some wore the • The testimony of a warrior, quoted in the Harbinger of Peace, vol. i., p. 281. t lb., p. 279. 73 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 9 marks of long confinement, and upon all had the severity of the prison house stamped its iinpression. They looked dejected at this public exposure, and anxious to learn their fate. I had never seen tlie face of any of them before, and only knew that a single one had been adjudged to death. Soon as their names were called, and their sentences announced, I discerned, by his agony and ges- tures, the miseralple man on whom that sentence was to fall — a man in the bloom of youth, and the fulness of health and vigor. " Prompted by feelings of sympathy, I called next morning to see him in his prison. There, chained by his leg to the beam of the guard-house, he was reading the Bible, trying to prepare himself, as he said, for the fatal hour. I learned from him the circum- stances of his case. He was the father of a family, having a wife and three young children, thirty or forty miles distant from the camp. His crime was desertion ; and his only object, he de- clared, was to visit his wife and children. Having seen that all was well with them, it was his intention to return. But, whatever his intention, he was a deserter, and, as such, taken and brought into the camp, manacled. The time between the sentence and its execution was brief; the authority in whom alone was vested the power of reprieve or pardon, distant. Thus he had no hope, and requested only the attendance of a minister of the gospel, and permission to see his wife and children. The first part of the request was granted ; but whether he was permitted or not to see his family, I do not now remember. " Dreading the hour of his execution, I resolved, if possible, to avoid being present at the scene. But the commander sent me an express order to attend, that I might, in my official capacity of surgeon, see the sentence fully executed. The poor fellow was taken from the guard-house, to be escorted to the fatal spot. Be- fore him was his coffin — a box of rough pine boards — ^bome on the shoulders of two men. The prisoner stood, with his arms pinioned, between two clergymen. A white cotton gown, or winding sheet, reached to his feet. It was trimmed with black, and had attached to it, over his heart, tlie black image of a heart — the mark at which the executioners were to aim. On his head was a cap of white, also trimmed with black. His countenance was blanched to the hue of his winding sheet, and his frame trem- bled with agony. Our procession formed, we moved forward with slow and measured steps to the tune of a death march, (Roslin Castle,) played with muffled drums, and mourning fifes. The scene was solemn beyond tlie power of description ; a man in the vigor of life walking to his grave — to the tune of his own death march — clothed in his burial robes — surrounded, not by friends assembled to perform the last sad offices of affection, and to weep over him in the last sad hour, but by soldiers with bristling bayo- nets and loaded muskets, urged by stern command to do 9ie vio- lence of death to a fellow soldier. Amid reflections like these, we arrived at the place of execution^ a large open field, in whose centre a heap of earth, freshly tlirown up, marked the spot of the deserter's grave. On this field the whole force then ^t the can- fd MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 74 tonment was drawn up in the form of a hollow square, with the side beyond the grave vacant The executioners, eight in num- ber, had been drawn by lot No soldier would volunteer for such a duty. Their muskets had been charged by the officer of the day, seven of them Avith ball, the eighth witli powder alone. Thus each may believe that he has the blank cartridge, and therefore has no hand in the death of his brother soldier — striking indica- tions of the nature of the serA'ice. " The coffin was placed parallel with the grave, and about two feet distant In the intervening space, the prisoner was directed to stand. He desired permission to say a word to his fellow sol- diers ; and thus standing between his coffin and his grave, he warned them against desertion, continuing to speak until the officer on duty, with his watch in his hand, announced to him in a low voice, Two o'dockf your lust moment is at hand — you must kneel on your coffin. This done, tlie officer drew down the white cap, so as to cover the eyes and most of the face of the prisoner. The kneeling was the signal for the executioners to advance. They had before, to avoid being distinguished by the prisoner, stood intermingled witli the soldiers who formed tlie line. They now came forward, marching abreast, and took their stand a little to the left, about two rods distant from their living mark. The officer raised his sword. At this signal, the executioners took aim. He then gave a blow on a drum which was at hand ; the executioners all fired at the same instant The miserable man, with a horrid scream, leaped from tlie earth, and fell between his coffin and his grave. The sergeant of the guard, a moment after, shot him through tlie head, holding the muzzle so near tliat his cap took fire ; and there the body lay upon the face, tlie head emitting the mingled fumes of burning cotton and burning hair. The whole line then marched by the body, as it lay upon the earth, the head still smoking, that every man might behold for himself tlie fate of a deserter. " We then started on our return. The whole band struck up, with uncommon animation, our national air, (Yankee Doodle,) and to its lively measures we were hurried back to our parade ground ! Having been dismissed, the commander of the post sent an in- vitation to all the officers to meet at his quarters, whither we repaired, and were treated to a glass of gin and water: ! ! " I will quote a recent case from England. " On the 29th of June, 1839, the Tower of London and its environs were thrown into great excitement by the flogging of two privates, for insulting non- commissioned officers ! One was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails, and the other one hundred and fifty. The time chosen was ten o'clock ; the place the most public in the Tower. The first man brought out, was a fine young man, named Jarman, whose crime was insulting his sergeant He was secured to the halberts by tliin cords, which severely cut his flesh ; and the dreadful and beastly infliction commenced. He received his punishment without uttering a word or a groan, although the punishment was unusually severe, the drummers being changed every ten lashes, instead of twenty-five as heretofore, and the cat, 75 MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 11 the instrument of punishment, very heavy. After he had received the hundred lashes, or nine hundred stripes, his back presented a mangled appearance, and tlie blood poured down his person. "As soon as the first man left the square, the second man, Slade, a much slighter person than the other, was called to the front. He was sentenced to receive one hundred and fifty lashes, or one thousand three hundred and fifty stripes. It was evident he did not possess the nerve of the other man ; he shook so violently that he was scarcely able to pull his jacket off, and his terror was evi- dent to all. Upon being tied up, he shook from head to foot ; and the moment he was struck, he began to shriek loudly, and earnest- ly called out ' mercy, mercy ! ' which were heard very distinctly all over the Tower. The cat fell with double force on his back, ow- ing to its being wetted with the blood of the other man. Slade no sooner began to call out than the drums were beaten to stifle his cries, and re-echoed among the walls. When about seventy or eighty lashes had been inflicted, the poor fellow's head fell on his shoulder, and it was supposed he had fainted; but such was not the case, as the commanding ofiicer walked up to the triangle, and on looking him in the face, he ordered the drummer to pro- ceed. At this time, with the exception of the drummers who were selected to flog, it took all the others to secure him, his back being literally cut to pieces from his neck to his loins. His cries for mercy were unavailing, until one hundred lashes had been in- flicted, when it was found he was unable to bear any more. He was led away between two of his comrades, a truly shocking spec- tacle of suffering humanity. Several men fainted away ; and we could mention the names of several officers who did have humanity enough to loosen the stocks and coats of several privates. Many clerks and others of the ordnance department, witnessed part of the punishment, but, to use their own words, were unable to stand it out. The lady of the resident governor happened to go to her window, and, hearing the cries of Slade, fell into hysterics, and the whole family were for some time in great confusion. Several re- spectable civilians expressed their indignation, and said they would not live in the Tower, if such scenes were repeated." In other countries, military punishments are often still more barbarous ; but I- will quote only a single case similar to those of England and the United States. " Shortly," says Campbell, %vrit- ing from Algiers, " after we reached the ground where the French deserter's faite was to be enacted. From the prison-gate we saw come forth a company, their drums muffled with crape, and the victim in the centre on foot, followed by the horse and cart that were to carry back his dead body. After his sentence had been read by the commanding officer, he made his last speech to the troops, more than a tliousand in number, drawn up around him : ' Comrades, what my sentence of death has told you is all true, ex- cept that it has unjustly called me the chief conspirator in this late desertion. For I seduced nobody into it ; on the contrary, I was persuaded into it by others. The motive of my crime was merely an intense desire to see my father's family in Italy ; and now m.'^ I^ MILITARY DISCIPLINE. 76 blood is to be shed, and my brains scattered on the ground, be- cause my heart yearned for a sight of my brothers and sisters ! Soldiers who are to shoot me, do your duty quickly, and do not keep me in torment' " He then stepped forward some paces ; eleven musket shots laid him low, tliough he jumped up before he fell, when the balls pierced him ; the twelfth soldier, going up to him as he lay on the ground, fired close into his head. You will not wonder that my tears at this crisis blinded me ; and when I denied them, I could not see iJie victim. I said to Lagondie, ' Where is he ? ' ' Look there,' he answered, pointing with his fing'er ; ' don't you see a red stripe on the ground?' And sure enough I saw it; his red pantaloons made one part of the stripe, and his bleeding head and body the other. All tlie troops defiled around him. We came down to the spot; but before we reached it, the body had been removed in a cart, and nothing remained but some blood and brains, and a por- tion of liis skull." These examples will speak for themselves ; but I must beg the reader to note a few points — ^the frequency, as well as the exces- sive severity of tliese punishments ; the slight offences for which many of them were inflicted ; the despotic power vested in offi- cers ; the exposure of privates without a screen to the fiiry of their passions ; the utter want in most cases of a fair trial, or any trial at all ; and the impossibility of obtaining any redress even for the most outrageous cruelties practised upon them by superiors. Nor can it be said that these enormities are foreign or obsolete ; for every one of the foregoing examples has been taken from the nineteenth century, and from tlie most enlightened nations in Christendom ! They are inseparable from war ; some of the very ■writers I have quoted, plead their necessity as a justification of their severity ; and, if we wish an end put to such brutal out- rages, we must abolish the whole war-system. In tlie name, then, of religion and humanity, we ask if a custom which legalizes such savage barbarities, and in the very heart of Christendom, insists, even under the blaze of the nineteenth cen- tury, that it cannot exist without them, shall be continued by men calling themselves worshippers of a God of love, and followers of the Prince of peace ! Shall baptized poetry and eloquence still eulogize this offspring of a pagan barbarism ? Shall the press stiil fawn upon it, and the pulpit still justify it, and real Christians lend it the support of their example, and the sanction of their prayers ? Will pious parents train up their own sons for the ser- vice of such a Juggernaut?, Will the young in their thoughtless- ness, or tlie unfortunate in their desperation, expose themselves, as they must by enlistment, to the certainty of such despotic and brutal treatment through life ? Will men of any sense or self- respect much Innsrer lend themselves as its victims or its tools ? Christianity, civilization, humanity, common sense, and common decency, ail, all answer, no, no. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. •■ No. IX. ERASMUS ON WAR. If there is in the affairs of mortal men any one thing which it is proper uniformly to. explode, and incumbent on every man by ev- ery lawful means to avoid, to deprecate, to oppose, that one thing is doubtless War. There is nothing more unnaturally wicked, more productive of misery, more extensively destructive, more ob- stinate in mischief, more unworthy of man, as formed by nature, much more of man professing Christianity. Yet, wonderful to re- late ! war is undertaken, and cruelly, savagely conducted, not only by unbelievers, but by Christians. Nor are there ever wanting men learned in the law, and even divines, who are ready to fur- nish firebrands for the nefarious work, and to fan the latent sparks into a flame. Hence war is considered so much a thing of course, that the wonder is, how any man can disapprove of it ; so much sanctioned by authority and custom, that it is deemed impious to have borne testimony against a practice in its principle most prof- ligate, and in its effects pregnant with every kind of calanjity. If any one considers the organization and external figure of the body, will he not instantly perceive that Nature, or rather the God of Nature, created the human animal not for ivar, but for love and friendship; not for mutual destruction, hut for mutual service and safety ; not to commit injuries, but for acts of reciprocal beneficence ? Man she brought into the world naked, weak, tender, unarmed, his flesh of the softest texture, his skin smooth, delicate, and sus- ceptible of the slightest injury. There is nothing observable in his limbs adapted to fiahting, or to violence. Unable either to speak or walk, or help himself to food, he can implore relief only by tears and wailing ; so that from this circumstance alone might be collected, that man is an animal born for that love and friend- ship which is formed and cemented by the mutual interchange of benevolent offices. Moreover, Nature evidently intended that man should consider himself indebted for the boon of life, not so much to herself as to the kindness of his fellow man ; that he might per- ceive himself designed for social affections, and the attachments of friendship and love. Then she gave him a countenance not frightful and forbidding, but mild and placid, imitating by external signs the benignity of his disposition. She gave him eyes full of affectionate expression, the indexes of a mind delighting in so- cial sympathy. She gave him arms to embrace his fellow crea- tures. She gave him lips to express a union of heart and soul. She gave him alone the power of laughing, a mark of the joy of which he is susceptible. She gave him tears, the symbol of clem- ency and compassion. She gave hmi also a voice, not a menacinff" and frightful yell, but bland, soothing and friendly. Not satined p. T. NO. IX. j| ERASMUS ON WAR. 78 with tliese marks of her peculiar favor, she bestowed on him alone the use of speech and reason ; a gift which tends more than any other to conciliate and cherish benevolence, and a desire of ren- dering mutual services ; so that notliing among human creatures might be done by violence. She implanted in man a hatred of sol- itude, and a love of company. She sowed in his heart tlie seeds of every benevolent affection, and thus rendered what is most sal- utary, at the same time most agreeable. Now view with the eyes of your imagination, savage troops of men, horrible in their very visages and voices ; men clad in steel, drawn up on every side in battle array, armed witli weapons, frightful in tlieir crash and their very glitter ; mark the horrid mur- mur of the confused multitude, tlieir threatening eye-balls, the harsh jarring din of drums and clarions, the terrific sound of the trumpet, the thunder of the cannon, a noise not less formidable than the real thunder of heaven, and more hurtful, a mad shout like that of the shrieks of Bedlamites, a furious onset, a cruel butchering of each other ! See the slaughtered and the slaughter- ing! heaps of dead bodies, fields flowing with blood, rivers reddened with human gore ! Meanwhile I pass over the corn-fields trodden down, peaceful cottages and rural mansions burnt to the ground, villages and towns reduced to ashes, the cattle driven from their pasture, inno- cent women violated, old men dragged into captivity, churches de- faced and demolished, every thing laid waste, a prey to robbery, plunder and violence ! Not to mention the consequences ensu- ing to the people after a war even the most fortunate in its event, — the poor, unc^ending common people robbed of tlieir little hard- earned property ; the great laden witli taxes ; old people bereaved of their children, more cruelly killed by the murder of their off- spring, than by the sword, happier if the enemy had deprived tliem of the sense of their misfortune, and life itself, at the same mo- ment ; women far advanced in age, left destitiite, and more cruelly put to death, than if they had died at once by the point of the bay- onet ; widowed mothers, orphan children, houses of mourning, and families, that once knew better days, reduced to extreme penury. Peace is at once the mother and the nurse of all that is good for man ; war, on a sudden, and at one stroke, overwhelms, extinguishes, abolishes, whatever is cheerftil, whatever is happy and beautiful, and pours a foul torrent of disasters on the life of mortals. Peace shines upon human affairs like the vernal sun. The fields are cultivated, the gardens bloom, the cattle are fed upon a thousand hills, new buildings arise, riches flow, pleasures sniile, humanity and charity increase, arts and manufactures feel the ge- nial warmth of encouragement, and the gains of tlie poor are more plentiful. But no sooner does the storm of war begin to lower, than what a deluge of miseries and misfortune seizes, inundates, and overwhelms all things within tlie sphere of its action ! The flocks are scattered, the harvest trampled, the husbandman butch- ered, villas and villages burnt, cities and states that have been 79 ERASMUS ON WAR. 3 ages rising to their flourishing state, subverted by the fury of one tempest, the storm of war. So much easier is the task of doing harm than of doing good; of destroying than of building up ! To these considerations add, that the advantages derived from peace diffuse themselves far and wide, and reach great numbers ; while in ivar, if any thing turns out happily, the advantage re- dounds only to Eifew, and those unworthy of reaping it. One man's safety is owing to the destruction of another. One man's prize is derived from the plunder of another. The cause of rejoicings made by one side, is to the other a cause of mourning. Whatever is unfortunate in war is severely so indeed, and wliatever, on the contrary, is called good fortune, is a savage and a cruel good for- tune, an ungenerous happiness, deriving its existence from another's wo. Indeed, at the conclusion, it commonly happens that both sides, the victorious and the vanquished, have cause to deplore. I know not whether any war ever succeeded so fortunately in all its events, but that the conqueror, if he had a heart to feel, or an understanding to judge, as he ought to do, repented that he ever engaged in it at all. Such and so great are the evils which are submitted to, in order to accomplish an end, itself a greater evil than all that have pre- ceded in preparation for it. We thus afflict ourselves for the no- ble end of enabling ourselves to afflict others. If we were to cal- culate the matter fairly, and form a just computation of the cost attending war, and that of procuring peace, we should find that peace might be purchased at a tenth part of tlie cares, labors, troubles, dangers, expenses, and blood, which it costs to ^^rry on a war. But the object is to do all possible injury to an enemy ! A most inhuman object ! and consider, whether you can hurt him essentially without hurting, by the same means, your own people. It surely is to act like a madman to take to yourself so large a portion of certain evil, when it must ever be uncertain how the die f war may fall in the ultimate issue. Where are there so many and so sacred obligations to perfect concord, as in the Christian religion ? Where so numerous ex- hortations to peace ? One law Jesus Christ clauned as his own peculiar law ; it was the law of love or chmity. What practice among mankind violates this law so gi-ossly as war ? Examine every part of his doctrine, you will find nothing that does not breathe peace, spoEik the language of love, and savor of charity ; and as he knew that peace could not be preserved unless tliose ob- jects for which the world contends with the sword's point were con- sidered as vile and contemptible, he ordered us to learn of him to be meek and lowly. He pronounced tliose happy who held riches in no esteem. He prohibited resistance of evil^In short, as the whole of his doctrine recommended forbearance and love, so his life taught nothing but mildness, gentleness, and kind affection. Nor do the apostles inculcate any other doctrine ; they who had imbibed the purest spirit of Christ,'and were filled with sacred draughts from the fountain head. What do all the epistles of y 4 ERASMUS ON WAR. 80 Paul resound with but peace, long-suflfering, charity ? What else do all the writers in the world who are truly Christian ? But let us observe how Cluistians defend tlie madness of war. If, say they, war had been absolutely unlawful, God would not have excited tlie Jews to wage war against tlieir enemies. But tlie Jews scarcely ever waged war, as the Christians do, against each other, but against aliens and infidels; we Christians draw the sword against Christians ; they fought at Hie express comviand of God ; we at tlie command of our own passions. But even Christians urge, tliat the laws of nature, of society, of custom and usage, conspire to dictate tlic propriety of repelling force by force, and defending life, and money too. So much I allow. But Gospel Grace, of more force tlian all tJiese laws, declares in decisive words, that we must do good to those who use us ill, and should also pray for those who design to take away our lives. All this, they tell us, had a particular reference to the apostles ; bu^I contend that it also refers to all Ciiristian people. They also argue that, as it is lawful to inflict punisliraent on an individual delinquent, it must be laAvful to take vengeance on an offending State. The full answer to be given to this argument would involve me in greater prolixity than is now requisite ; and I will only say, that the two cases differ widely in tliis respect : He who is convicted judicially, suffere tlie punishment which the laws impose; but imvar, each side treats the other as guilty, and proceeds to inflict punishment, regardless of law, judge or jury. In the fomier case, the evil falls only on him who committed the wrong j» in the latter case, the greatest part of tlie numerous evils falls on those who deserve no evil at all, — on husbandmen, on old people, on motliers, on orphans and defenceless females. But the objector repeats, " Why may I not go and cut the throats of those who would cut our throats, if they could ? " Do you then deem it a disgrace that any should be more wicked than yourself ? Why do you not go and rob thieves ? They would rob you, if tliey could. Why do you not revile tliem that revil^v^ you ? Why do you not hate them that hate you ? Do you con- sider it as a noble exploit for a Christian, having killed in war those whom he thinks wicked, but who still are men for whom Christ died, thus to offer up victims most acceptable to the Devil, and to delight that grand enemy in two respects, first, tliat a man is slain at all, and next, that tlie man who slew, is a Christian? If the Christian religion be a fable, why do we not honestly and openly explode it ? Why do we glory in its name ? But if Christ is " the way, the truth, and the life," why do all our plans of con- duct differ so far from his instructions and example ? If we ac- knowledge Christ to be our Lord and Master, who is love itself, and who taught nothing but love and peace, let us exhibit his model in our lives and conversation. Let us adopt tlie love of peace, that Christ may recognize his own, even as we recognize him to be the Teacher of Peace. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. X. THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN, OR SPECIMENS OF WAR AMONG NOMINAL CHRISTIANS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Napoleon's career was a pretty fair illustration of war among' civilized, nominally Christian men ; and from his la^t great cam- paign (1812) in Russia, we may learn what war ever has been, and ever must be — -a mass of evils, a tissue of suffering and wo to nearly all concerned, to the victors as well as the vanquished. The events of that campaign were recorded on the spot by many eye-witnesses ; and Labaume, from whose narrative most of the following statements are taken, himself one of the actors in that long and terrible tragedy, says, " it was by the light of burning Moscow that I described tlie pillage of that city ; it was on tlie banks of the Berezina that I traced the narrative of that fatal pas- sage. It is scarcely possible to conceive the difficulties I had to surmount, in making my memoranda. Compelled to struggle with the most imperious necessity, benumbed with cold, and tormented with hunger, I was a prey to every kind of suffering. Uncertain, at the rising of the sun, whether I should see his setting rays, and in the evening doubtful of witnessing another day, every liiought was absorbed in the desire of livinglo preserve the remembrance of what I had seen. Animated by this feeling, I wrote the events of the day every evening, before a bad fire, under a temperature twenty degrees below tJie freezing point, and surrounded by the dying and the dead. I made my pens from the quills of the raven, with tlie same knife tliat I used in cutting up horse-flesh for my food ; and a little gunpowder, mixed up in the hollow of my hand with melted snow, supplied the place of ink and inkstand." For this grand enterprize, designed to be the crowning one of his life. Napoleon had mustered full half a million of men, no less, according to some writers of credit, than 494,000 effective troops ; nor is it a high estimate to suppose, that a million, if not more, were engaged on both sides as combatants in that desperate and disastrous struggle. On the 22d of June, he issued from Wilko- wiski his proclamation of war ; but, passing over the two first months of the campaign, we will quote a few specimens of its subsequent progress : Smolensk. — After an obstinate battle, (Aug. 19,) the Russians set fire to the city, and retreated, leaving the streets and squa>res covered with their dead and wounded. " The next day," says Labaume, " we entered Smolensk by the suburb on the bank of the river, marching in every direction over ruins and dead bodies. The palaces still burning, presented to our view only w^Us half p. T. NO. X. 2 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 82 destroyed by the flames ; and thick among the smoking fragments lay tlie blackened carcasses of the inhabitants who had perished in the fire. The soldiers had taken possession of tlie few re- maining houses, whilst tlie proprietor, bereft of an asylum, stood at his door, weeping tlie death of his children, and the loss of his fortune. The churches alone afforded some consolation to the wretched beings who had no longer a shelter. The cathedral, celebrated throughout Europe, and highly venerated by tlie Rus- sians, became the refuge of those who had escaped the confiagr^ tion. In this church, and around its altars, lay whole families* stretched upon rags. Here we saw an old man in the agonies of death, casting his last look towards the image of the saint whom he had all his life invoked ; and there, an infant whose cries the mother, worn down witli grief, w^as endeavoring to hush, and, as she gave it the breast, bathed it in her tears." BoRODiN'O. — " Before day-break, (Sept 7,) the two armies were drawn up in order of battle. Two hundred and sixty thousand men waited, in awful suspense, the signal to engage. At six o'clock, the thunder of the artillery broke the dreadful silence. The battle soon became general, and raged with tremendous fury. The fire of two hundred pieces of cannon enveloped the two armies in smoke, and, mowing down whole battalions, strewed the field with the dead and wounded. The latter fell to expose tliemselves to a fate still more terrible. How agonizing their situation! Forty thousand dragoons crossing the field in every direction, trampled them under foot, and dyed the horses' hoofs in their blood. The flying artillery, in rapid and alternate advance and retreat, put a period to the anguish of some, and inflicted new torments on others who were mangled by their wheels. A redoubt in the centre of the Russian army Avas several times taken and retaken with desperate slaughter, but finally remained in possession of the French. The interior of the redoubt presented a frightful scene ; the dead were heaped on each other, and among them were many wounded whose cries could not be heard. Night separated the combatants, but lefl Eighty Thousand Mejv dead on the field ! " In traversing next day the elevated plain on which we had fought, we were enabled to form an estimate of the immense loss sustained by the Russians. A surface of about nine square miles in extent, was covered with the killed and wounded, with the wreck of arms, lances, helmets and cuirasses, and with balls as numerous as hail-stones afler a violent storm. In many places tlio bursting of shells had overturned men and horses ; and such was the havoc occasioned by repeated discharges, that mountains of dead bodies were raised. But the most dreadful spectacle was the interior of the ravines, where the wounded had instinctively crawled to avoid the shot Here these unfortunate wretches, lying one upon anotlier, destitute of assistance, and weltering in their blood, uttered the most horrid groans. Loudly invoking deatli, they be- sought us to put an end to their excruciating torments. 83 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 3 " As we drew near Rouza, two days after, we met a great num- ber of carts brought back by the cavalry. It was afflicting to see them loaded with children, with the aged and the infirm ; and we grieved to think how soon the horses and carts, which formed the whole fortune of those ruined families, would be divided among the troops. In our advance to the centre of the town, we saw a crowd of soldiers pillaging the houses, regardless of the cries of those to whom they belonged, or of the tears of mothers who, to soften the hearts of their conquerors, showed them their children on their knees ; those innocente, with their hands clasped, and bathed in tears, asked only that^BBir lives might be spared. " We could judge of the donsternation that reigned in the capital, by the terror with which we had inspired the peasantry. No sooner were they informed of our arrival at Rouza, and of the barbarous manner in which we had treated the inhabitants, than all the villages on the road to Moscow were instantly abandoned ; many of the fugitives, driven to desperation, set fire to their houses, their country seats, and to the com and hay just gathered in. Discouraged by the fatal and useless resistance of the militia of Rouza, the greater part of them threw down the pikes with which they had been armed, and hastened to conceal themselves, with their wives and children, in thick forests at a distance from our route." Moscow. — " As we drew near the city, (Sept. 15,) we observed that it had no walls. We saw nothing to indicate that the capital was inhabited ; and the road by which we arrived, was so deserted, that we did not see a single Muscovite, or even a French soldier. We found neither soldiers nor inhabitants in the part of the city we were to occupy ; a death-like silence reigned in the forsaken quarters ; the most intrepid were intimidated by the loneliness. We marched with timid steps through this dismal solitude, often stopping to look behind us ; for our imaginations, overpowered by the magnitude of our conquest, made us every where apprehensive of treachery." In conformity with the desolating plan of the campaign, the ruin of the ancient capital of the Czars had been determined. The criminals confined in the different prisons, received their liberty on condition of setting fire to the city as soon as it should be in the possession of the French army. In order to insure its destruction, the engines, and every means by which the fire might have been extinguished, were removed or destroyed. The Exchange was the first building that fell a prey to the flames. The stores con- tained an immense quantity of the most valuable commodities of Europe and Asia ; and the cellars were filled with sugar, oils and resin, which burnt with great fury. The French endeavored to check the progress of the devouring element, but they soon dis- covered that their efforts were vain. The fire, breaking out in different quarters of the city, and increased by a high wind, spread with dreadful rapidity. " A great part of the population had concealed themselves in 4 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 84 their houses, from the terror caused by our arrival ; but they left them as the flames reached their asylums. Fear had rendered their grief dumb ; and as they tremblingly quitted tlieir retreats, they carried off tlieir most valuable effects, while those of more sensibility, actuated by natural feelings, sought only to save the lives of their parents or their children. On one side we saw a son carrying a sick father ; on the other, women who poured the tor- rent of their tears on the infants whom they clasped in ^eir arms. They were followed by the rest of tlieir children, who, fearful of being lost, ran crying af\er their mothers. Old men, overwhelmed more by grief than by the weig^l of years, were seldom able to follow their families ; and many of them, weeping for the ruin of their country, lay down to die near the houses where they were bom. The streets, the public squares, and especially the churches, were crowded witli these unliappy persons, who mourned as they lay on the remains of their property, but sliowed no signs of de- spair. The victors and tlie vanquished were become equally brutish ; the former by excess of fortune, the latter by excess of misery. " The hospitals, containing more than twelve thousand WOUNDED, began at length to bum. The heart recoils at the disaster which ensued. Almost all those wretched victims per- ished ! The few still living, were seen crawling, half-burnt, from the smoking ashes, or groaning under the heaps of dead bodies, and making ineffectual efforts to extricate themselves ! " It is impossible to depict the confusion and tumult that en- sued, when the whole of this immense city was given up to pillage. Soldiers, sutlers, galley-slaves and prostitutes, ran through tJie streets, penetrated tlie deserted palaces, and carried off every, thing that could gratify their insatiable desire. The generals received orders to quit Moscow ; and the soldiers, no longer re- strained by tliat awe which is always inspired by the presence of their chiefs, gave themselves up to every excess, and to the most unbridled licentiousness. No retreat was safe, no place suffi- ciently sacred, to secure it from tlieir rapacious search. To all the excesses of lust, were added the highest depravity and de- bauchery. No respect was paid to tlie nobility of blood, the inno^ cence of youth, or the tears of beauty. " Dismayed by so many calamities, I hoped that the shades of night would veil the dreadful scene; -but darkness, on the con- trary, rendered the conflagration more terrible. The flames, which extended from north to soutli, burst forth with greater violence, and, agitated by the wind, seemed to reach the sky. Clouds of smoke marked the track of the rockets that were hurled by tlie incendiary criminals from the tops of tlie steeples, and which, at a distance, resembled falling stars. But notliing was so terrific as the dread that reigned in every mind, a>id which was heightened in tlie dead of the night by Uie shrieks of tlie unfortunate creatures who were massacred, or by the cries of young females who fled for refuge to the palpitating bosoms of their mothers, and whose 85 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 5 ineffectual struggles only served to inflame the passions of their violators. Many of our soldiers fell victims to their own rapacity, which induced them to brave every danger. Excited by the love of plunder, they rushed into the midst of the fire and smoke, wading in blood, and trampling on the dead bodies, while the ruins and pieces of burning wood fell upon their murderous hands. Perhaps all would have perished, had not the insupportable heat at length compelled them to take refuge in their camp." " The French troops, as they poured into the devoted city," says Porter, " had spread tliemselves in every direction in search of plunder ; and in their progress they committed outrages so horrid on the persons of all whom they discovered, that fathers, desperate to save their children from pollution, would set fire to their places of refuge, and find a surer asylum in the flames. The streets, the houses, the cellars, flowed with blood, and were filled with viola- tion and carnage." " Part of our troops," continues Labaume, " took up tlieir quarters (Sept ] 7) at the castle of Peterskoe ; and on their march, they over- took crowds of inliabitants carrying off" tlieir infinn parents, with all they had rescued from their burning houses. Their horses having been taken from them by the troops, men, and even women, were harnessed to the carts which contained the wrecks of their property, and the dearest objects of their affection. Those inter- esting groups were accompanied by children who were nearly naked, and whose countenances were imprinted with a sorrow uncongenial to tlieir age. If the soldiers approached them, they ran crying to tlirow themselves into their mothers' arms. Without assistance or shelter, they wandered in the fields, or took refuge in the woods. " After the lapse of more than a month from our entrance into Moscow, tlie order for retreat was given ; and on tlie 22d of Octo- ber, Moscow was completely evacuated. On the 24th, the Rus- sians attacked us at Malo Jaroslavetz ; and the battle, which began at four o'clock in the morning, lasted till nine at night. The next day, the town was no longer standing, and we could discover the streets only by the heaps of dead bodies with which they were strewed. On all sides we saw human heads and scat- tered limbs crushed by tlie artillery that had passed over them. Many of the sick and wounded had quitted the fight to take refuge in the houses, which were now reduced to heaps of ruins, and under the burning ashes appeared their half-consumed remains. The few who had escaped the flames, having their faces blackened, and their clothes and hair burnt, presented themselves before us, and in an expiring tone uttered cries of the deepest anguish. On seeing them, the most ferocious were moved with compassion, and, turning away ttieir eyes, could not refrain from tears. " As we advanced, (Oct. 30,) the country appeared yet more desolate. The fields, trampled by thousands of horses, seemed as though they had never been cultivated ; and the forests, thinned by the long residence of the troops, partook of the devastation. 6 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 86 But the most horrible sight was the multitude of dead bodies, which- had been fifty-two days unburied, and scarcely retained the human form. My consternation was at its height on finding, near Borodino, the 80,000 men who had been slaughtered there, lying where they fell. The half-buried carcasses of men and horses covered the plain, intermingled with garments stained with blood, and bones gnawed by the dogs and birds of prey, and with the fragments of arms, drums, helmets and cuirasses. " Were I to relate all the calamities that sprung from this atrocious war, my narrative would be too long ; but if I wished fh)m one instance to convey an idea of the rest, it would be from that of the three thousand prisoners we brought from Moscow. During tlie march, ha\'ing no provisions to give them, they were herded together like beasts, and were not allowed on any pretext to quit the narrow limits assigned them. Without fire, perishing with cold, they lay on the bare ice. To appease their ravenous nunger, they seized with avidity the horse-flesh which was dis- tributed to them, and for want of time and means to dress it^ ate it quite raw ; and I have been assured, though I dare not believe it, ^at when this supply failed, many of them ate the flesh of their comrades who had sunk under their miseries. " Whilst the retreating army drank the cup of unmingled gall, its course was marked by outrages of unrestrained cruelty and vindictive rage. The first division, on leaving the quarters where they had slept tlie preceding night, generally consigned them to the flames, as well as tiie towns and villages through which they passed. The few houses that escaped their ravages, were burnt by the second division ; and in the ruins were entombed soldiers and peasants, children wantonly murdered, and young girls mas- sacred on the spot where they had been violated. For one hun- dred and fift:y miles from Moscow, not a single building was left undemolished ! " Passage of the Vop, Nov. 8. — " The bed of the river was choked by tlie carriages, cannon, and the numerous bodies of men and horses drowned in attempting the passage. The cries of those who were crossing ; the consternation of others who were preparing to cross, and were every moment precipitated with their horses down the steep and slippery bank into the stream ; the distraction of the women, the screams of the children, and the despair of even the soldiers, rendered this passage a scene so aflfiicting, that the remembrance is still dreadful to those who witnessed it " Our soldiers had scarcely quitted the river, when the Cossacks, no longer meeting any obstacles, advanced to where they found many poor wretches who from the state of tlieir health had not been able to cross the river. Although our enemies were sur- rounded with booty, they stript their prisoners, and left: them naked on the snow. From the opposite bank we saw these Tartars dividing their bloody spoils. " The last night hsid been dreadful. To form an idea of its 87 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 7 rigors, it is necessary to conceive an army encamped on the snow, in the depth of a severe winter, pursued by an enemy to whom it could oppose no effective resistance. The soldiers, without shoes, and almost destitute of clothing, were enfeebled by hunger and fatigue. Seated on tlieir knapsacks, they slept on their knees. From this benumbing posture they rose only to broil a few slices of horse-flesh, or to melt some pieces of ice. They were often without wood, and to keep up a fire, demolished the houses in which tlie generals were lodged. When we awoke in tlie morn- ing, the village had disappeared ; and in this manner towns that were standing entire in the evening, formed the next day one vast conflagration." Nov. 15. — "Whole teams, sinking under their fatigues, fell together, and obstructed the way. More tlian thhiy thousand Jwrses perished in a few days. All the defiles that were impassable for tlie carriages, were strewed with arms, helmets, cuirasses, broken trunks, portmanteaus, and clothes of every kind. At intervals we saw trees, at the feet of which the soldiers had attempted to light fires, but had expired in making these useless efforts to warm themselves. They were stretched by dozens around the green branches which they had in vain endeavored to kindle ; and the number of dead bodies would have blocked up the road, if we had not employed men to throw them into the ruts and ditches. " These horrors, so far from exciting our sensibility, only har- dened our hearts. Having no longer the power of exercising our cruelty on our enemies, we turned it on each other. The best friends were estranged ; and whoever experienced the least sickness, was certain of never seeing his country again, unless he had good horses and faithful servants. Preserving the plunder of Moscow was preferred by most to the pleasure of saving a comrade. Wo heard around us the groans of the dying, and the plaintive voice of those who were abandoned ; but all were deaf to their cries, and, if any one approached them when on the point of death, it was for the purpose of stripping them, and searching whether they had any remains of food. " The next morning, (Nov. 17,) we left Liadoui before day- break, and were, according to custom, lighted by the fire of the buildings which began to burn. Among the burning houses were three large barns filled with poor soldiers, chiefly wounded. They could not escape from two of these, without passing through the one in front, which was on fire. The most active saved themselves by leaping out of the windows ; but all those who were sick or crippled, not having strength to move, saw the flamed advancing rapidly to devour them. Touched by their shrieks, some, who were least hardened, endeavored in vain to save them ; but we could scarcely see them half buried under the burning rafters. Through whirlwinds of smoke, tliey entreated us to shorten their sufferings by depriving them of life ; and, from motives of hu- manity, we thought it our duty to comply with their wishes (! !) As there were some who still survived, we heard them with feeble ^ TMB RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. "BB voices crying, *Firc on us! fire onus! at tite head! at the head! donH miss ! ' " The Passage of the Berezina, Nov. 27. — " They who from weariness and ignorance of danger, were less eager to cross tlie river, endeavored to light a fire, and to repose from their fatigues. In these bivouacs we saw to what a degree of brutality excess of misery will lead. We tliere saw men fighting for a morsel of bread. If any one, benumbed with cold, drew near a fire, the soldiers to whom it belonged inhumanly drove him away ; and, if a parching thirst forced you to beg a drop of water from hun who had a full bowl, the refusal was always accompanied with abuse. We often heard even men of education, who had been friends, quarrelling for a handful of straw, or for a part of the dead horse they were attempting to cut up. This campaign was the more frightful, as it demoralized our characters, and gave birth to vices till then unknown to us ; they who had been generous, hu- mane and upright, became selfish, avaricious, cruel and unjust " There were two bridges, one for the carriages, tlie other for tlie infantry ; but the crowd Avas so great, and the approaches so dangerous, that tlie tlirong collected on tlie bank of the Berezina, became incapable of moving. In spite of these difficulties, some who were on foot saved themselves by tlieir perseverance ; but about 8 o'clock in tlie morning, the bridge reserved for tlie car- riages liaving broken down, tlie baggage and artillery advanced to the other, and attempted to force a passage. Then began a fright- ful contest between tlie infantry and tlie cavalry, in which many of them perished by tlie hands of their comrades ; and a still greater number were suffocated at the foot of the bridge, where the car- casses of men and horses obstructed the road to such a degree, that to approach the river, it was necessary to climb over tlie bodies of tliose who had been crushed. Some of tliem were still alive, and stniggling in the agonies of d«ath. In order to extricate themselves, tliey caught hold of those who were marching over them ; but the latter disengaged themselves with violence, and trampled them under their feet. Whilst they contended with so much fury, the following multitude, like a raging wave, mcessantjy overwhelmed fresh victims. " In the midst of this dreadful confusion, tlie Russians made a furious attack on the rear-guard ; and in the heat of the engage- ment, many balls fell on the miserable crowd that for three days had been pressing round the bridge, and even some shells burst in the midst of them. TeiTor and despair then took possession of every heart anxious for self-preservation ; women and children, who had escaped so many disasters, seemed to have been pre- served to experience a death still more deplorable. Leaving their carriages, tliey ran to embrace the knees of tlie first person they met, and implored him with teai-s to take them to tlie otlier side. The sick and wounded, seated on the trunk of a tree, or supported on crutches, looked eagerly for some friend tliat could assist them ; but their cries were lost in the air, — every one thought only of his own safety. 89 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 9 " On seeing the enemy, those who had not crossed, mingling vrith the Poles, rushed towards the bridge; artillery, baggage, cavalry and infantry, all endeavored to pass first. The strong threw the weak into the water, and trampled under foot the sick and wounded whom they found in their way. Many hundreds were crushed under the wheels of the artillery 5 and others, who had hoped to save themselves by swimming, were frozen or drowned in the river. Thousands and thousands of hopeless victims, not- withstanding these sorrowful examples, threw themselvea^ into the Berezina, where they nearly all perished in convulsions of grief and despair. " The division of Girard succeeded by force of arms in over- coming all the obstacles that retarded their march, and, scaling the mountain of dead bodies that obstructed the road, gained the op- posite shore, where the Russians would soon have followed them, if they had not immediately set fire to the bridge. " Many of those who were lefl on the other bank with the pros- pect of the most horrible death, attempted to cross the bridge through the flames ; but midway they threw themselves into the river to avoid being burnt. At length, the Russians having made themselves masters of the field of battle, our troops retired ; the passage of the river ceased, and the most tremendous uproar was succeeded by a death-like silence. " It was now December. The cold was intense ; the wind howled frightfully ; and, towards the close of the day, the darkness was illumined by the numerous fires of the enemy who occupied the hills of Zembin. At the feet of these heights, groaned our companions, devoted to death ; nevei: had they experienced mo- ments so dreadful as on this disastrous night. All the horrors that can be conceived by the imagination, would convey but a faint impression of what they endured. The elements, let loose, seemed to have combined to afflict all nature, and to chastise man. The conquerors and the conquered were overwhelmed with suf- ferings. The former, however, had enormous piles of burning wood, whilst the latter had neither fire nor shelter ; their groans alone indicated the spot that contained so many unfortunate victims. " At every step (Dec. 5) we saw brave officers supported on pine branches, covered with rags, with their hair and beards matted with icicles. Those warriors, once the terror of our ene- mies, and the conquerors of two-thirds of Europe, having lost their noble mien, dragged themselves slowly along, and could not ob- tain a look of pity even from the soldiers they had commanded. Their situation was the more deplorable, as whoever had not strength to march, was abandoned ; and every one who was aban- doned, in one hour afterwards was a dead man. Every bivouac presented us the next day with the appearance of a field of battle. Whenever a soldier sunk from fatigue, his next neighbor rushed on him, and stripped him of his clothes, even before he was dead. Every moment we heard them begging the aid of some charitable 10 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 90 hand. * My comrades,' exclaimed one with a heart-rending voice, * help me to rise ; deign to lend me a hand to pursue my marcK' All passed by without even regarding him. ' Ah, I conjure you not to abandon me to tlie enemy ; in the name of humanity grant me the trifling assistance I ask ; help me to rise.' Instead of being moved by a prayer se touching, they considered him as already dead, and began to strip him ; and then we heard his cries, ' Help ! help ! they murder me ! Why do you trample me under your feet ? Why do you take from me the remainder of my money and my bread ? You even take away my clothes ! ' If some officer, urged by generous feelings, did not arrive in time to prevent it, many in fhe like situation would have been assassinated by tlieir own comrades. " The road was covered (Dec. 8) witli soldiers who no longer retained the human form, and whom the enemy disdained to take prisoners. Every day furnished scenes too painful to relate. Some had lost their hearing, others their speech, and many, by excessive cold and hunger, were reduced to such a state of stupid frenzy, that they roasted the dead bodies for food, and even gnawed their own hands and arms. Some, who were too weak to lift a piece of wood, or to roll a stone towards the fire, sat down upon their dead companions, and with an unmoved countenance, gazed upon the burning logs. When they were consumed, tliese livid spec- tres, unable to get up, fell by the side of those on whom tliey had been seated. Many, in a state of delirium, plunged their bare feet into the fire just to warm themselves ; some, with a convulsive laugh, threw themselves into the flames, and witli shocking cries, perished in the most horrible contortions ; while others, in a state of equal madness, followed their example, and shared the same fate ! " " Multitudes," says Porter, " lost their speech, others were seized witli frenzy, and many were sO maddened by the extremes of pain and hunger, that they tore the dead bodies of their com- rades into pieces, and feasted on the remains ! " "Every day's march," adds Labaume, "presented us with a repetition of the mournful scenes I have faintly sketched. Our hearts. Completely hardened by such disgusting pictures, lost all sensibility. We were reduced to a state of brutality that left us no feeling but the instinct of self-preservation." Thus far Labaume, an eye-witness of all he relates ; and Alison, in his history of the same campaign, quotes statements not less terribly graphic. " On Sunday forenoon I found a crowd collected round a car in which some wounded soldiers had just returned from Russia. No grenade or grape could have so disfigured these victims of the cold. One of tliem had lost the upper joints of all his ten fingers, and he showed us the stumps. Another wanted both ears and nose. More horrible still was the look of a third, whose eyes had been frozen ; the eyelids hung down rotting, the globes of the eyes were burst, and protruded from tlieir sockets. It was awfully hideous ; but a spectacle yet more dreadful was to present itself. Out of the straw in the bottom of a car, I now 91 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 11 beheld a figure creep painfully, which one could scarcely believe to be a human being, so wild and distorted were the features ; the lips were rotted away, and the teeth stood exposed ; he pulled the cloth from before his mouth, and grinned upon us like a death's head." " The battle of Eylau was fought in the depth of winter, amidst ice and snow, under circumstances of unexampled horror. The loss on both sides was immense ; and never in modern times had a field of battle been strewn with such a multitude of slain. On the side of the Russians 25,000 had fallen, of whom above 7000 were already no more ; on that of the French, upwards of 30,000 were killed or wounded, and nearly 10,000 had left their colors, under pretence of attending to the wounded. Never was a spec- tacle so dreadful as the field presented on the following morning. Above 50,000 men lay in the space of two leagues, weltering in blood. The wounds were, for the most part, of the severest kind, from the extraordinary quantity of cannon balls which had been discharged during the action, and the close proximity of the con- tending masses to the deadly batteries which spread their grape at half-musket shot through their ranks. Though stretched on the cold snow, and exposed to the severity of an arctic winter, they were burning with thirst, and piteous cries were heard on all sides for water, or assistance to extricate the wounded from the heaps of slain, or the load of horses by which they were crushed. Six thousand of tliese noble animals encumbered the field, or, mad- dened with pain, were shrieking aloud amid the stifled groans of the wounded." Thus far we have sketched almost exclusively the losses of the French and their allies ; nor did the Russian army fare much better. During their retreat, a ducat, then worth five dollars, was thank- fully given for a single horse-shoe ; and so fatal were the com- bined effects of hardship, disease and battle, that the Russians lost in some cases three-fourths, and in others nearly nine-tenths of their troops ! Some entire battalions did not retain fifty men, and many companies were left without a single one ! A mere fraction of the victims perished by the sword ; and, as the final result to the Russians, their army, amounting at the commencement of the campaign to hundreds of thousands, could muster at tlie close only eighteen thousand ! ! All this besides the unreckoned and well-nigh countless victims among the people. The number of these, it would be vain to conjecture ; but from the nature of the case, as well as 'from what we have already quoted, it must have been immense. The state- ments of Labaume are terrible ; and their truth is fully confirmed by such writers as Sir Robert Wilson, who says, " in the roads, men were collected round the burning ruins of their cottages, which a mad spirit of destruction had fired, picking and eating the burnt bodies of fellow men, while thousands of horses were moan- ing in agony, with then* flesh mangled and hacked to satisfy the cravings of a hunger that knew no pity. In many of the sheds, 13 THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 92 men scarcely alive, had heaped on their frozen bodies human car- casses which, festering by the communication of animal heat, had mingled the dying and the dead in one mass of putrefaction." Such is war ; — war not by pagans or savages, but by men call- ing themselves Christians ; war not in the dark ages, but in the nineteenth century ; war in tlie perfection of its skill, and the zenith of its glory ; — a campaign of one hundred and seventy-three days in the heart of Christendom ! What is the result ? Of five hun- dred thousand men who started under Napoleon, scarcely twenty thousand returned, so that the French alone must have lost, in soldiei-s and attendants, full half a million; and, should we reckon tlie loss of the Russian army but half as great, and suppose only an equal number of incidental victims among the people, both of which estimates are probably much below the truth, we reach the astounding result of more tJian a million lives sacrificed in less than sir months of a single campaign ! ! t But the Russian campaign was only one of the many wars con- sequent on the French Revolution. During those wars, the levies of soldiers in France exceeded four millions^ and not less than three millions of these, on tlie lowest calculation, perished in tlie field, tlie hospital or the bivouac. If to tliese we add, as wc un- questionably must, at least an equal number out of tlie ranks of their antagonists, it is clear that not less than six millions of human beings perished by war in the course of twenty years, in the very heart of civilized Europe, at the commencement of the nineteendfi century of the Christian era ! But even these stupendous num- bers give us no adequate idea of the destruction of human life directly consequent on the wars of the revolution and the empire. We must add the thousands who perished from want, outrage and exposure, and the hundreds of thousands who were subsequently swept away by tlie ravages of that pestilence which took its rise amid the retreat from Russia, and the crowded garrisons of tlie campaign of 1813, and for several years afterwards desolated in succession every country of Europe. And even when we have summed up and laid before us, in all the magnitude of figures, tlie appalling destruction of life here exhibited, we can still gather only a faint conceptionl)f the sufierings and the evils inflicted by this awful scourge. Patriots, philanthropists. Christians, must such a custom still continue ? Is there no remedy ? Yes, a sovereign one that needs only a right application. The gospel, rightly applied, would put an end to tlie atrocities and horrors of war forever. Will you not then aid in making such an application without delay ? In this work are Peace Societies engaged ; and will you not give them ail the countenance and support in your power ? AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. ■•'•■'* ** *^" ' No. xi. UNION IN PEACE, OR THE BASIS OF CO-OPERATION IN THE CAUSE OF PEACE. Union is indispensable to every cause, but to none more so than to that of peace. Aiming at the entire abolition of war, a custom wrought from time immemorial into the texture of every society and government on earth, it obviously requires the co-ope- ration of all that desire, for any reason, to see an end put to a scourge so terrible. The difficulty of securing such co-operation, arises mostly from the diversity of views among its friends. Some of them are extremely radical, avowing the unlawfulness of all physical force, and denying the right of one man to punish, coerce, or even rule another ; — positions to which no peace society has ever been committed, and which our own has always regarded as foreign to its object. Others, assuming the strict inviolability of human life, oppose war mainly as a wholesale violation of this simple, comprehensive principle ; — a principle adopted by a por- tion of the friends of peace, but never recognized by the leading peace societies as the basis of our cause. A third class, outnum- bering both the former, discard this principle, yet deem all war contrary to the gospel ; — the ground taken by those societies which are esteemed the most radical. There is still a fourth class, probably more numerous than all the foregoing, who think it right for nations to draw the sword in strict self-defence, that is, when their only alternative is to kill or be killed, yet hold the cus- tom itself in deep abhorrence, and sincerely desire its abolition. Here, then, are four classes of peace-men ; and we need the co-operation of them all ; but how can we secure it ? By con- structing a platform on which they can all consistently work to- gether for the accomplishment of their common purpose — the abo- lition of war. On this point alone, they perfectly agree ; and, since their object is the same, we propose to let them all labor for it, each in his own way, without making one responsible for the views of another. Let us learn wisdom from enterprises of a kindred nature. The friends of humanity, when united for the suppression of the slave- trade, labored for that as their only object ; and all the doctrines they taught, as well as their efforts of every kind, were so many means to that end. Their aim was not to propagate a sentiment, but to produce a result ; and, in reaching that result, they wielded as instruments a great variety of principles. So the friends of temperance aim only at a result. True, we hear much about the doctrine of temperance ; but what does it mean ? Solely abstinence from intoxicating drinks ; — not strictly a doctrine, but a deed ; not theory, but practice, or theory carried into practice. It is not the p. T. NO. XI. 3 UNION IN PEACE. 94 object of temperance to teach a principle or doctrine, but to pro- duce a specitied result, tlie entire disuse of whatever can intoxi- cate ; and all its doctrines and facts, all its arguments and appeals, are only so many means to this aid. Just so in the cause of peace. Our sole aim is the abolUion of war. We seek not, as our object, to establish a doctrine or prin- ciple, but to obtain a given result. We use a variety of means ; but none of tliem constitute our object We urge a multitude of principles ; yet none of tliese, nor all of them together, can be said to be the end at which we aim. That end is a result, — something to be done, — the entire extinction of war from the world ; and all our doctrines, and arguments, and facts, and appeals, and efforts of every kind, are only so many auxiliaries to that sole, ultimate purpose of our enterprise. Let us now see on what terms tlio friends of other causes have united. They have required, not perfect uniformity of views, but only cordial, active co-operAtion for tlie attainment of their com- mon object. If a man would from any motives unite with tliem in putting an end to tlie slave-trade or intemperance, he was wel- comed as a coadjutor, and left to take such views, and urge such arguments, as he himself felt most, and therefore thought likely to make the best impression upon others. Every cast of mind was to be met ; and hence all were not only permitted, but desired to- press each his own favorite arguments upon men of kindred stamp. Here is sound good sense ; nor do we see why it should not be applied to peace, and all its professed friends be allowed to retain their present views, and still co-operate for their common object. There are points of coincidence between them sufficient for this purpose. They are one in their desires for the abolition of war ; they agree in most of their views touching peace, and differ only on one or two points ; they would, in laboring for their common cause, use essentially the same means ; and tlie diversity in their modes of exliibiting tlie subject, is in fact necessary to reach with tlie best effect all the variety of minds that we wish to enlist Let us illustrate this last thought One man, deeply impressed witli the superiority of moral over physical power, and conceiving Christianity to be a system of moral influences for the good of mankind, regards all use of brute force by one man towards an- other as unchristian, and chooses to oppose war from this simple, fundamental, far-reaching principle. It is indeed a broad sweep of generalization ; but such a mode of reasoning suits his mind, and will perhaps suit some others equally well. Our society does not adopt tliis principle ; but, if we have no responsibility for it, and it proves more successful than any otlier in arraying certain minds against war, we cannot object to their using it for such a purpose. Now, take the otlier extreme. Here is a Christian or philan- thropist who has been trained to look upon defensive war as right ; nor is he likely soon, if ever, to renounce that belief; yet he holds the custom in deep, unfeigned abhorrence, and ardently longs to see an end put to this crying sin, and curse, and shame of 95 UNION IN PEACE. 3 Christendom. To this conclusion he comes from such views as he deems consistent with the right of drawing the sword in self- defence. He knows the guilt and evils of war. He deplores its waste of property, and its havoc of human life ; its sack of cities, its plunder of provinces, and its devastation of empires ; its bale- ful influence on art, and science, and general improvement, on freedom, morality and religion, on all tlie great interests of man- kind for two worlds ; its pride and lust, its rapacity and revenge, its wholesale robberies and murders, its vast and fearful complica- tion of vices and crimes. Such aspects of war rouse him against the custom. Still he does not regard all war as unchristian ; and shall we, for such a reason, thrust him from the ranks of peace ? Shall we make our views a test for him, and insist that none shall labor for peace except in our way ? Let us now glance at the two intermediate classes of peace-men. Both believe that the gospel condemns all war, but reach this conclusion from different premises. One argues from the strict inviolability of human life ; a principle which sweeps away not only war, but capital punishment, and the right of government to take life even for its own support ; while the other reasons from principles of the gospel which do not in his view forbid tlie taking of life in such cases. Now, which of these two classes shall set up their modes of reasoning as a standard for all the friends of peace ? Our society prefers the latter mode ; but, because we dislike his mode, shall we spurn from our cause one who loves peace, and hates war as much as we do ? Shall we let none oppose war except in our way ? Is it wise for Saul to force his own armor upon David, or for the stripling shepherd to insist, because he had slain Goliath with his simple sling and stone, on arming all the hosts of Israel with that weapon alone ? The cause of peace, then, ought to be prosecuted with the same liberality as other enterprises, and all its friends be permitted, without rebuke or suspicion, to promote it in such ways as they respectively prefer. The test should be, not the belief of this or that dogma, but a unllingness to co-operate for the entire abolition of war ; and all that will do this, and just as far as they do it, should be regarded as friends of peace. If any doctrine be re- quired as a test, let it be the broad principle on which the first General Peace Convention in London (1843) was constituted, viz., that war is inconsistent with Chinstianity, and the true interests of mankind. We grant that this language is indefinite, allowing a pretty free play of the pendulum; but this is just what we want in order to meet the diversity of opinion among the friends of peace. We can make it express the belief of all war unchristian ; but it pledges us only to a condemnation of the custom. To this princi- ple there can be no objection from any one willing to labor for the abolition of war ; and hence the test of principle would in fact be the very test of action on which alone we insist. We ask men to abolish war ; and, if they gird themselves in earnest for this work, we would let them do it in their own way, nor quarrel with them about their motives. 4 UNION IN PEACE. 96 For such a course, it were easy to find a multitude of arguments. We need not repeat, that it is the same with that adopted in all kindred enterprises; but we may add, that it would relieve the cause of peace from much superfluous responsibility, and many irrelevant objections. It is in fact responsible only for tlie con- clusion, that war ought to he abolished ; but our opponents, the advocates or apologists for war, instead of meeting us on tliis point alone, assail us, for the most part, on questions either extraneous or unessential. Such issues are false and fruitless ; for the only point in dispute is not, whether tlie Bible sanctions civil govern- ment, or capital punishment, or tlie taking of life in any case, or the use of physical force by one person against another, but whether war ought for any reason to be abolished. To this conclu- sion alone is the cause of peace pledged ; nor can it fairly be held accountable for objections urged against such modes of reasoning as assert the inviolability of human life, or conflict with tlie legiti- mate internal operations of government, or justify any kind of war. Thus would responsibility be lefl in every case to rest where it properly belongs. We do not ourselves feel bound to answer objec- tions drawn eiUier from tlie advocacy of defensive war, or from that species of non-resistance which denounces all forms of human government. We do not argue against war from either of these extremes ; and only thpse who do, should be held responsible for them. The same might be said of other modes of reasoning ; let those who use them, meet tlieir appropriate objections. The cause of peace is not accountable for any of them, because none of them are essential to its sole aim. Whatever may be thought of any arguments used by its friends, few will deny tliat war ought to be abolished ; and for this conclusion alone is the cause itself fairly responsible. The course we recommend, would also secure for our cause the greatest variety of argument and influence. There are all sorts of minds to be convinced ; and it is well to provide a corresponding variety of arguments. No single class of peace- men can meet the wants of all. A few, fond of elementary, com- prehensive truths, would be pleased with tlie broad principle, that the gospel discards all physical force ; but such logic will reach only a small portion of mankind, and be scouted by the rest as extreme radicalism. More will be influenced by tlie doctrine of the strict inviolability of human life ; yet this principle will satisfy no considerable part of society. The class of peace- men who argue against all war from such precepts of the gospel as bid us love our enemies, return good for evil, and give the other cheek to the smiter, will make far more converts ; but a number greater than all the rest, will be attracted to our cause by those who dwell cliiefly on the general wickedness and evils of war. These varieties of argument converge to the same result, — Uie abolition of war ; and the cause of peace sliould be so managed as to secure, if possible, the co-operation of them all. Nor can we discover the justice of excluding any class of peace- 97 UNION IN PEACE. 5 men. If any, which of the four ? The high non-resistant who regards all human government as sinful because resting in the last resort on brute force ? He deems himself the best, if not the only consistent peace-man. Shall we then refuse tlie right hand of fellowship to those who believe it wrong for man under any cir- stances to take the life of his fellow? Few, if any, can be stancher friends of peace. Shall we next discard those who admit the law- fulness of taking life in some cases, but deem all war contrary to the gospel ? Such was William Penn himself; and such are probably the greater part of our most active and efficient friends. Shall we, in fine, exclude all that believe war strictly defensive to be right, yet condemn tlie custom itself, and are willing to labor for its abo- lition ? Then must we strike from our list far the largest number of our co-workers, and commit the injustice of supposing them to have no heart for this enterprise of patriotism, philanthropy and religion. Many of these men are honest, active friends of our cause. Such was Noah Worcester himself, long after he became the pioneer of peace in modern times. Such, too, was William Ladd, who labored as zealously before as after he embraced the doctrine of all Avar contrary to the gospel. Such was Dr. Chan- ning to the end of his life. Such are multitudes, whom we cannot spurn from us without equal injustice to them, and injury to our cause. They may need a deeper, clearer insight into its pacific principles ; and tlie course we propose would be the like- liest Avay of bringing them ere-long to regard all war as unchris- tian ; but, should they never reach that point, they may still render invaluable aid in the work of banishing war from the world. We might, also, plead general precedent The friends of peace, whatever their theories, have in fact acted, for the most part, on the principle for which we contend. In America, they have, with hardly an exception, proceeded on the plan of inviting the co-ope- ration of all, whatever their views respecting wars termed defen- sive, who are willing to use means for abolishing the custom itself. Such have been, from the first, a vast majority of our co- workers ; not our warmest, but our real friends ; and, had we refused the co-operation of all such persons, we should never have even started in this enterprise, since its very originators were only moderate peace-men. Such, too, has been the practice, we believe, of all kindred societies in Europe. So it should be ; for tlie strong friends of peace are not its only friends. Others love it as truly as we do ; and Ave deem it Avrong to deny them the credit of unfeigned interest in tlie cause, or tlie privilege of an honorable co-operation. We wish, moreover, to influence those Avho guide the helm of state. HoAv shall this be done ? Not one in a thousand of them deems all war unchristian. Upon such men it Avould be quite useless to urge the extreme doctrines of peace ; and, if we reach them at all, it must be through its moderate friends and moderate arguments. Such a course would, likeAvise, obviate many causes of jealousy and collision among the friends of peace. All their strength ought 6 UNION IN PEACE. 98 to be spent against their common foe ; but no small part of their tune and energies has hitherto been wasted in disputes among themselves on points not essential to their object Nor can we well imagine any valid objection to a course so liberal. Shall we be told, ' it erects no standajd, fixes no princi- ple ?' — It provides all the standard, all the principle necessary for NDur purpose. Such a course goes against the whole war-system ; and what else do the friends of peace, as such, aim to abolish ? It goes for the entire abolition of war, for universal and permanent peace ; and can the strongest friend of our cause ask for more ? ' But such a course would not introduce tlie right standard.' — What class of peace-men, to tlie exclusion of all the rest, shall determine what is the right standard ? Whichever should, tlie others might complain ; but the course we suggest, would leave them all to urge tlieir respective views with entire freedom. Thus every aspect of, the subject would be exhibited, all its arguments and illustrations exhausted ; and every man's views would have a fair chance, and ^o for what different minds should think them worth. ' Such a course, however, would be no reform, because not in advance of present opinion and practice.' — Not indeed beyond those of its active friends, since no man can honestly teach what he does not believe ; but it would set every one at work in his own way, and give to truth the fairest chance of triumph. "Besides, there is on this subject, as well as others, a great deal of dor- mant truth now among the people ; and no small part of our work consists in rendering such truth effective for the prevention and ultimate abolition of war. ' But we should be obliged to contradict or conceal our prin- ciples.'^By no means ; for we allow you to utter yours without restraint, and merely ask you not to make others responsible for what they do not themselves believe. We would restrict the freedom of none. Different classes of peace-men are united in this cause ; and we simply insist, that no peace society, as such, shall endorse for one to the exclusion of the rest All may equally plead conscience ; and we would permit them all alike to argue against war, each in his own way, nor hold them accountable for any views except their own. ' Such a course would make a Bibel of our cause.' — How ? Almost every kindred enterprise has pursue<^a similar course with- out confusion or embarrassment Did not Wilberforce and his coadjutors labor in this way for the abolition of the slave-trade ? Was not every one allowed without complaint to urge his own arguments ? Did the leaders lay down a single principle as a criterion, and insist that none but believers in that principle should co-operate with them ? So witli the friends of temperance. They all go for abstinence from intoxicating drinks, but leave every man to do so from whatever arguments or motives he pleases. The cause requires union only in tlie result ; and, if its friends all 99 UNION IN PEACE. 7 unite in total abstinence, they may reach that result by an Ortho- dox or a Unitarian, a Protestant or a Catholic mode of reasoning. * I like, however, to see a reform reduced to its simplest ele- mentary principle.' — That may be a very pleasant and useful ex- ercise for you ; but is it a wise course for a reform which has to deal with all sorts of minds ? You love to simplify and generalize ; but most persons would be very likely to turn their back on such modes of advocating any cause. Such a procedure would also multiply the difficulties of reform. Let rne suppose you arguing against the slave-trade. Not satisfied with proving it wrong, you try to bring it under the condemnation of some general principle applicable to a hundred other things ; the principle, if you please, that all love of money, or all physical coercion of men, both of which are so deeply concerned in that trade, is unchristian. Your antagonist readily admits the traffic to be wrong, but joins issue on your general principle, and thus compels you to waste ' nearly all your strength upon what is not essential to your ' purpose. Were you endeavoring to abolish duelling, would you ■ first establish the principle, that self-defence, or the taking of human life in any case, or all use of brute force, is unchristian, and then forbid the co-operation of any that did not*embrace one or all of these principles ? True, if you prove either, you con- demn duelling ; but if neither is true, that practice may still be utterly wrong. So in peace. I prove it just as wrong for na- tions to fight as it is for individuals ; but one strenuous for simplification, presses me to know on what principle I condemn war. * Why, I have just adduced a dozen in the shape of so ' many arguments against it' " But on what one in particular do - you deem it wrong ? What is your stand-point ? " If in repl^I 'T say, that human life is inviolable, or that the gospel discards all " physical force, or forbids my injuring another for my own benefit, he starts at once a new trail of objections, not against my sole aim of abolishing war, but against my principle as applicable in his view to something else which he thinks right. He says it con- demns capital punishment, and even subverts all human govern- ment ; and thus he leads me away from my sole object into dis- putes which have little or no connection with peace. If you prove human life inviolable, or all use of brute force unchristian, you certainly condemn war ; but is i«t wrong on no other grounds ? If it is, then let all that choose, discard it on those grounds, nor insist that they shall argue against it only in your own favorite way. ' But every reform should have some fixed, distinguishing prin- ciple.' — So it should ; and such would our plan insure to the cause of peace. It is the principle, that war, being inconsistent with Christianity, and the true interests of mankind, ought to be abol- ished. What principle in any reform is more distinct, more intel- ligible, or more practical than this ? ' But we should carry out our principles.' — So we should to the accomplishment of our object, but no farther. Nothing more is done, or attempted, or even permitted in any enterprise of the kind. No principle is pushed to its utmost application. Take an example. 8 UNION IN PEACE. 100 The broad principle, lying at the bottom of temperance, forbids excessive or injurious stimulation of our bodies ; but this principle, if carried into all its possible applications, would sweep away tobacco, and tea, and coffee, and animal food, and a multitude of other indulgences never embraced in the temperance reform. The cause of peace is not an exception, in tliis respect, to all others ; nor can its friends be reasonably required to carry any principle beyond their single object of abolishing war. We plead, then, for the cordial, zealous co-operation of all peace-men. Associated solely for the abolition of international war, they should be pledged only to that end, and allowed to retain each his own opinions, and to labor for their conmion object in such ways as they respectively prefer, without insisting upon any other basis of f o-operation than the belief, that war, being inconsistent with Christianity, and the true interests of mankind, ought to be abolished. Such a comse would remove not a few obstructions, conciliate a much larger number of co-workers, and pave the way for a speedier and more glorious triumph. The time has come for a much more extensive rally in behalf of this cause tlian has ever yet been made or attempted. It is the grand interest of the world ; and its claims we should urge upon every friend whether of God or man. Almost every movement for the good of mankind is beginning to put in practice more or less of our principles ; and scarce an enterprise of benevolence or reform, that might not be laid under contribution to our cause. Of all such influences we should avail ourselves to the utmost, and set the ark of peace afloat on this tide of universal improvement. We^hould spread our sails for every breeze that may waft us sooner into the port of universal and permanent peace. We should press into our service every possible auxiliar}^ We need and may secure all the good influences of the world. The age of brute force is fast giving place to the era of moral influence ; and even legislators and warriors, the disciples of Draco, and the sons of Mars, are beginning to learn, even while clahning the right both of punishment and of war, that there are better means tlian violence and blood, for controlling mankind. Such is the spirit of the age ; and, though retaining the instruments of vengeance, it will yet contrive, with little, if any use of bayonets or bullets, of halters or chains, to restrain the wrong-doer, to protect tlie inno- cent, and right the injured. The reign of love is coming ; and its triumphs over bad passions and customs -will ere-long astonish the world. This spirit calls for peace ; and, should we make our plat- form broad enough to incbide all that are really desirous, from any motives, of putting an end to tlie time-hallowed tyranny of the sword, we might ere-long rally for its utter abolitiod every well- wisher to mankind. Let us do our whole duty ; and not another war shall ever sweep its besom of blood and fire over our own land, or any other portion of the civilized world. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XII. MILITARY PREPARATIONS. In civilized society all benevolent men profess to deprecate war, '^et it is viewed by most as a necessary evil, an event which must rievitably occur, and therefore they deem it not only the part of visdom, but an imperative duty, to be ready to repel it by military )reparations, and hence all classes join to arm their governments, md surrender their persons and fortunes to them, as instruments )f war. It is the object of this paper to show tliat this is a fallacy. It is lot intended to take up the question of the right a Christian people lave to defend themselves by military resistance, when actually nvaded, without cause. Admit that every nation has such right, md that in such case it is a duty to exercise it, still, the case put s a chimerical one, and will afford no vindication of military pre- tentions of such dangers as are ever likely to occur. The abstract ight of martial resistance may be conceded, and yet. protest made Lgainst military preparations, on the ground of inexpediency. In doing this, five propositions will be advanced. 1. There is no •eal necessity for war, and no civilized nation has reason to expect t, which deals justly and kindly with other nations. The idea, that )owerful sovereigns are ever watchful to find a community de- fenceless, to invade its territory, without provocation, for conquest )r rapine, is one derived from barbarous ages, when nations were ndeed little else than bands of robbers, and the precautions deem- ed necessary then are unadapted to modern civilization. Nations nay make aggressive war on others from false views of national lonor, or to redress some imagined wrong, or secure some alleged •ights ; but all disclaim tlie desire of so doing without any other •eason than the mere purpose of conquest or injury, and it is an nsulting calumny to insist that all such disclaimers are insincere. What patriot of any country will admit this criminal motive for limself or his countrymen, towards foreign nations ? Ask the citi- !;ens of any land, and each will deny it, to a man. Ilqw illiberal ;hen to impute it to all other people as well disposed as his own. It must be admitted that most unjustifiable invasions — even of re- cent date — have been made by powerful nations on those who were mable to resist them ; but in these cases justice has always been srofessed, and wrongs always alleged ; and however inconsistent :hese professions may appear to us, they may, under the blinding influence of interest or passion, have been quite sincere with them, rhese invasions, too, have always been met with a show of resist- iince, which has provoked the pride of the aggressors. Has any authorized attack been made on any people resigning all their claims in non-resisting friendship .J' Not one. Ascribe such a p. T. NO. XII. 2 MILITARY PREPARATIONS. 102 conduct to any government, and the charge will be met with in- diirnant denial. 2. The evils arising from military preparations are ^eater in the whole than those that would be incurred by submission to any probable foreign demand tliey are designed to resist Let us ap- preciate fully Sie enormous evils of such preparations. First, in regard to the expense of them. In the United States, for instance, where they are small, compared with those of other nations, the military expenses are five-sixtlis of all the expenditures of government, in time of peace, and in fifteen or twenty years, amount to more than tlie most grasping nation would desire or be able to obtain from these States by force, if unresisted, and if dis- posed for such robbery. A single fact will exemplify this ex- pense : — It has been proved by the calculations of an intelligent merchant, that the annual cost of the comparatively small navy of the United States is greater tlian tlie whole annual amount of the freights of tlieir mercantile marine for tlie same years. This instance is given merely as a small sample. The military and naval expenses of Great Britain are nine-tenths of all the expenditures of tliat profufee government; and other European nations are bmdened in a proportionate amount Calculations have been made which demonstrate, that if the appropriations for military purposes in civilized countries were withheld from them, and applied to benevolent objects, the Christian religion might be preached in every land, and the blessings of education extended to every family on tlie globe ; science might be advanced, justice dispensed, slavery and pauperism nearly obliterated, and peace publications so thoroughly diffused as to render war forever impos- sible, and military preparations consequently unnecessary. And enough would be left to sustain a Congress and Courts of Nations, by which their interests might be regulated as justly and peace- ably as now in the most enlightened province of the world. A heavier charge of evil against military establishments is their corrupting influence. Every such establishment, — by tlie testimony of military men themselves, — is a school of vice. The places most fruitful of intemperance, licentiousness, profanity and infidelity, are camps, fortresses, and ships of war. Can honesty and respect for right be expected in institutions whose avowed purpose is to exe- cute robbery for the public, and to overwhelm all rational adjudi- cation by physical power; or even safety for life be found among tlioee who are pledged to murder by wholesale at the bidding of tlieir commander ? Another evil in military establishments is their despotism. The myriads of men employed in these establishments are the most abject slaves, exposed to hardships and cruelties as great as those of the African slave on the plantation ; their health, comfort and morals, less regarded, and the exposure to violent death, and compulsion to crime superadded ; and tliis military tyranny is not confined to the soldiers and sailors of standing armies and navies, but is diffused, especially by the militia system, through the whole 103 MILITARY PREPARATIONS. 3 community. Every citizen is taught by it the necessity of arbitrary discipline for defensive energy, and is compelled to yield his money, his person and his conscience, whenever his govenmient shall demand them, even for public crime. Perhaps the greatest evil in military establishments is that for which they are most commended, — the encouragement of a mar- tial spirit. It is impossible to receive the doctrines of the gospel faithfully, and admit for a moment the innocency of the martial spirit. A nation imbued with this spirit can never become truly Christian, or fully civilized ; practical infidelity and proud bar- barism are its essential characters. With those who concur in this view, the question of the expediency of martial preparations is at once decided ; for if the interests of the spirit and of eternity ire higher than those of the body and of time, it would be better, God permitting, that a nation should be trodden down, every right overthrown, all property and even life or liberty destroyed, than, with the highest prosperity, every soul in it should be immersed in a sentiment allying it to the dark passions of an infernal world. 3. The third proposition is, that a kind, forbearing policy secures rights more constantly and fully than the menacing aspect of armed jtreparation for defence. That this is true in private life, will probably be admitted by every observer of human society. But if human nature is the 'same in the mass as in detail, is not the good policy of this defenceless, confiding position as applicable to nations as 'to individuals ? Innumerable cases are cited by the friends of peace to shoAv that this policy, tried on a limited scale, has ever been successful ; the only instance where it has been tried by a whole nation or province, is that of Pennsylvania, under the government of the Friends, which, maintained for more than seventy years without arms, was never invaded, or even insulted by its barbarous and warlike neighbors. But the authority of the gospel bears on the policy as well as the innocency of defensive armaments. Christ has enjoined forbear- ance and forgiveness on his followers, without any qualification as to their numbers, condition or political connections. Is it to be believed he would have done so, if such a course would have ex- posed all the rights and property of society to destruction ? Sup- pose that a true insight into human ^character and the voice of history did not teach that forbearance is more conquering than defiance, will we not trust the unerring judgment of the Omnis- cient more than the short-sighted maxims of human experience ? 4. War is more frequently caused by military preparations than it is supposed to be averted by them, both by encouraging in any nation supporting them, an arrogant bearing towards foreign na- tions, and by provoking the pride of those nations, by their defy- ing appearance. In a report of a careful research into the causes of wars among Christian nations, by order of the Massachusetts Peace Society, twenty-three were enumerated which arose entirely from the pride provoked, or alarm excited by the increasing arma- ments of tlieir neighbors, and from no other cause. Here, then, 31 4 MILITARY PREPARATIONS. 104 is proof from history of the proposition now considered ; the in- strument alleged to be for the prevention of war, is actually one of the causes of its production. And the report referred to, states, that of sixteen of these wars not settled by compromise, eleven terminated in favor of the powers provoked or alarmed, and tlie overthrow of the trusted preparations for defence. These facts ought to surprise none who seriously reflect on the subject, for they are conformable to the known character of human governments. The spirit of chivalry, which always bent before confiding gentleness, and ever stood erect in resistance to. at- tempted intimidation, is the universal characteristic of political rulers ; and if defensive armaments do not now provoke all the assaults it is their nature and tendency to do, it is not because they inspire fear, but because, as every nation commits the same folly, a tacit understanding seems to exist that they will not take this distrustful precaution as an insult from each other. 5. Lastly, Military preparations for defence are always liable to be used for purposes of aggression. The considerations before offered have gone upon the ground that such preparations have been strictly confined to the object of defence; but has this been the case with any powerful nation? Can any govern- ment of Europe or America repel the charge of inflicting the aggressions of their " defensive " preparations on weaker commu- nities ? It is almost proverbially true tliat no man can be trusted with great power without an irresistible desire to abuse it. This is a solemn consideration for the Christian patriot who voluntarily contributes to the support of military defences. Let him beware that he does not tliereby render himself accessory to the murder- ous aggression of offensive war. No form of government can check 3iis tendency of military establishments to wTong ; and no political combination can exempt the individual supporting them from the responsibility of participating in their crimes. At the bar of eternal justice every one must answer for the means and temptation he gives to the Imperial, the Royal or the Presidential robber to satiate his avarice or ambition in ^e blood of his fellow men. If the preceding arguments are conclusive ; If there is no ground for attributing hostile dispositions to other nations ; if the evils of military preparations to meet aggressions are greater than those which would be incurred by submission to them; if kindness would be a safer defence than intimidation ; if a martial attitude is often a provocation to war ; and if provisions for defence are gen- erally liable to be used for offensive war ; why should these bur- densome and pernicious establishment be maintained ? Let Chris- tian nations abolish them, and adopt the gospel policy of forbear- ing benevolence, and they will be safe. The arm of Omnipotence will protect them ; the crimson stream of blood, and the darker torrent of vice will be stopped for ever. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. ')l)t ' No. XIII. PROGRESS OF PEACE, OR HOW MUCH ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED IN THIS CAUSE. The cause of peace seeks, as its only object, the entire aboli- tion of war. Nearly thirty years have elapsed (1844) since the origin of tJiis movement ; and here we may well pause awhile to review its progress, and see how much is already gained. It is very difficult, however, to ascertain the exact degree of suc- cess in a cause like this. It lacks the usual criteria. It tells not of so many Bibles circulated, or so many heralds of the cross sent forth ; of so many churches gathered, or so many missionary sta- tions established ; of so many converts, or so many pledges. Such indices of progress belong not to this cause. Like leaven in bread, or sugar in fluids, it vanishes from our sight in the very act of ac- complishing its purpose ; and, if we would learn how much has been accomplished, we must trace, through a series of years, the gradual change of men's views, feelings, and habits on the subject of war. If they have clearer perceptions of its guilt or its evils ; if they are less inclined to abet or tolerate appeals to the sword ; if tliey have actually abstained from such appeals longer than they had for centuries before; if there is a growing demand from the people ^or other means of adjusting difficulties between nations ; if the rulers of Christendom are beginning to adopt pacific expe- dients for the settlement of national disputes, as their permanent policy, then have we all the proofs of success which the nature of the case will admit. Such proofs we have ; and mark tlie change. Time was, nor long ago, when warriors received the admiration of the world ; when there was scarce an advocate of peace besides the QuEikers, Mora- vians, and a very few others ; when the idea of abolishing war was scouted as the wildest of Utopian dreams ; when no press, and hardly a pulpit denounced this trade of blood as inconsistent with Christianity ; when war, as an arbiter of disputes between nations, was considered as equally laAvful with codes and courts of law for individuals ; when ministers of the gospel, otherwise excellent, preached in favor of war, botli defensive and ofFensive,as zealously as any one now can in support of civil government, and urged their hearers, in the language of the devout and eloquent Davies, ' to cherish a war-spirit as derived from God, as a sacred, heaven- born fire.' How altered now the tone of public sentiment. Pass through the land ; traverse all Christendom ; converse with every class of men ; examine the various issues of the press ; and at every step will you meet with views far more pacific than formerly. A change is P.'t. no. XIII. 3 PROGRESS OF PEACE. 106 coming over the minds of men ; and already has peace become the popular demand of tlie age. There is a diminished respect for men of blood, and national competition is passing froia tlie field of battle to those departments of science, art, and industry which procure wealth, and promote refinement and happiness. Most of the standing armies of Eiurope are in a course of reduction, and our own States are gradually ceasing to require military drills. Every where is tlie art of war falling into disuse; even now is it barely tolerated as a necessary evil ; and some of our legislatures are calling, for measures to supersede its alleged necessity by tlie adoption of substitutes far better than tlie sword. Such substi- tutes popular opinion is beginning to demand ; and difficulties which would, fifty or even tliirty years ago, have plunged nations instantly in blood, are now adjusted often with scarce a thought of appealing to anns. Negotiation, arbitration, and otlier pacific measures are actually taking the place of the sword in nine cases out of ten where it was formerly used. War has ceased to be re- garded as tlie only arbiter of national disputes ; and the leading cabinets of Christendom are beginning to adopt for this purpose pacific expedients as their permanent system. Already is the in- ternationsd policy of Christendom materially changed ; and, should this policy continue much longer, it may yet suffice to keep the peace of Uie civilized world for ages to come. Observe the moral machinery set at work to produce such re- sults. In nearly every country where any enterprises of the kind can be sustained, good men are combining their efforts for the ab- olition of war ; and tliese associations, embracing some of the pur- est and most gifted minds in Christendom, have put in operation a variety of simple yet effective means. They employ the living voice, and are sending forth lecturers. They wield the press, and are circulating pamphlets, periodicals and tracts, far and wide. They have also published volumes ; and some of these, written with singular ability, have gone to the libraries of the learned, to halls of legislation, and palaces of kings. Millions of pages on the subject of peace have, from year to year, been scattered over the best portions of Christendom, and sent occasionally into tlie four quarters of tlie globe. Glance at tlie otlier agencies drawn into co-operation vrith us. We have waked tlie pulpit ; and thousands of ministers arc now preaching peace as a part of the gospel. We have enlisted the press ; and multitudes of periodicals, both religious and secular, are beginning to discuss this grand question of the world. We have also laid the clauns of peace before the Christian community ; and not only individual churches, but ecclesiastical bodies repre- senting almost every considerable denomination in our land, have passed resolves in its favor, and commended it to the sympathies, prayers and patronage of good men. We have likewise brought the subject before not a few of our higher seminaries ; and in these it is attracting attention, calling fortli discussion, and raising up youthful friends who may one day become its champions." In 107 PROGRESS OF PEACE. 3 some of them, prizes have been annually given for the best essay- on peace ; and these essays, first delivered in public by their au- thors, and then sent forth to the world through some periodical, must contribute not a little to that change of popular sentiment which alone is requisite for the entire abolition of war. Before rulers, also, have we brought the claims of this cause. On the alarai of war, we have remonstrated with them against a resort to arms, and have occasionally been successful in holding them back from bloodshed. We have shown them the possibility ©f superseding war by better means, and urged upon them the duty of adopting such substitutes in place of the cannon and the sword. We have petitioned them especially to obviate all neces- sity for war, either by incorporating in their treaties a pledge to settle their disputes in the last resort by reference to umpires mu- tually chosen, or by calling a congress of nations to frame a spe- cific, authoritative code of international law, and establish an inter- national tribunal to interpret that law, and adjust all difficulties which may aris^ among the great brotherhood of nations. But popular opposition would be the surest safeguard against war ; and already are the people rallying to prevent the return of this terrible scourge. Even now does their voice decide in fact the question of peace or war ; nor is there a despot in Christendom that would hazard an appeal to arms without first feeling the popu- lar pulse. There is no escape ; the will of the people rmist be heeded ; and just as fast as they are enlightened, will rulers find it difficult, if not impossible, to play any longer this game of blood at the expense of their subjects. And the people are fast getting tlie light requisite for this purpose. The question is before tliem ; and already is it discussed more or less by high and low, by old and young ; in the pulpit, the senate, and the forum ; in literary societies, in popular lyceums, in nearly all our seminaries of learn- ing ; in volumes and pamphlets, in quarterlies and monthlies, in weekly and daily newspapers ; by the farmer, the mechanic and the merchant, the citizen and the soldier. Mark the result of these and kindred influences. After cen- turies of almost incessant conflict, the general peace of Europe has been preserved ever since the origin of efforts in this cause, now nearly thirty years ; a longer period of rest from war than Chris- tendom ever knew before. These efforts have probably saved ourselves from several wars. It is impossible to tell how many dangers have been so far obviated as to keep them entirely from our knowledge ; but during the last nine years, we have been in imminent exposure to war, first with France, next with Mexico, and finally with England herself. Had public opinion been what it was fifty years before, we could hardly have escaped a war in either case ; but the change of sentunent through Christendom that prevented a calamity so dreadful, has re- sulted under God mainly from the efforts and the influences which together constitute the cause of peace. Provocations not half as great, have frequently occasioned fierce, protracted wars; and 4 PROGRESS OF PEACE. 108 nothing but the altered views of tlie age, especially of the parties themselves, averted that deplorable catastrophe. We have not room to review in detail all the cases just alluded to ; but let us briefly revert to the danger of a war with Mexico. Nearly the whole South and West were calling aloud for it, and Congress was on the eve of taking measures which would have rendered it inevitable ; but just at tliat crisis, tlie friends of peace petitioned our government to accept the proposal of Mexico for the settlement of Sieir difficulties by reference to an umpire to be mutually chosen. The appeal was well-timed, and enabled the venerable John Q,uinct Adams, as he says himself, " to declare to the House and the country not only my aversion to a war witli Mexico, but the painful feelings with which I have seen it recom- mended. It will operate," he continues, " as a check on the com- mittee to prevent their reporting any war-measure against Mexico, which they would infallibly have done, had not tlieir disposition to it been met at the threshold. The proposal of a reference to arbi- tration was itself so reasonable, that no voice was heard in Con- gress against it ; and very soon afterwards, it was conditionally ac- cepted. This removed all immediate danger of a war ; and if the petitioners of the peace societies had never rendered to their coun- try any other service, they would have deserved the thanks of tlie whole nation for this." Reflect on the importance of these results — tlu-ee wars averted from our own land, and the general peace of Christendom pre- served for nearly thirty years of almost incessant war that sacri- ficed no less than nine millions of lives, and some tliirty or forty tliousand millions of dollars ! Is not here proof enough of the most triumphant success ? Had there been no drunkard, not a solitary case of intoxication, in our whole country for thirty years, would not such a fact alone prove the cause of temperance to have been gloriously successful ? These results are undeniable ; but how many would fain ac- count for them by quoting merely the generat influences of civil- ization, and commerce, and Clu-istianity, and popular education, and public opinion, and modern diplomacy, and recent experience of the evils inseparable from war ! But if these influences are the cause of the world's peace for the last thirty years, why did they prove so utterly unsuccessful down to the very time, and become so successful ever since, and only since the time when the friends of peace began tlieir united efforts ? Before the battle of Water- loo, was there in Christendom no civilization, no commerce, no Christianity, no pulpit or press, no popular education, no public opinion, no arts of diplomacy, no bitter experience of the evils in- flicted by this master-scourge of the world ? Yes ; all these gen- eral influences were in existence and pretty full operation ages before. Why then did they fail to insure peace ? For the same reason that the power of steam existed all over the eartli thousands of years before it propelled a ship, or twirled a spindle — nobody 109 PROGRESS OF PEACE. 5 applied it to that purpose. For the same reason that hundreds of water-falls poured from our own hills, century after century, with- out turning a single water-wheel — nobody applied them to that purpose. For the same reason that all the intelligence, virtue, and piety in our land failed for generations to check the progress of intemperance — nobody applied them to that specific purpose. Such an application was indispensable. It was no special increase of intelligence, or patriotism, or piety, or any other good influences, that accomplished the temperance reform, but the concentration of them all upon that specific object. Here is the whole secret ; and without this, our intelligence, and patriotism, and virtue, and piety, and pliilanthropy might have continued till doomsday without roll- ing back the deluge of liquid fire that was sweeping over our land. Just so in the cause of peace. The civilization, and commerce, and Christianity, and public opinion, and all the other general in- fluences so flippantly quoted by some as having secured for Christendom her last thirty years of peace, failed for centuries to prevent bloodshed, until the friends of peace, like those of tempe- rance in their cause, seized those general influences, and concen- trated them on their single purpose of abolishing war. Such influ- ences are quite essential ; but it is only their right application that can secure the result sought. They are the elements or instruments of every good cause. So in missions and temperance ; but would any man, for this reason, attempt to account for all that has been accomplished in those causes by quoting such general influ- ences without an allusion to the special efforts made by the asso- ciated friends of temperance and missions ? Yet we might as well do this, as think to account for the peace of Christendom for the last thirty years without giving to the cause of peace, under God, the chief credit of a result so immensely important to the world. But some minds it is extremely difficult to cure of this strange skepticism. ' We carmot,' say they, ' deny the glorious results of which you speak ; but they came from influences not dependent on your movement. " It is the gospel that has produced them.' — True ; but it is only the gospel as applied since the commence- ment of our efforts ; for that very gospel failed for ages to produce such results. Why ? Solely because it was not then applied as it is now beginning to be. But why not extend this reasoning to all other enterprises ? The gospel is the origin, the main-spring of the missionary, Bible, and temperance movements ; but would you say there is no need of such enterprises, because the gospel, as applied by tliem, has confessedly eflTected every one of 3ie re- sults commonly ascribed to their agency ? Because it is the medi- cine that cures, is there no need of its being applied ? ' But commerce and travel have done much for peace.' — ^Very true ; but they have done far more for missions and other benevo- lent enterprises. Shall we then say, that the latter do not deserve the credit of their own acknowledged achievements ? Our tracts, our Bibles, our missionaries are sent round the globe in the ves- sels of our merchants ; is the credit of the result all due to com- PROGRESS OP PEACE. 110 merce ? Would you reserve none to tract, Bible or missionary societies ? * But the pulpit has done more for peace than your peace socie- ties.' — Be it so ; but because it has done a hundred fold more for missions, is the missionary society of no use ? Did not the pio- neers of that cause first wake the pulpit to its duty in behalf of a perishing world ? Do not its labors now constitute an integral part of the missionary enterprise ? Just so of peace. It has prompted ministers of the gospel to do nearly all they have ever done on the subject, and their labors in this cause, eis in that of missions, have become part and parcel of the movement; but what should we think of the Christian who would urge this fact as a reason why notliing more should be done for the missionary cause ? * Ministers are at work in its behalf; let us therefore abandon it' Strange logic ; yet the very same that even good men sometimes use in order to neutralize the claims of peace. ' But the press, by the multitude of its brief, pithy articles, is doing more than the peace society to prevent war.' — Grant, if you please, this position also ; yet it Avas the peace society that first enlisted the press in this work, and has furnished nearly every thing hitherto published on the subject in our newspapers and other periodicals. Services of this sort may all be traced, directly or indirectly, to the cause of peace as the main-spring. * Rulers, too, are coming to your aid.' — True again ; but they did not generally alter their course until the friends of peace pressed its claims upon them, or diffused among the people such views as effectually demanded a pacific instead of a warlike policy. The change in their measures has resulted mainly from the influences set at work by the associated friends of peace. * But the world has grown too wise to repeat its old game of war.' — So have vast multitudes become too wise to taste the drunk- ard's drink ; but where did they learn this wisdom ? In the school of temperance. If nations are now too wise to play the suicidal game of war, whence came this wisdom ? Was it not from the cause of peace ? If not, how came all Christendom to put this wisdom in practice just at tlie time, and only since the time, when our enterprise began ? ' But the wars of Napoleon taught a lesson too terrible to be for-* gotten soon, if ever.' — Terrible indeed they were, but little more so than some previous wars which nevertlieless did not long re- strain Europe from the sword. The superior efficacy of tlie last lesson has resulted less from its own nature than from the special efforts made by the friends of peace to impress it on the public mind ; and without such efforts, that lesson would long ago have lost its power to hold even Christendom back from blood. "W hy did not the ' Thirty Years War,' which early in the seventeenth century made the very heart of Europe a wilderness, teach its na- tions their present policy, and even prevent the rise of such a monster as Napoleon ? * But nations now understand their own interests much better Ill PROGRESS OF PEACE. than formerly, and perceive far more clearly the advantages of peace, and the evils of war.' — It may be so ; but this they always knew well enough for every practical purpose ; and if their knowl- edge is now greater or more influential than formerly, it is mainly because the friends of peace have so often and so earnestly in- culcated tliis truth upon them. ' After all, however, there is little principle in this new policy of peace ; in pursuing it, nations have an eye solely to their own in- terests.' — Be it so, if you please ; but if tliey actually discard war, and make peace their permanent policy, we shall not quarrel with them about their motives. All we seek is the peace of the world ; and, if men will for any reason cease from war, we gain our whole object. ' This they are doing ; and since the leading influences of the age are so fast setting in favor of peace, there is no need of any more efforts in this cause.' — We rejoice in the fact here stated ; but nearly all the influences of the world were on the side of war until the friends of peace united to turn the current. Look through Christendom ; and you will find not only its thirty years of peace, but nearly all its changes of opinion in favor of our object, as faurly attributable to tne cause of peace, as the progress of temperance is to that cause, or the spread of the gospel to missionary efforts. True, God has lent his aid to the work ; but this disproves neither its success nor its necessity. Can any enterprise succeed with- out his smiles ? Does his blessing supersede means ? Because he works, is there no need of man's agency ? In every enterprise which God designs to render successful, he raises up a variety of auxiliary influences ; but these, so far from superseding the cause itself, only form his part of the movement, and insure its ultimate triumph by the pledge of his approbation and blessing. Let us not imagine, then, that our work is already done. Done ! it is only begun, and will require ages to finish it. We have not yet beaten swords into plough-shares, but merely kept them in their scabbards. We have not killed the monster ; we have only caged and chained him. The war-gangrene still cankers the heart of Christendom, and poisons the very fountains of its morality and re- ligion. The whole war-system still remains ; and the magazine needs only a spark to kindle such an explosion as would convulse the civilized world. The war-spirit, so far from being extinct, merely sleeps ; and the demon waits only a sufficient provocation to unkennel his blood-hounds, and send them howling in rage as fierce, and havoc as terrible as ever, over the fairest fields of Christendom itself. We have as yet no perfect security ; nor can we ever have until nations shall give up the war-principle of ad- justing their diflferences by the sword, and establish in its place a permanent system of rational, legal, peaceful adjudication. Thanks to the God of peace for the cheering success thus far vouchsafed ; but this should only stimulate to still greater exertions. No other enterprise has done more, if so much, in proportion to the means used. Contrast these means with the results already reached. % PROGRESS. OF PEACE. ,11^ Dunng the first twenty-five years from the origin of this cause, its receipts tlirough Christendom did not probably average more tlian fonr thousand dollars a year; wliile the war-system was annually costing Christendom, in one way and another, more than one thou- spjid millions ! Less fiDr peace in twenty-five years tlian fi^r the war-system, even in peace, a single hour ! ! Yet this mere pit- tance, spent in the use of moral means, in a right application of the gospel to the case, has under God done more than all the myriads wasted on her war-system, to preserve the peace of Chris- tendom the last thirty years. What encouragement, then, to efforts in this cause ! Let the requisite means be used ; and ultimate, if not speedy success is certain. Let the gospel, wherever preached, be rightly applied to war ; let the press, in the ubiquity and power of its influence, be fully enlisted in behalf of this enterprise; let editors not only lend their columns to its advocacy, but indite articles ot- their own in its behalf; let the pulpit open its moral battery, arid pour upon the public mind volley after volley of God's truth on this subject ; let ministers of every name take the cause under their patronage, and labor for it as they do for temperance or mis- sions ; let Christians as a body come up to this work in earnest and take hold of it as their o'wti ; let the friends of this object or- ganize themselves into societies or committees to co-operate with us by raising funds, procuring lectures, and circulating our publi- cations ; let churches remember this cause as they do others in their prayers, and contribute regularly and liberally to its funds ; let the friends of peace sponta,neously unite in petitioning govern- ment to provide, in arbitration or a congress of nations, ample sub- stitutes for the sword ; let all that deprecate a calamity so fearful, combine at once to resist any and every war tliat may hereafter be threatened; — let all this be done, and we may see' war ere-long vanishing, like dew before the rising sun, from every land blest ■with the light of tlie gospel, and eventually all nations beating their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning-hooks, and learning war no more. Such a result mmt cpme, for God has promised it ; yet never can it come without the use of such means as he has appointed for the purpose. The gospel must he applied aright to the case. Here is our work ; and fain would we press all good men into it Min- isters must preach ; Christians must pray ; the eloquent must plead ; the poor must give their mite, and the rich trieir hundreds, if not their thousands. The cause requires a system of operations in- comparably more expensive than that of Prison Discipline ; and yet upon this did John Howard spend from his own purse an ave- rage of nearly ten thousand dollars a year for more than fifteen years in succession. Oh for some Howard or Thornton to rise, and give his thousands and tens of thousands to this blessed work of a world's entire, perpetual pacification! AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. ill No. XIV. WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. The value of property can be estimated only by the pur- poses it may subserve. It supports life, procures comforts, and furnishes means of improvement, happiness and salva- tion. These uses measure its value ; and in this view it has been made, by writers on political economy, an index to the prosperity of a nation, and a criterion of its capacity for enjoyment and usefulness. War is the grand impoverisher of the world. In estima- ting its havoc of property, we must inquire not only how much it costs, and how much it destroys, but how far it prevents the acquisition of wealth ; and a full answer to these three questions would exhibit an amount of waste beyond the power of any imagination adequately to con- ceive. Such an answer we shall not now attempt, but merely glance, first, at the prevention of wealth hy war, next its incidental havoc, and finally its direct expenses. I. Consider, then, how 2var prevents the accumulation of property. Its mere uncertainties must operate as a very serious hindrance ; for, while every thing is afloat, and no ' forecast can anticipate what changes may take place any month, men will not embark in those undertakings by which alone wealth is rapidly acquired. They shrink from the risk, and wisely wait to see what is coming ; and thus the main-springs of a nation's prosperity, — its capital, its en- terprise, and its best facilities for making money, — remain comparatively idle and useless. This cause alone, an inva- riable attendant upon war, is sufficient to paralyze the ener- gies of business in all its departments. Still worse, however, are the sudden changes of war. These precede its commencement, accompany its progress, and follow its close, baffling the utmost precaution, keep- ing business unsettled, and actually wasting, as well as preventing, a large amount of property. They discourage enterprise, defeat the best plans, and produce a vast multi- tude of failures. They may, here and there, make a for- tune ; but, where they make one, they ruin or mar a hun- dred. The mere dread of such changes must paralyze^. p. T. NO. XIV. 2 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 114 more or less, every department of business, and cripple nearly all eflforts for the acquisition of wealth. Hence ensue a general derangement and stagnation of business. Nearly all its departments are either thrown into confusion, or brought entirely to a stand ; and thus the main energies of a people, even if not absorbed in war, must either rust in idleness, or be frittered away in baffled schemes, and fruitless exertions. Mark the inevitable result in the disuse or unprofitable employment of capital, industry and skill in commerce and manufactures,, in agriculture, the various arts, and all departments of labor and enterprise. These are the great fountains of wealth ; but in war they are either dried up, or forced into new and unproductive channels. Capital, as in the case of Holland during the late wars of Europe, (1793-1815,) is locked up, or sent out of the country, be- cause there are at home so few opportunities of profitable or safe investment. Enterprise is checked, because there is so little reward or demand for its products. There is no foreign market for the fruits of agriculture ; and land ceases to be tilled with care and success. There is no out- let for manufactures; and the shop and the factory are closed, or kept at work with little vigor and less profit. In- tercourse between nations is almost suspended ; and com- merce stands still, vessels rot at the wharves, and sea-ports, once alive with the hum of business, are cut off from the principal sources of their wealth, and sink into speedy, per- haps irrecoverable decay. All the main-springs of national prosperity are broken, or crippled, or kept in operation at immense disadvantage. An incalculable amount of capital in money, and ships, and stores, and factories, and work- shops, and machinery, and tools, and raw materials, and buildings, and inventions, and canals, and railways, and industry, and skill, and talent, is withdrawn from use, and, for want of profitable employment, goes more or less to waste. How much is thus lost, it would be vain even to conjecture ; but we should be safe in supposing that in these ways war might, besides all it spends, and all it destroys, reduce fi^r a time the value of a nation's entire property from thirty to fifty per cent. ! But the most direct influence of war on national pros- perity, comes from the sudden withdrawal of men in the vigor of life. In such men are found the mines or labora- tories of a nation's wealth; but what multitudes of these 115 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 3 does the war-system require for its support ! The standing warriors of Europe are (1844) about three millions even in a time of peace, and exceeds four millions and a half in war, with large additions to meet occasional emergencies. Not a few of these millions may have been the main-springs of business ; and their removal can scarcely fail to derange and cripple every one of its departments. All of them must possess an unusual share of strength for labor, since no others would be equal to the hardships of war ; and the sudden abstraction of such men by thousands from every part of a country, and from every kind of employment, must paralyze the entire industry of a nation. Agriculture, trades, manufactures, all kinds of business must receive a severe and lasting shock. Still worse is the influence of war on the habits indis- pensable to the thrift of a people. It mars the character necessary for the acquisition of property. It debases their minds, corrupts their morals, and undermines almost every species of excellence among them. It renders them idle, dishonest and profligate. It fills the land with persons who prey upon society like moths or gangrene. It destroys the habits needed to enrich a people, and introduces others fa- tally calculated to impoverish any country. It represses almost every thing good, and gives fresh and fearful activity to whatever is bad. It is a hot-bed of evils. Idleness and vagrancy, fraud, theft and robbery, the lowest vices, and the blackest crimes, are both the nurses and the offspring of war. Such considerations as these we might pursue to almost any extent ; but enough has been said to show, that all the enormous expenses of war would not equal the loss of prop- erty occasioned by the combined and permanent influence of such causes alone as we have here specified. Take an illustration. When our population was some fifteen or six- teen millions, an eminent statesman of our own estimated the annual production of the United States at $1,400,000,000, or nearly ninety dollars to each inhabitant ; and, if we sup- pose war to prevent only one fifth of all this, the loss would be no less than $280,000,000 a year! Reckoning our present population (1844) at twenty millions, the annual sacrifice would be about $350,000,000. But, supposing the amount of annual production to average only fifty-dol- lars to each inhabitant, then Christendom, with a population of 250,000,000, would lose $2,500,000,000 a year ; and the whole globe, with 1,000,000,000 people, would sacrifice 4 WASTE OP PROPERTY BY WAR. 116 the enormous sum of ten thousand millions ! ! Such a result seems incredible ; and yet the calculation for our own country is probably below the truth, and may serve as a clue to the boundless waste of property by war even in ways which are generally overlooked. II. Glance next at the immediate, incidental havoc of pro- yeVty hy war. Such havoc must, from the nature of the case, be immense. Follow an army, ancient or modern, savage or civilized ; trace the course of the French under Napoleon in Russia or Portugal, setting fire in one case to every house for one hundred and fifty miles ; look at even British troops in Spain or India; see them trampling down harvests, and burning villages, destroying towns, ravaging entire provinces, and pillaging city after city ; and can you conceive the amount of property thus wasted ? Bring the case home, and say, if Boston contains property to the amount of more than one hundred millions, and New York two or three times as much, how many millions either city would lose from capture, or a close and protracted siege. We can ascertain more nearly, yet very imperfectly, what is destroyed on the ocean. The sum total of our own exports and imports may have ranged, for the last ten years, from two hundred to two hundred and forty or fifty millions of dollars a year; nearly as large an amount may perhaps have been interchanged along our immense coast ; and no small part of both would be liable in war to be seized by our enemies. The imports into one of our cities amounted in a single quarter of 1836, to thirty-six millions ; and a war, suddenly occurring, might have found afloat on the ocean an equal amount destined to the same port, and scores of millions belonging to the \\«liole nation. The nature of the case forbids accuracy of calculation, yet shows that commerce is liable to losses beyond the power of computation or even conjecture. Since the close of our revolutionary struggle, we have been engaged in foreign war less than three years ; but it would probably require some hundreds of millions to cover all the losses we have sustained from depredations on our commerce. Another source of loss to a nation's wealth, is found in the waste of life by war. It takes men at the very age when then labor would be most productive, and shortens their life more than twenty years in war, and some ten or fifteen in peace ! The statistics of mortality among men devoted to this work ^i blood, are truly startling. Soldiers, though 117 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 5 in the bloom and vigor of life, live on an average only about three years in a time of war, and die even in peace twice as fast as galley slaves, and more rapidly than men ordinarily do at the age of fifty and sixty ! What a loss of property must such a waste of life occa- sion ? Let us suppose it costs an average of $500 to raise a soldier, and reckon his labor for the ten years of his life shortened in peace, and twenty years in war, at $150 a year. If the standing armies of Europe are three millions in a time of peace, she sustains, at this rate, a loss of $1,500,000,000 for their training, 1450,000,000 a year for labor, and $4,500,000,000 for the shortening of their life ten years ; an average in peace of $840,000,000 a year from this source alone ! ! Reduce these estimates one half, and you still have, even in peace, the enormous sacrifice of $420,000,000 a year. In a time of war, the armies of Europe, when full, are supposed to be some four millions and a half; but, putting them in round numbers at four millions, the loss would be for their training $2,000,000,- 000, for their labor $600,000,000 a year, and for cutting short their life twenty years, $12,000,000,000 ; an average loss in war, if we suppose a soldier's life then to be only three years, of $5,266,000,000 a year ! ! Such a result, how- ever incredible, comes fairly from the premises ; and, should you reduce these estimates even eighty per cent., you would still make out a loss of more than $1,000,000,000, every year of actual war from this source alone ! If we extend our calculation to the five millions of persons in the army of Xerxes, to the millions of Ninus, and Semiramis, and Jenghiz-khan, to all the armies from Nimrod to the present time, we should find, from the mere waste of life, an aggre- gate exceeding our utmost conceptions. We have not taken into account the superior value of officers ; and still the result proves the loss of property in this way alone to be much greater than all the direct expenses of war. III. Look, then, at the actual cost of icar. Even in peace, it is enormous. The amount of money wasted on fortifications and ships, on arms and ammunition, on monu- ments and other military demonstrations, it is impossible to calculate with precision or certainty. The expense of the wall round Paris was estimated (1840) at 250,000,000 francs, or nearly $50,000,000 ; a single triumphal arch in that city, only one among the hundreds scattered through Christendom, cost 10,000,000 francs ; and we know not how G ^ WASTE OF PBOPEETY BY WAR. 118 many millions more were expended in the pageantry of re- moving Napoleon's remains from St. Helena to their present resting-place. The palace of Versailles, mainly the fruit of war, is acknowledged to have cost 1,000,000,000 francs, or $200,000,000, a sum sufficient to build the whole city of New York, or four such cities as Boston. Go to Green- wich or Chelsea, and there see what immense sums are spent on the diseased, crippled and worn-out servants of war. Survey the grand arsenal of England at Woolwich, and imagine how many millions have been wasted on its twenty-seven thousand cannon, and its hundreds of thou- sands of small arms. Millions of dollars have been expended on some single forts in our own country; and still the highest authority assured us in 1S35, that thirty millions more would hardly suffice to put our entire coast and fron- tiers in even a tolerable state of defence. But the original cost of these materials of war is not the only expense they occasion ; immense sums are required every year to keep them in repair. Here lies the chief care of the war-system in peace ; and, should you go through Europe, or even our own country, you would find a vast number of shops, and foundries, and ship-yards constantly at work for this purpose. This single item of expense can- not, for all Christendom, be less than 8100,000,000 a year ! Still more expensive, however, is the maintenance of an army either in war or in peace. Thiers, the distinguished historian of France, and once a leading member of her cabinet, reckons the expense of supporting a soldier to be in Austria about 8130, in France 8146, in Prussia nearly 8200, in England still greater; and it would be a very low estimate to suppose, that every soldier in Christendom costs an average of 8150 a year. It is impossible to tell the exact number of standing warriors in Christendom ; but they cannot be less, and may be more, than 3,000,000 in peace. Aside from naval forces, the army of Spain has been 120,000, that of England 100,000, with the addition of 200,000 in war, and an indefinite number for emergen- cies in her eastern possessions ; that of France from 350,000 to 400,000, and in 1840 even 900,000 ; that of Austria 750,000 in war, probably not less than 400,000 in peace ; that of Russia 850,000 in peace, and reckoned by some as high as 1,000,000. If we put the peace establishment of Christendom as low as 3,000,000, and suppose them all to require for their annual support an average of only 8150 119 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 7 each, the result would be $450,000,000 a year for their sustenance ; and reckoning one ojfficer to ten soldiers, and awarding to each of the latter an English shilling a day, or $87 a year for wages, and to the former an average salary of $500 a year, or less than six shillings a day, we should have, for the pay of the whole, no less than $385,000,000 a year, or a grand total, for both sustenance and pay, of $835,000,000 ! ! Reckoning the annual cost of their suste- nance only $100 each ; and, with the paltry compensation of one shilling a day for officers as well as privates, we reach the enormous sum of $561,000,000 a year ! We cannot well conceive how much the leading nations of Europe waste upon their war-system even in peace. The annual charge of Great Britain for her war-debt alone has been some twenty-eight or thirty millions sterling a year, not less than $140,000,000 ; exceeding, by more than one- third, all the taxable property in the state of Ohio in 1836. The war-departmciit of France in 1819, a year of peace, cost twenty times as much as her whole civil list. In 1827 England paid in peace $220,000,000 for war-purposes, and for all her civil offices only one-fortieth part of that sum. In 1825, another year of peace, her entire expenses amounted to $256,000,000, more than half the wealth of the whole state of New York as estimated in 1835, while her civil list for the same year was only $4,698,000; a proportion of one to fifty-six ! Few suspect how much our own country spends upon the war-system even in peace. If we suppose our annual income for the last fifteen years to have averaged only $24,000,000, we shall find, that not less than $18,000,000 have been lavished upon our army and navy ; three dollars for war to one for the peaceful operations of government ! Still more expensive in fact is our militia system. If one person in ten among us is liable to military duty, the whole number would now be nearly 2,000,000. If we suppose that four trainings every year are necessary to keep the system in full vigor ; that the yearly expenses for equip- ment are only three dollars for each man, and incidental expenses barely fifty cents a day ; that every training ab- sorbs one day and a half, each worth $1.50, less than the fine usually imposed for not training ; that the number of spectators is equal to that of the soldiers, allowing to each one dollar a day for time, and fifty cents for expenses; that the officers together incur half as much expense as all the 8 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 120 privates ; we should make out a total of 845,000,000 a year for the above items alone ! Add the cost of splendid regi- mentals, and fine clothes, and standards, and music, and cavalry, and artillery, and arsenals, and magazines, and the incidental destruction of property, and all the injury arising from the suspension and derangement of business, and vices contracted on such occasions ; and we shall not wonder, that one of our ablest and most candid writers (Hon. Wil- liam Jay,) should have reckoned ** the yearly aggregate expense of our militia," even when their whole number was only 1,500,000, *' not much, if any short of fifty millions!" At this rate, the present number of our militia would cost us more than 866,000,000 a year ; but, if we deduct even one half of this sum, and then add our yearly expenditure of eighteen millions for the army and navy, we should make the expense of our own war-system more than -fifty millions a year in a time of profound peace ! We boast of our pacific policy and habits ; yet war has ever been the burden of our national expenses. In 1817, our war expenses were about nine times as large as those for all other purposes. To give some details, we expended, in 1832, for civil offices, 81,800,758 ; for intercourse with foreign nations, 8325,181 ; for miscellaneous objects, 82,451,203; for the army, 85,446,035; for the naval ser- vice, $3,956,320 ; for revolutionary pensions, a war charge, 31,057,121 ; for various other pensions, 8127,301 ; for the Indian department, 81,352,420 ; for the national debt, the fruit of our last war, 817,840,309; in all, more than thirty millions and a half in one form or another for war, seven- teen times as much as for the whole civil list, and about ten times as much as for all the other purposes of our govern- ment ! From 1791 to 1832, a period of forty-one years, the aggregate of our expenditures, with some two years and a half of actual war, was 8842,250,891 ; and of this sum at least eight-ninths were for war-purposes, and merely 837,158,047, or about one twenty-third part of the whole, for the civil list ; one dollar for the support of government, to twenty-three dollars for war ! Durimr our revolutionary struggle, we borrowed of France 87,962,959, expended from our own resources 8135,193,703, and issued of paper money 8359,547,027; in all, 8502,703,689, besides an indefinite amount of contributions from individuals and states- From 1816 to 1834, eighteen years, our national expenses amounted to 8463,915,756; and of this sum, 121 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 9 nearly four hundred millions went in one way and another for war, and only sixty-four millions for all other objects ! Here then we have, even in a time of peace, twenty-two millions a year for war, and about three millions and a half, less than one-sixth of the whole, for the peaceful operations of a government that plumes itself on its pacific policy ! If we take into account all the expenses and all the losses of war to this country, it will be found to have wasted for us, in sixty years, some two or three thousand millions of dollars ! ! But look at the direct expenses of war. A single first- rate ship of the line is supposed to cost us, in active service, full half a million of dollars a year ; and the number of war-ships in Christendom, though few of the first class, has been estimated at more than two thousand. Our last war, though cheap in comparison with most wars, required simply for its prosecution more than fifty millions a year. England expended in our revolutionary war nearly $700,000,000 , the wars consequent on. the French Revolution, cost her more than $5,000,000,000 ; and the wars of all Christen- dom, even of Europe alone, from 1793 to 1815, a period of only twenty-two years, wasted barely for their support, some $15,000,000,000 ; — a sum so far beyond all ordinary calculation or conception, that a person, beginning at the birth of our Savior, and counting thirty a minute for twelve hours every day, would not finish the whole even at the close of the present century ! Take from an English writer a glimpse of England's ex- penditures for some of her great wars. From 1688 to 1815, a period of 127 years, she spent sixty-five in war, two more than in peace. The war of 1688 continued nine years, and increased her expenditures $180,000,000. Then came the war of the Spanish succession, and absorbed in eleven years more than $300,000,000. Next was the Spanish war of 1739, which cost in nine years $270,000,000. Then came the seven years' war of 1756, in the course of which Eng- land spent $560,000,000. The next was the American war of 1775, which lasted eight years, and cost $680,000,000. The French Revolutionary war of nine years from 1793, occasioned an expenditure of $2,320,000,000. During the war against Bonaparte from 1803 to 1815, England raised by taxes $3,855,000,000, and by loans $1,940,000,000; in all, $5,795,000,000, or an average of $1,323,082 evfery day, and more than a million of it for war-purposes alone ! In the war of 1688, she borrowed $100,000,000 ; in the war of. 10 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 122 the Spanish succession, $162,500,000 ; in the Spanish war, $145,000,000; in the Seven Years' war, $300,000,000 ; in the American war, $520,000,000 ; in the French Revolu- tionary war, $1,005,000,000. During seven wars, lasting in all sixty-five years, she borrowed $4,170,000,000, and raised by taxes $5,949,000,000 ; making a total expenditure of $10,115,000,000!* It has been estimated, that England spent about ten thousand millions merely in wars under- taken first to humble the Bourbons, and then to restore them to the throne which Napoleon had usurped. Glance at the financial history of such a warlike nation as England, and mark the unbounded prodigality of war. Her average revenue during the reign of the Norman kings, was ^300,000 ; under the Plantagenets, or Saxon line, ^133,017 ; under the house of Lancaster, only .£80,026 ; during that of York, ,£100,000 ; under that of Tudor, ^510,000. During the entire reign of George I., there came into the treasury of Great Britain only .£79,832,160, or a very little more than in the single year of 1815 ; during that of his successor, .£217,217,301, of which he spent .£157,000,000 in three wars ; and during that of George III., there was expended no less than .£1,386,268,446, more than $6,000,000,000, three times as much as all the coin on the globe at the time of its greatest abundance in 1809. From 1797 to 18t7, twenty years, England bor- rowed $2,160,000,000, and raised by taxes $6,192,866,066; in all, $8,352,866,066, or an average for the twenty years of $1,143,444 every day, and more than a million of this for war I War has loaded all Europe with debts. It is impossible to ascertain their precise amount ; but in 1829, that of Prussia was said to be $133,000,000; that of Russia, $158,000,000; that of Spain, $315,000,000; that of Aus- tria, $351,000,000 ; that of Netherlands, $668,000,000; that of France, $874,000,000; while that of England in 1815 was $4,395,000,000. We do not know how nearly the above sums exhibit the present war-debts of these coun- tries ; but the sum total now resting on Europe alone, can- not be much, if any, less than ten thousand millions of dol- lars, or five times as much as all the coin in the world ! What a maelstrom to engulph the riches of the world ! AH the 'public property of England was estimated in 1833 * We have here multiplied pounds by five to turn them into dollars ; a little more than their real value. ^ 123 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 11 at <£138,715,571, less than one-sixth part of her war-debt ; and her entire resources, private as well as public, were reckoned the same year at ^5,547,484,517, only a little more than six times as much as her debt in 1815. Its in- terest alone, if left to accumulate, would in the lapse of a few ages, consume her. whole wealth. Her war-expenses even in peace would in less than seventy years exhaust all her property at home, and consume in one century all her resources over the globe ! If we consider all the ways, direct and indirect, in which the war-system destroys prop- erty, it will be found even in peace to waste for Europe alone nearly two thousand millions every year, and we should be quite moderate in putting the sum total at fifteen hundred millions ! How much, then, must war have wasted in five thousand years over the whole earth ! Look back to the time when it was the all-absorbing business of nations, every other pur- suit its handmaid, and intervals of peace only resting-places to recruit for this work of blood ; imagine one-eighth, in some cases one-fifth and even one-fourth part of the popu- lation to be soldiers, all trained to war as the leading object of their life ; think of Bacchus and Sesostris^with millions of warriors at their heels ; of Ninus and Semiramis with two millions of soldiers, and more than ten thousand armed chariots ; of Cyrus and Cambyses, of xllexander and Caesar, with their ferocious successors; of Turks and Tartars, Saracens and Crusaders ; of Tamerlane, and Jenghiz-khan, and Napoleon ; conceive these countless millions of robbers, marauders and incendiaries, not merely consuming for their own support an amount altogether incalculable, but burning villages and cities, laying waste empires, and ravaging the whole earth age after age with fire and sword ; and it would seem a low estimate to suppose, that the entire course of war has wasted fifty times as much as all the property now on the globe ! ! But for this curse of curses, what a world might ours have been ! Give it back all the property that war has cost, and prevented, and destroyed from the first ; and the bare interest would suffice ere-long to make the whole earth "a second Eden ; to build a palace for every one of her nobles, and provide luxuries for all her now famished and suffering poor ; to spread over the entire surface of our globe a complete net-work of canals and rail-ways ; to beautify every one of her cities, beyond all ancient or mod- 12 WASTE OF PROPERTY BY WAR. 124 ern example, with works of art and genius ; to support all her governments, and give a church to every village, a school to every neighborhood, and a Bible to every family. Take an estimate or two. With the eighteen millions i year from our own treasury for war, or the fifty millions more from the pockets of the people for our militia system, how much good might be done in a multitude of ways. Eighteen millions ! — this alone is more than twice the origi- nal cost of the Great Western Canal from Albany to Buffalo, which has added hundreds of millions to the vali/e of our western country ; three or four times as much as our whole population pay yearly for the support of the gospel at home, and nearly a hundred times as much as the average amount of annual contributions from all the Christians in our land, the last thirty years, for evangelizing the world ! What then might have been accomplished for the good of mankind by the hundreds and even thousands of millions wasted by ourselves upon this custom during and since our revolu- tionary war ! Glance at all Christendom. The bare interest at five per cent, on her entire war-debt would be $500,000,000 a year ; and with this sum we might every year make a rail- way nearly round the globe, or pay the necessary expenses of all its governments without war, or support a minister of the gospel for every five hundred of its inhabitants ! Take the fifteen hundred millions annually wasted in time of peace ; and, in fifty years, it would suffice to make, at $30,000 a mile, no less than 2,500,000 miles of rail-road ; enough to encircle the globe more than a hundred times ! ! Would to God that the lessons taught by fifty centuries of blood, might be duly impressed at length upon a warring world ! Take them, ye heralds of the cross, and proclaim them aloud to the multitudes that hang upon your lips. Let the press send them forth on the wings of steam all over the earth. Ponder them well, ye who hold the helm of state. Come hither, ye millions of oppressed and starving poor, come, and learn the chief cause of your woes. Ye are all the victims of war. His brand is on your brow ; his mana- cles on your limbs ; the blight of his withering curse upon all your pursuits and interests. It is the master-tyrant of our world ; and every one that loves God or his country, his species or himself, should unite to sweep from the earth a despotism so bloody and baleful. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. > mi ^ No. XV. APPEAL TO CITIES: THE SPECIAL CLAIMS OF PEACE UPON THEM. The cause of peace aims solely at the abolition of war, and has nothing to do with any thing else — with capital punishment, the suppression of mobs, the treatment of rob- bers and pirates, or any other matters of civil, internal government. We are concerned only with the intercourse of nations, and seek merely to abolish the custom of settling their disputes by the sword. An object this of vast importance ; and for its accom- plishment we would fain unite all the friends of God and man in the use of appropriate means. These means are all included essentially in such an application of the gospel as shall Christianize public opinion on the subject, bring war under the ban of the civilized world, and thus lead its na- tions to discard forever their savage method of settling their disputes. We would train up a new and entire generation of peace-makers ; and for this purpose we would enlist the pulpit and the press, the church and the school, the fire-side and the workshop, the parent and the teacher, old and young, male and female, the mass of every community professing a religion which promises, as one of its results, the permanent reign of peace over the whole earth. We neither expect nor desire any violent or sudden change. We labor, by the diffusion of light and love, for such a change of public sentiment as shall effectually de- mand the peaceful adjustment of all difficulties between na- tions. We propose neither to sacrifice nor endanger their interest, but simply to introduce better means for the pro- tection of their rights, the redress of their wrongs, and the settlement of their disputes. We would gradually super- sede war by such substitutes as negotiation, arbitration and mediation, or some permanent system, like a congress of nations, which shall combine all these principles, and per- form for states essentially the same services that our codes and courts of law now do for individuals. We would have rulers, like their subjects, adjust their difficulties without bloodshed. They could, if they would; they will whenever p. T. NO. XV. 2 APPEAL TO CITIES. 126 public opinion shall demand it aright ; that opinion, prop- erly enlightened, would thus demand it ; and hence we seek to form such an opinion by spreading light on this subject all over the civilized world. Already is this work most auspiciously begun. A few philanthropists in both hemispheres united in this cause soon after the downfall of Napoleon ; and with an average expenditure for all Christendom of only four or five thou- sand dollars a year for the first twenty-five years, have they made an impression on the civilized world, and materially modified its international policy. Public opinion on thia subject is widely different from what it was fifty or even thirty years ago ; and difficulties which would then liave oc- casioned fierce, protracted wars, are now adjusted often with scarce a thought of appealing to arms. Peace is fast be- coming the settled policy of Christendom ; and, should this policy continue much longer, it may become almost impos- sible to involve its nations again in blood, and quite easy to introduce some permanent mode of adjusting their disputes without the sword. The general peace of Christendom since 1815, has resulted very much from the efforts and influen- ces which together constitute the cause of peace ; and we might mention instances in which they have, in the judg- ment of such men as the venerable John Quincy Adams, been the means of saving our own country from war. Our encouragment is most ample ; and, since the time has fully come for a more vigorous and hopeful prosecution of this enterprise, we would appeal to our friends for the aid which is just as necessary in this cause as in any other. We must enlighten the people ; we must bring the subject before rulers ; we must employ agents, and send forth lec- turers ; we must issue a variety of publications, and scatter tracts, periodicals and volumes through the land. All this will require money as well as personal efforts ; and for both we appeal to the friends of peace especiidly in our cities. Every argument applicable to others, will apply with equal force to yourselves. Does war suspend or de- range business, cripple every department of industry, and dry up all the great sources of wealth ? Does it waste property by millions, butcher men by thousands, and sweep in fire and blood over whole empires 1 Are its laurels steeped in the tears of countless widows and orphans ? Is it a mass of abominations, a source of mischief and misery to nearly all concerned I Does it trample on the Sabbath, 127 APPEAL TO CITIES* 8 and withhold or neutralize the means of grace, and thwart almost every effort for the salvation of men in Christian or pagan lands ? Is it a sink of pollution, a hot-bed of the most loathsome vices and the foulest crimes 1 All these arguments against war will apply to you with peculiar force, since the largest share of its evils fall invariably on cities. Look at the facts in the case. All must suffer from war, but the city far more than the country. Review its history, and say where have fallen the hottest and heaviest thunder- bolts of its wrath? Ask of Tyre and Jerusalem, of Carthage, Rome and Moscow. What mean the war-ships anchored in your harbors, or the forts and batteries guarding the en- trance to your wharves? The chief treasures of the land are deposited in your vaults, and the main-springs of its business lie in your ships, and stores, and work-shops. Where does war seek its plunder ? In the city. Where does it revel in unbridled debauchery ? Where do you find its famine and pestilence, its carnage and conflagration? In cities. They are the hinges of war, the first objects of its assaults, and the chief victims of its vengeance. So it must be. Our cities, the store-houses of the world, and the main-springs of its enterprise and prosperity, must ever be exposed to the brunt of war, and draw down upon themselves the first and fiercest thunder-bolts of the storm. Ail immense amount of property, owned mostly in our cities, is constantly afloat on the ocean, and would be liable, on the approach of war, to instant capture. Our whale-ships, our merchant-men in the East Indies, all our most richly ladened vessels, some of them with cargoes worth each hun- dreds of thousands, would be too far from home to escape the tempest by a speedy return, and would thus fall an easy prey to the public and private cruisers that would at once be scouring the whole ocean. In our last war of little more than two years' duration, (1812-4,) nearly three thousand English merchant vessels were said to have been captured by the Americans, probably not less than five thousand on both sides ; a loss perhaps of fifty millions a year, and nearly all from our cities. • Nor is this the worst of your case ; for a blight would soon come upon nearly all your interests. Your stocks would fall ; your banks would fail ; your vessels would rot at your wharves; your stores and workshops would be closed ; the grass would ere-long grow in streets now worn with the ceaseless tread of business ; nearly every species 4 APPEAL TO CITIES. 128 of property would immediately sink in value from twenty to fifty per cent. ; many of your merchants would become bankrupts, and most of your mechanics must either starve for want of employment, or flee into the country for bread. With so much at stake, will not the city come to the aid of a cause which aims to avert such evils ? Look at the comparative ability of cities. They are the main depositories of wealth. The city of Boston, with less than a seventh part of the population, was estimated (1840) to contain a third of all the property in Massachusetts, or three times as much, in proportion to her numbers, as the country. Truly then the city is by far the most able to give. The surplus wealth of the world is chiefly in its cities ; and to these should we therefore go for the means of sustaining every good cause, but especially one in which they have so deep an interest. We ?nust gain these hinges of the world. In them will be found the master-spirits of the age — our ablest lawyers, physicians and preachers ; not a few of our most gifted and highly cultivated minds ; our authors, and editors, and statesmen, who give law to public opinion ; the chief offices of government, with the multitude of their dependencies, and the ever-teeming press with the vast amount of its weekly and daily issues all over the land. In the single city of New York, nearly a million of publications are sup- posed (1845) to issue from the press every week! What then must be the combined influence of all the great cities through Christendom ? It must of course decide every question of peace or war. They pitch the tune, and all the rest follow. Let London and Paris, Rome and Vienna, Boston and New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Orleans, go for peace, or for war ; and not all the remaining millions in their respective countries, could turn the scale. Already has the country taken hold of this cause in earnest ; and now we come to our cities, and ask them to share in this great and good work. The cause is peculiarly your own ; and will you not give it your countenance, your advocacy, your mone> ? None of these do we ask you to withdraw from any other good cause ; but does not this cause now deserve a much larger share of your aid than it has ever yet received? Are not its claims upon you fair, unquestionable and urgent ? Shall it plead in vain ? AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XVI. WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. BY REV. HOWARD MALCOM, D. D., PRESIDENT OF GEORGETOWN COLLEGE, KY. The war spirit is so wrought into the texture of govern- ments, and the habits of national thinking, and even into our very festivals and pomps, that its occasional recurrence is deemed a matter of unavoidable necessity. Even the friends of man's highest welfare seem to regard a general pacification of the world as a mere Utopian scheme, and choose to lend their energies and prayers to objects which seem of more probable attainment. This apathy and in- credulity are to be overcome. It is not intended here to enter upon the question, on which good men may differ in opinion, whether defensive war may in any case be justified, nor upon a regular dis- cussion of the general subject ; but merely to offer a few thoughts to show how utterly at variance the spirit of war is with truth and righteousness. 1. It contradicts the genius and intention of Christianity. Christianity requires us to seek to amend the condition of man. But war cannot do this. The world is no better for all the wars of five thousand years. Christianity, if it prevailed, would make the earth a paradise. War, where it prevails, makes it a slaughter-house, a den of thieves, a brothel, a hell. Christianity cancels the laws of retaliation. War is based upon that very principle. Christianity is the remedy for all human woes. War produces every wo known to man. The causes of war, as well as war itself, are contrary to the gospel. It originates in the worst passions and the worst aims. We may always trace it to the thirst of re- venge, the acquisition of territory, the monopoly of com- merce, the quarrels of kings, the intrigues of ministers, the coercion of religious opinion, the acquisition of disputed crowns, or some other source equally culpable. Never has any war, devised by man, been founded on holy tempers and Christian principles. All the features, — all the concomitants, — all the results of war, are the opposite of the features, the concomitants, p. T. NO. XVI. 5! WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. 130 the results of Christianity. The two systems conflict in every point, irreconcilably and eternally. 2. \Var sets at nought the example of Jesus. One of Christ's laws is, *' Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly." His conduct was always pacific. He became invisible when the Nazarites sought to cast him down from their precipice. When a troop came to arrest him, he struck them down, but not dead. His constant declaration was, that he ' came not to destroy men's lives, but to save.' True, he once instructed his disciples to buy swords, telling them that they were going forth into a world of ene- mies. But the whole passage shows he meant to speak by parable. They answer, ** Here are two swords." He replies instantly, "It is enough." How could two swords have been enough for twelve apostles, if he had spoken literally ? Nay, when Peter used one of these, it was too much ; Christ bade him, '* Put up thy sword," and healed the wound. He meant to show the apostles their danger, not their remedy ; for they were going as " sheep among wolves." His metaphor was indeed misunderstood, as it was when he said, ** Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees," and they thought he meant to reprove them for having no bread. Once he drove men from the temple ; but it was with " a scourge of small cords," and a gentle doom it was, compared to their deserts. He expressly said his servants would not fight, because his kingdom was not of this world. We find in his example no instances of true severity. His whole life was benevolence personified. He was the Prince OF Peace. Do we forget that Christ is our example ? Whatever is right for us to do, would, in general, have been right for him. Imagine the Redeemer robed in the trappings of a man of blood, leading on columns to slaughter, laying a country waste, setting fire to cities, storming fortresses, and consigning tens of thousands to wounds and anguish, death and damnation, just to define some point of policy, to decide some kingly quarrel, to enlarge some boundary, or avenge some insult. Could " meekness and lowliness" be learned from him thus engaged ? There is no rank or position in an army compatible with the character of Christ. It is most certain that we gather no army lessons from him who ** came to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to comfort all that mourn." It is most certain that no man, 131 WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. 3 who makes fighting his profession, can find authority in the example of our Lord. It is not necessary to enlarge on this point. It will be conceded. No warrior thinks of making Christ his pattern. How then can a follower of Christ overlook the inconsis- tency between the profession of religion, and the profession of arms ? 3. War is not only inconsistent with the general structure and nature of Christianity, and the example of Jesus ; hut it violates all the express precepts of the New Testament. Even the Old Testament does not sanction war as a custom. In each case of lawful war, it was entered on by express command. If such authority were now given, we might worthily take up arms. But without it, how can we violate both the genius and precepts of our religion, and set at nought the example of a Divine guide? It should be remembered, that in no case, even under the Old Testa- ment, was war appointed to decide doubtful questions, or to settle quarrels, but to inflict national punishment. They were intended, as are pestilence and famine, to chastise nations guilty of provoking God. Such is never the pretext of modern war ; and if it were, it would require Divine authority, vi^hich, as has just been said, would induce even members of the Peace Society to fight. As to the New Testament, a multitude of precepts might be quoted. " Ye have heard, an eye for an eye ; but I say unto you, resist not evil. — Follow peace with all men. — Love one another. — Do justice, love mercy. — Love your enemies. — Follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace. — Return good for evil. — Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice ; and be ye kind one toward another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. — If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight. — Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." It is unnecessary to adduce more of these passages. All know how much they abound in the New Testament. There they stand ! No interpretation can nullify their force, or pervert their application. In any sense the words will bear, they forbid war. If language have any force, they equally forbid retaliation. Yet this is always advanced as the very best pretext for war, and is more frequently the avowed reason than any other ! 4 WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. 132 The preceding quotations relate to the single point of fighting. But contending nations and armies violate tvery precept of the gospel. Rehearse all the catalogue of graces, and mark how we are enjoined to be meek, lowly, peace- able, easy to be entreated, gentle, thinking no evil, merci- ful, slow to auger, given to quietness, knowledge, patience, temperance, prayer. War sets them all at nought ! Of the sermon on the mount, five benedictions are upon the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, and the peace- makers. Two others are upon the persecuted and reviled. These include all but two of the entire list, and the others regard those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and the pure in heart. The professed warrior, therefore, shuts himself out from all these benedictions ! The discourse then declares that not only killing, but anger, is murder. It expressly revokes the law of retaliation, and, exploding the traditionary rule of loving ou» neighbor, and hating our enemy, requires us to love our enemies, and do good to them which despitefully use us. Afterwards, in presenting a form of prayer, it not only teaches us to say, " forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us," but, ** if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you." What a peace sermon is here ! What modern peace society goes farther than this ? The irresponsible feelings of a regular soldier are neces- sarily wrong. He makes war a trade, and is ready to fight any nation, or any part of his own nation, as he is sent. He must have no mind of his own. He is to wheel, march, load, fire, advance or flee, just as he is bidden, and because he is bidden. In the language of Thomas Jefferson, " the breaking of men to military discipline, is breaking their spirits to passive obedience." The nearer a soldier comes to a mere machine, the better soldier he makes. Is this right for a Christian ? Is it compatible with his duty to " examine all things, and hold fast that which is good ?" ,The contempt of life, which is necessary to a brave sol- dier, is sin. Life is our probation, — our period of prelimi- nary service to the great God. No man should despise it. He who masters the fear of death, must do it either by religious influence, or by rejecting the fear of God, and all concern for the future state of his soul. That there are religious soldiers, is true ; but they are far too few to give character to an army. They are mere exceptions to the general military character. The contempt of life, which 133 WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. 5 distinguishes the veteran, is itself a great sin, and is induced by the preceding great sin of casting oif the fear of God, and concern for the soul. What gospel precept is there, which he who makes war a profession, is not at times compelled to violate? What Christian grace is there, which would not depreciate him for his trade of death ? Some graces, it is confessed, are convenient in camp; as when a soldier acts as a servant or a laborer. If he have charge of a horse, or a wardrobe, it is desired that he pos- sess honesty, meekness, and faithfulness. But these quali- ties spoil him for the field. He must then cast away meek- ness, and fight. He must cast away honesty, and forage. He must cast away forgiveness, and revenge his country. He must not return good for evil, but blow for blow, wound for wound. Thus, when we take the common soldier individually, we find him compelled to violate every pre- cept of his religion. The whole structure of an army is in violation of New Testament precepts. ' What absolute despotism ! What division of rank by nice gradations ! " Condescending to men of low estate " would spoil discipline. *' Esteeming others better than ourselves" would degrade the officers. Instead of humility, must be gay trappings. Instead of Christ's law of love, must be man's rule of honor. Instead of examining all things, the soldier must be like a trained blood-hound, ready to be let loose against any foe. Instead of returning good foY evil, the army is organized expressly to return injuries with interest. Survey an army prepared for battle. See the cannons, niMsquets, mortars, swords, drums, trumpets and flags. Do these men look like Christians ? Do they talk like followers of the meek and lowly Son of God ? Are they prepared to act like the friends of the human race, and like followers of God, as dear children seeking to bring all men to the know- ledge of him 1 Are their feelings toward the opposite host like those which are produced by ''fervent love" out of " a pure heart?" Observe an army in the hour of battle. See attacks and retreats, battalions annihilated, commanders falling, shouts of onset, groans of death, horses trampling the fallen, limbs flying in the air, suffocating smoke, thundering artillery, thousands smarting in the agony of death, and none to ad- minister a cup of water. Do the precepts of Christianity 6 WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. 134 authorize such a scene ? Would such an exhibition ever grow out of its legitimate effects ? Inspect the field when all is over. The harvest tram- pled and destroyed, houses smoking in ruin, the mangled and slain strewed among dead horses, and broken gun-car- riages ! Prowlers stripping booty even from the warm bodies of the dying ! Jackals lurking around, and birds of prey wheeling above ! Here and there a wretched widow, ,or an anxious wife, seeking her loved one among the dead and dying ! Does all this look as if Christians had there been serving their Master, the God of mercy? Let us turn our eyes to the ocean. A huge ship, brist- ling with implements of death, glides quietly along. Pre- sently ** a sail ! " is echoed from sentinel to sentinel. All on board catch the sound, and gaze at the faint outline. At length, she is discerned to be a ship of war, and all strive to discern her flag. On that hangs the important issue ! For no feud, no jealousy, no enmity exists between the crews. At last the signd is discerned to be that of a foe. Immediately what a scene ! Decks cleared and sanded, ports opened, tompions out, guns arranged, matches lighted, and every preparation made for a work of death. While waiting the moment to engage, every word is indication of pride, or revenge, or daring, or wrath, or ambition. The fight begins ! Death flies with every shot. Blood and carnage cover the decks. The rigging is cut to pieces, and the hull is bored with hot shot. Officers are picked off by sharp-shooters, and scores of common men perish at their posts. At length, one party strikes, and the strife is stayed. Perhaps, ere all the wounded can be removed, the noble and costly ship sinks into the deep. The victorious, herself almost a wreck, commits her slain to the deep, and bears on towards her country the agonized, the crippled and the dying of both ships. What a scene to gratify malignant demons ! What distracting tidings does she bear to the be- reaved at home ! What pain and misery does she carry within her ! In all this, there was no personal malice, no private offence given ; nothing was known of one another, except from the respective flags. Could enormity be more diabolical and cold blooded? But no where does war wear such horrors as in a siege. The inhabitants are straitly shut up. Business, pleasure, education and intercourse are checked ; and sorrow, poverty, terror and distress are spread abroad. The bombardment 135 WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. 7 begins. Shells explode in the streets, or penetrate the roofs. Citizens are killed in the streets, and soldiers on the ram- parts. Women and children retreat to cellars, and live in all discomfort. Day by day the gloom thickens. All news is of houses burnt, persons killed, prices raised, and scarcity increased. Gladly, perhaps, would the citizens surrender ; but the governor is inflexible. At length, famine is threat- ened. The laborer, out of employment, cannot purchase at such prices, and his family, hitherto accustomed to daily^ comforts, fall victims to rigorous poverty. Still the siege continues. The middling classes next sink to beggary. Every thing is sold to buy a little food. Anon, breaches are made in the walls. All must work, amid galling fire, to repair them. Mines are sprung, blowing houses and the occupants into the air. No relief comes. Dead animals, offal, skins, the very bodies of the slain, are eaten. Hun- dreds perish in desperate sorties. All are miserable. The widow, the bereft mother, the disappointed bride, and the tender orphan, mourn continually. Pestilence succeeds to famine. Thousands, who have escaped violence, die of dis- ease. At length, the city is taken by storm ; pillage, and perhaps an awful conflagration, succeed ; a brutal soldiery raven among the virtuous ; and the indescribable scene ends in permanent poverty, lamentation, and dishonor. Is this Christianity ? We will close by a confirmatory picture from the history of the peninsular wars of Napoleon. It is part of a descrip- tion of the second siege of Zaragossa: " The French fought their way into the entrance of this ill-fated city by mining and exploding one house after another, while the inhabitants were confined to that quarter of the city still in pos- session of the Spaniards, who were crowded, men, women and chil'dren, into the cellars, to avoid the cannon balls and bombs. Pestilence broke out as a matter of course ; and when once begun, it was impossible to check its progress, or confine it to one quarter of the city. It was not long before more than thirty hospitals were established. As soon as one was destroyed by the bom- bardment, the patients were removed to some other building, which was in a state to afford them temporary shelter, and thus the infection was carried into every part of Zaragossa. The average of daily deaths fi-om this cause was, at this time, not less than 3iree hundred and fifty. Men stretched upon straw, in help- less misery, lay breathing tiieir last, and with their dying breath spreading the mortal taint of their own disease, without medicines, food or attendance ; for the ministers of charity themselves be- 8 WAR INCONSISTENT WITH CHRISTIANITY. 136 came the victims of the disease. The slightest wound produced gangrene and death in bodies so prepared for dissolution by dis- tress of mind, agitation, and want of proper aliment and of sleep ; for there was no respite, either by day or night, for this devoted city. By day, it was involved in a red sulphuric atmosphere of smoke and dust, which hid the face of heaven ; by night the fire of cannon and mortars, and th« flames of burning houses, kept it in a state of horrible illumination. The cemeteries could no longer afford room for the dead. Large pits were du^ to re- ceive them in the streets, and in the courts of the public buildings, .till hands were wanted for the labor ; tliey were laid before 3ie churches, heaped upon one another, and covered with sheets ; and not unfrequently these piles of mortality were struck by a shell, and the shattered bodies scattered in all directions. When the French entered the city, six tJwusand bodies were lying in the streets and trenches, or piled up in heaps before the churches. How wonderful that Christians, followers of the Prince of Peace, should concur in the mad idolatry of strife ! How inconsistent ! Behold a man rising from the Lord's supper, and proceeding to array himself in fantastic robes and plumes, girding on him the instruments of human butchery, and drilling himself in the tactics of death ! See him murdering fellow Christians, and unprepared sinners, and even praying to his Redeemer for aid in the endeavor ! See priest and people thronging the house of God to celebrate bloody victories, and give thanks for having sent thousands to their last account, with all their sins upon their head ! Reader ! is not this stupendous inconsistency ? Is it not time you reflected on this subject ? Are you in favor of the great schemes of benevolence? Then come, unite in at- tacking this prolific parent of abominations. Let your voice, wherever you are, be lifted up to spread the principle of *' peace on earth." Blessed principle ! You cannot err in trying to spread its influence. You cannot err in lending your aid to banish from the earth a monster of pride, cor- ruption, destructiveness, misery and murder. Take your stand as the advocate of peace. Retire from military train- ings, and discard the horrid thought of being hired to rob, ravage and destroy. Give no countenance to a system which could not continue a moment, were the spirit and precepts of Christianity to prevail on earth. Let all around you understand that you are as conscientiously peacrful, as you are honest or pure. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XVII. WAR UNLAWFUL UNDER THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. BY JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY. Of all the practices which lay waste the welfare of men, there is none which operates to so great an extent, or with so prodigious an efficacy, as war. Not only is it productive of an incalculable amount of bodily and mental suffering, but it is also a moral evil of the very deepest dye. " From whence come wars and fightings among you 1 " asked the apostle James. " Come they not hence, even of your lusts which war in your members ? " War, then, has its origin in corrupt passions ; and, arising out of such an evil root, this tree of bitterness seldom fails to produce, in vast abun- dance, the fruits of malice, wrath, cruelty, fraud, rapine, lasciviousness, confusion and murder. Although few persons will dispute the accuracy of this picture, or deny the general position, that war is at variance with the principles of Christianity, it is still a singular fact, that the Friends* are almost the only class of Chris- tians who regard it as their duty entirely to abstain from that practice. The generality of professed Christians are accustomed to make distinctions between one kind of war and another. They will condemn one which is oppressive and unjust, advancing in this respect no farther than the moralists of every age ; while, on the other hand, they hesitate as little in expressing their approbation of wars which are defensive, or undertaken in a just cause. The main argument from Scripture for the rectitude of warfare in what is termed a just cause, is the divinely sanc- tioned example of the Israelites. That they were engaged in many wars ; that those wars were often very destructive, yet carried forward under the direct sanction and clear command of the Almighty ; are points which no reader of the Old Testament can deny. But we must not forget, * We hardly need inform our readers, that the author is a Quaker, one of the most eminent among his brethren, and writes here in vin- dication of their views concerning war. We abridge his essay, but omit none of his views or arguments. — Am. Ed. P. T. NO. XVII. 2 WAR UNLAWFUL. 138 that the wars of the Israelites differed from all other wars in certain very important particulars. That very divine sanction which is pleaded, did in fact distinguish their wars from all those in which any other nation is known to have been ever engaged. They were undertaken in pursuance of God's express command, and directed to the accomplish- ment of his revealed designs. These designs had a two- fold object — the temporal preservation and prosperity of his peculiar people, and the punishment and destruction of idolatrous nations. The Israelites were sometimes engaged in war without any direction from God ; but such of their military operations as were sanctioned of the Lord, assumed the character of a work of obedience and faith. They went forth to battle in complinnce with his command, and in reliance upon his aid. These characteristics of their war- fare were attended with two very marked consequences ; first, that their conflicts, so far from being attended by that destruction of moral and pious feeling which is so generally the effect of war, were often accompanied by high religious excellence in those who thus fought the battles of the Lord, as in the case of Joshui, the Judges, and David ; and secondly, that these contests were followed by uniform success. The Lord was carrying on his own designs by the Israelites ; and, under such circumstances, their suc- cess afforded an evidence of his approbation. Now, it can- not be predicated even of the justest wars among other na-' tions, that they are undertaken by the direct command of Jehovah : or that they are a work of obedience and faith ; or that they are often accompanied with high religious ex- cellence in those who undertake them ; or that they are fol- lowed by uniform success. Even if the system of Israeli- tish morals, then, was still in force without alteration, we could not justly conclude from such an example, that war- fare, as generally practised, is in any case consistent with the will of God. The defenders of modern warfare plead, also, the au- thority of John the Baptist. Various classes of persons re- sorted to him for instruction ; and among others, " the sol- diers demanded of him, saying. And what shall we do? And he said unto them. Do violence to no man, neither ac- cuse any falsely, and be content with your wages." Since the precept, do violence to no man, probably related to their deportment among friends and allies, it may be allowed that he did not on this occasion forbid the practice of fighting ; 139 . WAR UNLAWFUL. 3 but, it must still be observed, that his expressions afford no direct encouragement to that practice. His doctrine is neutral. The question whether war is in itself lawful or unlawful, was one which he obviously did not entertain. On the supposition that the soldiers would continue to be soldiers, he confined himself to recommending a gentle, orderly, and submissive demeanor. But John the Baptist, though the forerunner of Christ, did not himself belong to the Christian dispensation. His moral system was that of the law; and, admitting that sys- tem to continue unchanged, we still may fairly deny that the example of the Hebrews, or the expressions of John, afford any valid authority for warfare as generally prac- tised. Our objection to every species of war, however, rests principally on that more perfect revelation which dis- tinguishes the dispensation of the gospel. We contend earnestly, that all warfare is wholly at variance with the Christian religion. In support of this position, I may adduce the testimony of the prophets ; for, in their predictions respecting the gospel dispensation, they frequently allude both to its su- perior spirituality, and its purer morality. Under this dis- pensation, says Isaiah, " they shall heat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any moreT ii. 2 — 4. The prophet Micah re- peats the same prediction, and adds " they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid." iv. 1 — 4. The times here foretold, are confessedly those of the gospel, and are elsewhere described in similar language.* In Isa. ix. 6, the Messiah is expressly denominated the '' Prince of Peace." In Isa. xi., the reign of Christ is painted in glowing colors, as accompanied by the universal harmony of God's creation. Lastly, in Zech. ix. 9, 10, we read, as the result of his reign, *' I will cut off the chariot from Ejjhraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off; and he shall speak peace unto the hea- then ; and his dominion shcdl be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth." In these passages, a total cessation from war is described as one of the most conspicuous characteristics of Chris- tianity Such a consequence is represented by Isaiah as arising from the conversion of heathen nations ; and who 4 WAR UNLAWLUL. 140 ever should be members of God's true church, she was no longer to participate in the warfare of the world. The chariot was to be cut off from Ephraim, and the war-horse from Jerusalem. For the full accomplishment of these prophecies, we must, indeed^ look forward to a period yet to come ; but the inspired writers describe this complete, uninterrupted peaceableness, as a distinguishing feature of the Christian dispensation, as the result of obedience to itjs law; and we may therefore infer that, if its true nature were fully understood, and its laws exactly obeyed, a con- version to our holy religion would be uniformly accom- panied with entire abstinence from war, and peace thus be- come exactly co-extensive with Christianity itself In accordance with the prophecies I have quoted, Chiis- tianity promulgates certain moral rules which would, if faithfully obeyed, lead to the results predicted. I allude not exclusively to those divine laws which condemn aggres- sive warfare ; for these laws are far from being powerful enough to produce the effect in question. They were, in- deed, commonly admitted in the world long before the Christian dispensation ; but never have they been found sufficient to convert swords into plough-shares, and spears into pruning-hooks. In point of fact, the distinction drawn between just and unjust warfare, is in most cases entirely nugatory ; for there are few wars which are not defended, and not many perhaps which the persons waging thenrd<5 not believe to be justified, by some plea of self-preservation or honorable retribution. Some stronger and more com- prehensive principles, then, were obviously needed in order to the accomplishment of this great end ; and these princi- ples are unfolded in the pure, exalted code of morality re- vealed in the gospel. They are the non-resistance of inju- ries, the return of good for evil, and the love of our enemies. The Lord Jesus himself promulgated these principles as distinguishing his own dispensation from that of the law " Ye have heard that it hath been said. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto you. That ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Ye have heard that it hath been said, ThDU shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy ; but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven ; 141 WAR UNLAWFUL. 3 for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." So also Peter commands the believers not to render " evil for evil, nor railing for railing; but contrari- wise, blessing." Paul holds up the very same standard : " Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves; but rather give place unto wrath ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enendy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink ; for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil ; hut overcome evil with good" In this fundamental law of the gospel, our Lord has laid his axe to the root, by establishing certain principles which, honestly observed, must put an end to every evil practice. Of this nature precisely are the principles we are now con- sidering ; and, if followed up with true consistency, they cannot fail to abolish every species of warfare. The great law of Christ is the law of love ; and, since no kind of war can ever consist with this love, it is indisputable that, where the latter prevails as it ought, the former must en- tirely cease. I grant that the above precepts of our Lord are addressed to individuals ; and hence the clear duty of individual Chris- tians to obey them on every occasion. If attacked, insulted, injured, persecuted, they ought to suffer wrong, to revenge no injury, to return good for evil, and to love their enemies. So also, if exposed to the calamities of war, their duty re- mains unaltered. If the sword of the invader be lifted up against them, the precept is still, Resist not evil. If the insults and injuries of the carnal warrior be heaped upon them, they are still forbidden to avenge themselves, and still commanded to pray for their persecutors. If surrounded by a host of enemies the most violent and malicious. Chris- tian love must still be unbroken, still universal. The law of Christ then requires individuals to abstain from all war- fare. So the early Christians did. When Julian was be- stowing upon his troops a largess with a view to some ap- proaching battle, his bounty was refused by Martin, a sol- dier previously converted to Christianity. " Hitherto," said he, " I have fought for thee ; permit^me now to fight for my God. I am the soldier of Christ ; for me, the combat is unlawful." The soldier retains his private responsibility, and can "^ WAR UNLAWFUL. 142 never dispossess himself of his individual obligation to obey God. But the unlawfulness of war in any form, is equally evident when regarded as the affair of nations. Doubtless there may be found in the Scriptures a variety of injunc- tions applicable to men only as individuals ; but it is one of the excellent characteristics of the Bible, that its princi- ples are of universal application to mankind, whether acting singly as individuals, or collectively as nations. If not thus applicable, national crimes might be committed without en- tailing any national guilt, and without any real infraction of the revealed will of God. Now, among these eternal, unchangeable principles of the Bible, is that of universal love. The law of God, addressed alike to all men, plainly says. Resist not evil ; revenge not injuries ; love your enemies. Individuals, and nations consisting of individuals, are all unquestionably bound to obey this law ; and, whether it is the act of an individ- ual, or a nation, the transgression of the law is sin. Na- tions transgress the Christian law of love, and commit sin, when they declare or carry on war, precisely as does the private duellist, when he sends or accepts a challenge, and deliberately endeavors to destroy his neighbor. The man who takes any part in national warfare, takes a part also in the national sin. He aids and abets his nation in breaking the law of Christ. So far then is the authority of his legis- lature, or his monarch, from justifying his engagement in warfare, that he canilot obey either, ivithout lidding to his private transgression, the further criminality of actively pro- moting the transgression of the state. It is evident, then, that total abstinence from warfare would be the necessary result of strict adherence to the law of Christ. But one of the precepts already cited, bears a specific, peculiar allusion to the subject of war : **Fe have heard that it hath been said, Thou shall love thy neigh- bor, and hate thine enemy ; but I say unto you. Love your enemies." Here is a direct, avowed contrast between the law and the gospel. In calling the attention of his hearers to the sayings " by them of old time," Christ quoted from the law of Moses itself; and it was with that law, as under- stood by the Jews, that he compared his own holier system. Now the precepts of ancient times to which he refers, — the precepts respecting love and hatred, — probably formed a part of those divine edicts which were delivered to the Israelites by Moses. That which related to the love of 143 WAR UNLAWFUL. Y their neighbor, is recognized at once : ** Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy 'people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Lev. xix. 18. The love here enjoined, was to the children of the people of Israel. The neighbor to be loved was a fellow-countryman, or, if a stranger, a proselyte; and the precept in fact commanded no more than that the Israelites should love one another. So also the injunc- tion of old, that the Israelites should hate their ene- mies, was exclusively national. They were not permitted to hate their private enemies in the same favored com- munity, but were enjoined to do them good : " If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going* astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again." But they were to hate their national enemies, and make no covenant with them : " Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." On another occasion, a similar injunction was delivered re- specting the Amalekites : " Thou shalt blot out the remem- brance of Amalek from under heaven." Such was the hatred enjoined upon ancient Israel, and thus was it to be applied. Now, it is to these edicts, that the law of Christ is placed in opposition : " But I say unto you, Loce your enemies." True, this law is applicable to private life ; but it was principally intended to discountenance na- tional enmities, and prevent the practice of war. The Is- raelites were commanded to combat and destroy the nations who were enemies alike to themselves and to God. Chris- tians are introduced to a purer, more lovely system ; their law commands them to be the friends of all mankind. If sent forth among idolatrous nations, it is as the ministers of their restoration, not as the instruments of their punishment ; and, as they may not contend with the sword against God's enemies, much less may they wield it for any purpose of their own. Armed with submission, forbearance and long- suffering, they mu*st secede from the warfare of a wrathful and corrupt world, and, whatever the aggravations to which they are exposed, must evince themselves to be the meek, harmless, benevolent followers of the Prince of Peace. I know of nothing in the New Testament which has any appearance of contravening these precepts, but a single passage in the gospel of Luke. After our Lord's paschal supper, and immediately before he was betrayed, he said to his disciples, " He that hath no sword, let him sell his gar- ment, and buy one." These words, superficially con 8 WAR UNLAWFUL. 144 Bidered, may be deemed to inculcate the notion, that his followers were to defend themselves and their religion with the sword ; but the context, and the circumstances which followed, evidently decide otherwise. The disciples, ap- parently understanding their Lord literally, answered, " Here are two swords ;" and Jesus replied, '* It is enough." In declaring that two swords were enough under such cir- cumstances, he offered them an intelligible hint, that he had been misunderstood ; but the opportunity was at hand on which they were to be completely undeceived. The enemies of Jesus approached, armed ; whereupon the disci- ples said, " Lord, shall we smite with the sword ? " and Peter, without waiting for a reply, smote the servant of the High Priest, and cut off his ear. Then were they clearly in- structed, that it was their duty not to fight, but to suffer wrong. " Suffer ye thus far," said he to Peter; and im- mediately afterwards he confirmed his doctrine by action — he touched the wounded man, and healed him. Then he cried out to Peter, " Put up thy sword into the sheath ; the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ? All they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword " When carried before Pilate, he plainly declared, that his kingdom was such as neither to require nor allow the de- fence of carnal weapons. " My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews." When our Lord, therefore, exhorted hie disciples to sell their garments, and buy swords, his precept was evidently not to be understood literally. Such, indeed, is the explicit judgment of most commentators ; and we may therefore conclude either with Erasmus, that- the sword of which our Lord here spake, was the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, or with critics in general, that the words of Jesus im- ported only a general warning to the disciples, that their situation was about to be greatly changed ; that, deprived of his presence, they would be exposed to every species of difficulty, become the objects of hatred and persecution, and thus be driven to a variety of expedients in providing for their own maintenance and security. The absolute inconsistency of war with the gospel, was the prevalent belief of the early Christians. Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, quoting the prophecy of Isaiah already cited, says, " That these things have come to pass, you may be readily convinced ; for we who were once slayers of one another, do not now fight against our enemies." Irenaeus, Bishop 145 WAR UNLAWFUL. 9 of Lyons, 167, discusses the same prophecy, and proves its relation to our Savior by the fact, that the followers of Jesus had disused the weapons of war, and no longer knew how to fight. Tertullian, 200, indeed, alludes to Christians who were engaged in military pursuits, but, on another occa- sion, informs us, that many soldiers quitted those pursuits in consequence of their conversion to Christianity ; and repeatedly expresses his own opinion, that any partici- pation in war is unlawful for believers in Jesus, not only because of the idolatrous practices in the Roman armies, but because Christ has forbidden the use of the sword, and the revenge of injuries. Origen, 230, in his work against Celsus, says, *' We no longer take up the sword against any nation, nor do we learn any more to make war. We have become, for the sake of Jesus, the children of peace. By our prayers, we fight for our Icing abundantly, but take no part in his wars, even though he urge us." Traces of the same doctrine and practice are very clearly marked in the subsequent history. Under the reign of Dio- clesian, 300, a large number of Christians refused to serve in the army, and, in consequence, many of them suffered martyrdom. Now, although the conduct of these Christians might arise partly from their religious objections to the idolatrous rites at that time mixed up with the military sys- tem, it is probable that the unlawfulness of war itself was also a principle on which they acted. Thus Lactantius, who wrote during the reign of this very emperor, expressly asserts, that ** to engage in war, cannot be lawful for the righteous man, whose warfare is that of righteousness itself." In the twelfth canon of the Council of Nice Leld under the reign of Constantine, 325, a long period of excommu- nication is attached as a penalty to the conduct of those persons who, having once renounced the military calling, were persuaded by the force of bribes to return to it " like dogs to their own vomit." Such a law would scarcely have been promulgated under the reign of the converted Con- stantine, had not an opinion been entertained in the coun- cij, that icar itself is inconsistent with the highest standard of Christian morality. We have already noticed the declaration of Martin, 360, that it was unlawful for him to fight because he was a Christian ; and even so late as the middle of the fifth century. Pope Leo declared it " contrary to the rules of the church, that persons after the action of penance, should revert to the warfare of the world." I must, however, advert to another principle, viz., that 10 WAa 'UNLAWFUL. 146 human life is sacred, and that death is folloiccd hy infinite consequences. The Israelites were enjoined to inflict death ; and the destruction of life, when thus expressly authorized by the Creator, must unquestionably have been right ; but the sanction thus given to killing, was accom- panied with a comparatively small degree of illumination respecting the true nature of life and death, respecting im- mortality and future retribution. Bishop Warburton has endeavored to prove that the Israelites had no knowledge on these subjects; and it is sufficiently evident that the full revelation of these important truths was reserved for the gospel. Those who read the declarations of Jesus, can no longer doubt, that man is born for eternity ; that when his body dies, his soul ascends into Paradise, or is cast into hell ; and that after the day of resurrection and final judgment, we shall all reap the full eternal reward of our obedience or our rebellion. Christians thus instructed, must ac- knowledge, that the future welfare of an individual man is of greater importance than the present merely temporal prosperity of a whole nation ; nor can they, if consistent with themselves, refuse to confess that, unless sanctioned by the express authority of Christ, they take upon them- selves a most unwarrantable responsibility when they cut short the days of their neighbor, and transmit him to the awful realities of eternity. Since then no such express au- thority can be found in the New Testament ; since, on the contrary, it is clearly declared, that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and that his followers *^ war not after the flesh," I cannot but conclude, that for one man to kill another under any circumstances, is utterly unlawful under the Christian dispensation.* Such, then, are the grounds on which we consider it our duty to abstain entirely from war. On a review of the whole argument, the reader will recollect, that the wars of the Israelites bore so peculiar a character as to afford no real sanction to those of other nations, even if the Jewish dispensation were still continued ; and also that the precept of John the Baptist to soldiers appears to be merely * This doctrine o^the strict inviolahility of human life is adopted by onlv a part of the believers in the contrariety of all war to the gospel ^ and IS not made the basis of operations in the cause of peace. Even William Penn, while strong enough against all 7car, still incorporated, as the author himself states in a note, the penalty of death in the laws of his colony, though the Quakers now are (pretty generally opposed to the taking of human life in any case.— Am. Ed. 147 WAR UNLAWFUL. 11 neutral on the subject, but that our opinion of the unlaw- fulness of all war rests principally on the moral law as re- vealed in the gospel; that abstinence from warfare was pre- dicted as one of its principal characteristics ; that it fully unfolds the principles which alone are sufficiently power- ful to produce this effect, namely, those of suffering wrong, returning good for evil, and loving our enemies ; that, since these principles were so clearly promulgated by Jesus and his Apostles, the individual who engages in any kind of warfare, plainly infringes the divine law ; th%t nations, when carrying on war, do also infringe that law ; that the Chris- tian who fights for his prince or his country, not only com- mits sin in his own person, but aids and abets the national transgression ; that the injunction of Christ to his followers respecting the love of their enemies, was specifically directed SLgainst national wai^s ; that, when our Lord exhorted his disciples to sell their garments, and buy swords, his expres- sions were evidently to be understood figuratively ; that our sentiments on this subject, so far from being new and ex- traordinary, form a striking and prevalent feature in the early Christians ; and lastly, that the practice of warfare is directly at variance with the full light enjoyed under the gospel respecting life, death and eternity. Notwithstanding the clearness and importance of these principles, it is continually pleaded that wars are often ex- pedient, and sometimes absolutely necessary. To such a plea it might be sufficient to answer, that nothing is so ex- pedient, nothing so desirable, nothing so necessary, either for individuals or for nations, as conformity with the re- vealed will of God. Let Christians, then, take- a survey of Europe during the last eighteen centuries, and impar- tially examine how many of its wars have been really ex- pedient or necessary. Far the greater part of them have in fact been, even in a political point of view, much more hurtful than useful to all the parties. Where, for in- stance, has England found an equivalent for the almost in- finite waste of blood and treasure in her many wars? Must not impartial history decide, that almost the whole of her wars have in fact been waged against imaginary dangers, might have been avoided, and have turned out to be extensively injurious to herself? If Christians would ab- stain from all wars which have no better foundation than a false worldly honor, from all which are not absolutely inevi- table, from all which are in reality injurious to their country, they would take a very important step towards that entirely 1«J WAR UNLAWFUL. 148 peJiceable conduct which we uphold and defend. Even after such a step, however, war might seem on certain occa- sions to be actually necessary for mere defence and self-pre- servation ; and, if we admit the lax morality so generally prevalent, we must confess that war, in such cases, is right, and cannot be avoided; but for those who "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth," war is never right. It is always their duty to obey hishigh and holy law, to suffer wrong, to return good for evil, to love their enemies. If, in consequence- of their obedience to this law, they ap- prehend themselves surrounded with many dangers, let them still place undivided reliance upon the power and benevolence of their God and Savior. It may be his good pleasure to deliver them from the peril, or let them fall a sacrifice ; but, whatever the result, so long as they obey his law, so long are they safe in his hands. Godliness, however, has the promise of this life, as well as of that which is to come ; and we may therefore enter- tain a reasonable confidence, that our temporal happiness and safety, as well as our growth in grace, will in general be promoted by obedience to our heavenly Father. These observations are peculiarly applicable to those particulars in the divine law which preclude all warfare. No weapons of self-defence will be found so efficacious as Christian meekness, kindness and forbearance, the suffering of in- juries, the absence of revenge, the return of good for evil, and the ever-operating love of God and man. Those who regulate their life according to these principles, have little reason to fear violence. Such has often been the lot of Christian individuals, and such might also be the experience of Christian nations. When we consider the still degraded condition of mankind, we can hardly look at present for the trial of this experiment ; but were there a people who would boldly conform their national conduct to the rules of Christ, lay aside the weapons of carnal warfare, and proclaim the principles of universal peace, suffer wrong with con- descension, abstain from all retaliation, return good for evil, and diligently promote the welfare of all men; I am fully persuaded, that such a people would not only dwell in abso- lute safety, but would be blessed with eminent prosperity, enriched with unrestricted commerce, loaded with reciprocal benefits, and endowed, for every good, and wise, and worthy purpose, with irresistible influence over surrounding nations. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. xvin. CHALMERS ON PEACE.* There are a great many passages in Scripture which warrant the expectation that a time is coming, when an end shall be put to war — when its abominations and its cruelties shall be banished from the face of the earth ; and many and delightful are the images which the Bible employs, as guided by the light of prophecy, it carries us forward to those millennial days, v. hen the reign of peace shall be established, and the wide charity of the gospel, which is confined by no liQiits, and owns no distinctions, shall embosom the whole human race within the ample grasp of one harmonious and universal family. Let me first attempt to do away a delusion which exists on the subject of prophecy. Its fulfilments are all certain, say many ; and we have therefore nothing to do, but to wait for them in passive and indolent expectation. Let us therefore sit down quietly in the attitude of spectators — let us leave the Divinity to do his own work in his own way, and mark, by. the progress of a history over which we have no control, the evolution of his designs, and the march of his wise and beneficent administration. Now, it is very true, that the Divinity will do his own work in his own way ; but if he choose to tell us that that way is not without the instrumentality of men, but by their instrumentality, might not this sitting down into the mere attitude of spectators, turn out to be a most perverse and disobedient conclusion ? It is true, that his purpose will ob- tain its fulfilment, whether we shall offer or not to help it for- ward by our co-operation ; but if the object is to be brought about, and he has also determined on the way which leads to it, and that that way shall be by the putting forth of hu- man exertion, then, let us keep back our co-operation as we may, God will raise up the hearts of others to that which we abstain from.. Now, this is the very way in which prophecies have ac- tually been fulfilled ; and the same holds true of the pro- phecy of universal peace. The abolition of war will be the * From a Sermon by Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D. D. P. T. NO. XVIII. 2 CHALMERS ON PEACE. 150 effect, not of any sudden or resistless visitation from heaven on the character of men — not of any mystical influence working with all the omnipotence of a charm on the passive hearts of those who are the subjects of it — not of any blind or overruling fatality which will come upon the earth at some distant period of its history, and about which, we of the present day have nothing to do, but to look silently on, without concern, and \vithout co-operation. The prophecy of a peace as universal as the spread of the human race, and as enduring as the moon in the firmament, will meet its accomplishment ; but it will be brought about by the activity of men. It will be done by the philanthropy of thinking and intelligent Christians. The conversion of the Jews — the spread of gospel light among the regions of idolatry — these are distinct subjects of prophecy, on which the faithful of the land are now acting, and to the fulfilment of which they are giving their zeal and their energy. I con- ceive the prophecy which relates to the final abolition of war, will be taken up in the same manner, and the subject will be brought to the test of Christian principle, and many will unite to spread a growing sense of its follies and its enormities over the countries of the world, and the public will be enlightened by the mild dissemination of gospel sen- timent through the land, and the prophecy contained in this book, will pass into effect and accomplishment by no other influence than the influence of its ordinary lessons on the hearts and consciences of individuals, and the measure will first be carried in one country by the control of general opin- ion, and the sacre'd fire of good-will to the children of men will spread itself through all climes, and through all lati- tudes — and thus by scriptural truth conveyed with power from one people to another, and taking its ample round among all the tribes and families of the earth, shall we ar- rive at the magnificent result of peace throughout all its provinces, and security in all its dwelling places. The mere existence of this prophecy of peace, is a sen- tence of condemnation upon war, and stamps a criminality on its very forehead. So soon as Christianity shall gain a full ascendency in the world, from that moment war is to disappear. We have heard that there is something noble in the art of war ; that there is something generous in the ar- dor of that fine chivalric spirit which kindles in the hour of alarm, and rushes with delight among the thickest scenes of danger and enterprise ; — that man is never more proudly arrayed, than when, elevated by a contempt for death, he \ 151 CHALMERS ON PEACE. ^ puts on his intrepid front, and looks serene, while the ar- rows of destruction are flying on every side of him ; — that expunge war, and you expunge some of the brightest names in the catalogue of human virtue, and demolish that theatre on which have been displayed some of the sublimest ener- gies of the human character. It is thus that war has been invested with a most pernicious splendor, and men have offered to justify it as a blessing and an ornament to society, and attempts have been made to throw a kind of imposing morality around it ; and one might almost be reconciled to the whole train of its calamities and its horrors, did he not believe his Bible, and learn from its information, that in the days of perfect righteousness, there will be no war ; — that so soon as the character of man has had the last finish of Christian principle thrown over it, from that moment all the instruments of war will be thrown aside, and all its lessons will be forgotten. But apart altogether from this* testimony to the evil of war, let us just take a direct look of it, and see whether we can find its character engraved on the aspect it bears to the eye of an attentive observer. The stoutest heart would recoil, were he who owns it, to behold the de- struction of a single individual by some deed of violence. Were the man who at this moment stands before you in the full play and energy of health, to be in another moment laid by some deadly aim a lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you who would not prove how strong are the re- lentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. There are some of you who would be haunted for whole days by the image of horror you had witnessed — who would feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time could wear away — who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or for enjoyment — who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your waking moments — who would dream of it at night, and it would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an ever- meddling memory, into a scene of restlessness. O ! my brother, if there be something appalling in the suddenness of death, think not that when gradual in its advances, you will alleviate the horrors of this sickening contemplation, by viewing it in a milder form. O ! tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man, as goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in con- 4 CHALMERS ON PEACE. 152 vulsive energy, or faint with the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance ; or wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body ; or lifting up a faded ey^, he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness, for that succor which no sympathy can yield him. — It may be pain- ful to dwell on such a representation ; but this is the way in which the cause of humanity is served. The eye of the J sentimentalist turns away from its sufferings, and he passes I by on the other side, lest he hear that pleading voice which Vis armed with a tone of remonstrance so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot bear thus to pause, in imagina- tion, on the distressing picture of one individual; but multi- ply it ten thousand times ; say, how much of all this dis- tress has been heaped together upon a single field ; give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an official computation — and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance which is read to them out of the registers of death. O ! say, what mystic spell is that, which so blinds us to the sufferings of our brethren ; which deafens our ear to the voice of bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying thousands; which makes the very magnitude of the slaughter, throw a soften- ing disguise over its cruelties, and its horrors ; which causes us to eye with indifference, the field that is crowded with the most revolting abominations, and arrests that sigh, which each individual would singly have drawn from us, by the report of the many who have fallen, and breathed their last in agony along with them. I am not saying that the burden of all this criminality rests upon the head of the immediate combatants. It lies somewhere ; but who can deny that a soldier may be a Christian, and that from the bloody field on which his body is laid, his soul may wing its ascending way to the shores of a peaceful eternity ? But when I think that the Chris- tians, even of the great world, form but a very little flock, and that an army is not a propitious soil for the growth of Christian principle — when I think on the character of one such army, that had been led on for years by a ruffian am- bition, and been inured to scenes of barbarity, and had gathered a most ferocious hardihood of soul from the many enterprises of violence to which an unprincipled conunand- i53 CHALMERS ON t'fcAC^. 5 er had carried them — when I follow them to the field of battle, and further think, that on both ^des of an exaspe- rated contest, the gentleness of Christianity can have no place in almost any bosom, but that nearly every heart is lighted up with fury, and breathes a vindictive purpose against a brother of the species,-! cannot but recken it among the most fearful of the calamities of war, that while the work of death is thickening along its ranks, so many disem- bodied spirits should pass into the presence of Him who sitteth upon the throne, in such a posture, and with such a preparation. I have no time to set before you a vivid picture of the other miseries which war carries in its train — how it deso--^ lates every country through which it rolls, and spreads vio- lation and alarm among its villages — how, at its approach, every home pours forth its trembling fugitives — how all the rights of property, and all the provisions of justice must give way before its devouring exactions — how, when Sab- bath comes, no Sabbath charm comes along with it, and for the sound of the church bell which wont to spread its music over some fine landscape of nature, and summon rus- tic worshippers to the house of prayer, nothing is heard but the deathful volleys of the battle, and the maddening outcry of infuriated men — how, as the fruit of victory, an unprin- cipled licentiousness which no discipline can restrain, is suffered to walk at large among the people, and all that is pure, and reverend, and holy in the virtue of families, is cruelly trampled on, and held in the bitterest derision. But let me hasten to some of the obstacles which stand in the way of the extinction of war. The first great ob- stacle, then, is the way in which the heart of man is carried off from its barbarities and its horrors, by the splendor of its deceitful accompaniments. There is a feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock of armies, just as there is in contemplating the devouring energy of a tempest ; and this so elevates and engrosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of their desolated families. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a youthful warrior burning for distinction on the field, and lured by this generous aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, where, in the fell work of death^ the op- posing sons of valor struggle for a remembrance and a name ; and this side of the picture is so much the exclu- sive object of our regard, as to disguise from our view the 6 CHALMERS ON PEACE. 154 mangled carcasses of the fallen, and the writhing agonies of the hundreds and die hundreds more who have been laid on the cold ground, where they are left to languish and to die. There no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep over them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying posture, or bind up the wounds which, in the mad- dening fury of the combat, have been given and received by the children of one common father. There death spreads its pale ensigns over every countenance ; and when night comes on, and darkness around them, how many a despair- ing wretch must take up with the bloody field as the un- tended bed of his last sufferings, without one friend to bear the message of tenderness to his distant home, without one companion to close his eyes. I avow it. On every side of me I see causes at work which go to spread a most delusive coloring over war, and to remove its shocking barbarities to the back ground of our contemplations altogether. I see it in the history which tells me of the superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of theii" successive charges. I see it in the poe- try which lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and transports its many admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in the music which represents the pro- gress of the battle ; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tender- ness of a drawing-room are seen to bend over the sentimen- tal entertainment ; nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded men as they Hide away upon the ear, and sink into lifeless silence. All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted creatures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness ; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian sentiment upon earth to arrest the strong current of its popular and pre- Yailing partiality for war. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the check of severe principle on all the subordinate tastes and faculties of our nature. Then will glory be reduced to its right estimate, and the wakeful be- nevolence of the gospel chasing away every spell, will be turned by the treachery of no delusion whatever from its simple but sublime enterprises for the good of the species. Then the reign of truth and quietness will be ushered into 155 CHALMERS ON PEACE. 7" the world, and war, cruel, atrocious, unrelenting wai; will be stript of its many and its bewildering fascinations. But another obstacle to the extinction of war, is a senti- ment which seems to be universally gone into, that the rules and promises of the gospel which apply to a single individual, do not apply to a nation of individuals. Just think of the mighty effect it would have on the politics of the world, were this sentiment to be practically deposed from its wonted authority over the counsels and the doings of nations, in their transactions with each other. If for-^ bearance be the virtue of an individual, forbearance is also ■ ' the virtue of a nation. If it be incumbent on men in honor to prefer each other, it is incumbent on the very largest so- cieties of men, through the constituted organ of their gov- ernment, to do the same. If it be the glory of a man to de- fer his anger, and to pass over a transgression, that nation mistakes its glory which is so feelingly alive to the slightest insult, and musters up its threats and its armaments upon the faintest shadow of a provocation. If it be the magna-\ nimity of an injured man to abstain from vengeance, and itN by so doing, he heaps coals of fire upon the head of his n enemy, then that is the magnanimous nation, which, recoil- 1! ing from violence and from blood, will do no more than / send its Christian embassy, and prefer its mild and impres- j sive remonstrance ; and that is the disgraced nation which | will refuse the impressiveness of the moral appeal that has been made to it. It is, then, only by the extension of Christian principle among the people of the earth, that the atrocities of war will at length be swept away from it ; and each of us in hastening the commencement of that blissful period in his own sphere, is doing all that in him lies to bring his own heart, and the hearts of others, under the supreme in- fluence of this principle. It is public opinion, which in the long run governs the world ; and while I look with confi- dence to a gradual revolution in ihe state of public opinion from the omnipotence of gospel truth working its silent but effectual way through the families of mankind, yet I will not deny that much may be done to accelerate the advent of perpetual and universal peace, by a distinct body of men embarking their every talent, and their every acquirement in the prosecution of this as a distinct object. This was the way in which, a few years ago, the British public were gained over to the cause of Africa. This is the way in which some of the other prophecies of the Bible are at this 8 CHALMERS ON PEACE. 156 moment hastening to their accomplishment ; and it is this way, I apprehend, that the prophecy of peace may be in- debted for its speedier fulfilment to the agency of men se- lecting this as the assigned field on which their philanthropy shall expatiate. Were each individual member of such a scheme to prosecute his own walk, and come forward with his own peculiar contribution, the fruit of the united labors of all would be one of the finest collections of Christian eloquence, and of enlightened morals, and of sound politi- ^ cal philosophy, that ever^was presented to the world. I could not fasten on another cause more fitted to call forth such a variety of talent, and to rally around it so many of the generous and accomplished sons of humanity, and to give each of them a devotedness and a power far beyond whatever could be sent into the hearts of enthusiasts by the mere impulse of literary ambition. Let one take up the question of war in its principle, and make the full weight of his moral severity rest upon it, and upon all its abominations. Let another take up the ques- tion of war in its consequences, and bring his every pow- er of graphical description to the task of presenting an awakened public with an impressive detail of its cruelties and its horrors. Let another neutralize the poetry of war, and dismantle it of all those bewitching splendors, which the hand of misguided genius has thrown over it. Let another teach the world a truer, and more magnanimous path to national glory, than any country of the world has yet walked in. Let another tell with irresistible argument, how the Christian ethics of a nation is at one with the Christian ethics of its humblest individual. Let another pour the light of modern speculation into the mysteries of trade, and prove that not a single war has been undertaken for any of its objects, where the millions and the millions more which were lavished on the cause, have not all been cheated away from us by the phantom of an imaginary in- terest. This may look t(i many like the Utopianism of a romantic anticipation ; but I shall never despair of the cause of truth addressed to a Christian public, when the clear light of principle can be brought to every one of its positions, and when its practical and conclusive establish- ment forms one of the most distinct of Heaven's prophe- cies — ** that men shall beat their swords into plough- shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; and that nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." ^^ . No. XIX. THE CHIEF EVIL OF WAR. BY W. E. CHANNING, D. D. Let us, then, consider the chief evil of war. What is it? What induces us to place war at the head of human calamities? In replying to these questions, I shall not direct you to the physical sufferings of war, however terrible. Death in its worst forms ; the overthrow of proud cities ; the devastation of fruitful fields ; the empoverishing of nations ; famine ; pestilence ; these form the train of victorious war. But these are not the distinguishing evils of war. Other causes are wasting human life and joy. Cities are over- thrown by earthquakes as well as by armies, and more fre- quently swept by accidental conflagrations than by the flames of war. Hostile bands ravage the fields ; but how much oftener do whirlwinds, storms, hurricanes rush over land and sea, prostrating harvests, and destroying the labors of years on a scale so vast as to reduce human devastations to a narrow extent. The truth is, that man is surrounded with mighty powers of nature vi^hich he cannot comprehend or withstand; and, amidst their beneficent operations, all of them inflict much suffering. What distinguishes war is, not that man is slain, but that he is slain, spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the murderous hand of man. The evil is moral evil. War is the concen- tration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, ma- lignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey. Here is the evil of war, that man, made to be the brother, becomes the deadly foe of his kind ; that man, whose duty it is to mitigate suffering, makes the infliction of suffering his study and end ; that man, whose office it is to avert and heal the wounds which come from nature's powers, makes researches into nature's laws, and arms himself with her most awful forces, that he may become the destroyer of his race. Nor is this all. There is also found in war a cold-hearted indifference to human miseries and wrongs, perhaps more shocking than the bad passions it calls forth. To my mind, this contempt of human nature is singularly offensive. To hate, expresses something like respect. But p. T. NO. XIX. 2 THE CHIEF EVIL OF WAR. 158 in war, man treats his brother as nothing worth ; sweeps away human multitudes as insects ; tramples them down as grass ; mocks at their rights ; and does not deign a thought to their woes. These remarks show us the great evil of war. It is moral evil. The field of battle is h theatre, got up at immense cost, for the exhibition of crime on a grand scale. There the hell within the human breast blazes out fiercely and without disguise. A more fearful hell in any region of the universe cannot well be conceived. There the fiends hold their revels, and spread their fury. Suppose two multitudes of men, each composed of thou- sands, meeting from different countries, but meeting not to destroy but to consult and labor for the good of the race ; and suppose them, in the midst of their deliberations, to be smitten suddenly by some mysterious visitation of God, and their labors to be terminated by immediate death. We should be awe-struck by this strange, sudden, wide-spread ruin. But reflection would teach us, that this simultaneous extinction of life in so many of our race, was but an antici- pation or peculiar fulfilment of the sentence passed on all mankind ; and a tender reverence would spring up, as we should think of so many generous men coming together from so many diflTerent regions, in the spirit of human brotherhood, to be wrapt in one pall, to sleep in one grave. We should erect a monument on the solemn spot ; but chiefly to commemorate the holy purpose which had gathered them from their scattered abodes; and we should write on it, " To the memory of a glorious com- pany, suddenly taken from God's ministry on earth, to enter again, a blessed brotherhood, on a higher ministry in heaven." Here you have death sweeping away hosts in a moment; but how different from death in a field of battle, where man meets man as a foe, where the coun- tenance flashes rage, and the arm is nerved for slaughter, where brother hews down brother, and where thousands are sent unprepared, in the moment of crime, to give their ac- count. When nature's laws, fulfilling the mysterious will of God, inflict death on the good, we bow, we adore, we give thanks. How different is death from the murderous hand of man ^ Allow me to make another supposition, which may bring out still more strongly the truth on which I now insist, that the great evil of war is inward, morale that its physical woes, terrible as they may be, are light by the side of this. J 59 THE CHIEF EVIL OF WAR. 3 Suppose then, that in travelling through a solitary region, you should catch the glimpse of a distant dwelling. You approach it eagerly in the hope of hearing a welcome after your weary journey. As you draw nigh, an ominous still- ness damps your hope ; and on entering, you see the in- mates of the house, a numerous family, stretched out mo- tionless, and without life. A wasting pestilence has, in one day, made their dwelling a common tomb. At first you are thrilled with horror by the sight ; but as you survey the silent forms, you see on all their countenances, amidst traces of suffering, an expression of benignity. You see some of the dead lying side by side, with hands mutually entwined, showing that the last action of life was a grasp of affection ; whilst some lie locked in one another's arms. The mother's cold lips are still pressed to the cheek of the child, and the child's arms still wind round the neck of the mother. In the forms of others you see no ambiguous proof, that the spirit took its flight in the act of prayer. As you look on these signs of love and faith, stronger than the last agony, what a new feeling steals over you ! Your horror subsides. Your eyes are sufiused with tears, not of anguish, but of sympathy, affection, tender reverence. You feel the spot to be consecrated. Death becomes lovely like the sleep of infancy. You say, Blessed family, death hath not divided you ! With soothed and respectful sorrow, you leave this resting place of the good, and another dwelling, dimly described in the horizon, invites your steps. As you approach it, the same stillness is an augury of a like desolation, and you enter it, expecting to see another family laid low by the same mysterious disease. But you open the door, and the spectacle freezes your blood, and chains your steps to the threshold. On every face you see the distortion of rage. Every man's hand grasps a deadly weapon ; every breast is gored with wounds. Here lies one, rived asunder by a sword. There, two are locked together, but in the death- grapple of hatred, not the embrace of love. Here lies woman trampled on and polluted, and there the child, wel- tering in his own blood. You recoil with horror, as soon as the sickness of the heart will suffer you to move. The deadly steam of the apartment oppresses, overpowers you, as if it were the suffocating air of hell. You are terror- struck, as if through the opening earth you had sunk into the abode of fiends ; and when the time for reflection comes, and you recall the blessed habitation you had just before left, 4 THE CHIEF EVIL OF WAR. 160 what a conviction rushes on you, that nothing deserves the name of wo, but that which crime inflicts. You feel, that there is a sweetness, loveliness, sacredness in suffering and death, when pervaded by holy affections ; and that infinite wretchedness and despair gather over these, when springing from unholy passion, when bearing the brand of crime. I do not mean to deny, that the physical sufferings of war are great, and should incite us to labor for its abolition. But sufferings, separate from crime, coming not through man's wickedness, but from the laws of nature, are not un- mixed evils. They have a ministry of love. God has or- dained them, that they should bind men to one another, that they should touch and soften the human heart, that they should call forth mutual aid, solace, gratitude, and self-for- getting love. Sorrow is the chief cement of souls. Death, coming in the order of nature, gathers round the sufferer sympathising, anxious friends, who watch day and night, with sutfused eyes and heart-breathed prayer, to avert or mitigate the last agonies. It calls up tender recollections, inspires solemn thought, rebukes human pride, obscures the world's glories, and speaks of immortality. From the still death-bed, what softening, subduing, chastening, exalting influences proceed. But death in war, death from the hand of man, sears the heart and conscience, kills human sym- pathies, and scatters the thought of judgment to come. Man dying in battle, unsolaced, unpitied, and a victim to hatred, rapacity, and insatiable ambition, leaves behind him wrongs to be revenged. His blood does not speak peace or speak of heaven ; but sends forth a maddening cry, and exasperates survivors to new struggles. Thus war adds to suffering the unutterable weight of crime, and defeats the holy and blessed ministry which all suffering is intended to fulfil. When I look back on the ages of conflict through which the race has passed, what most moves me is not the awful amount of suffering which war has inflicted. This may be borne. The terrible thought is, that this has been the work of crime; that men, whose great law is love, have been one another's butchers ; that God's children have stained his beautiful earth, made beautiful for their home, with one another's blood ; that the shriek, which comes to us from all regions and ages, has been extorted by human cruelty ; that man has been a demon, and has turned earth into hell. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. -■ LOSS or LIFE BY WAR. No. XX. Life is man's chief earthly boon. It is essential to all his other blessings ; and without it he can neither do, nor enjoy, nor be any thing. It is the means of all his acqui- sitions ; it is the medium of all his enjoyments ; it is the pivot of his destiny for two worlds, the seed-time of his whole immortal being, the period of his preparation for a blissful or a miserable immortality ! Such is life, the destruction of which is the grand aim of war. For what else are its engines constructed, its science and its skill taught, its arts and stratagems practised, all its daring and desperate deeds undertaken ? For what pur- pose its swords and bayonets, its muskets and cannon, its bombs and rockets, and other instruments of death ? Are they not made and used almost solely for the butchery of man- kind ? Is it not for this as her grand object, that Christendom still maintains her two thousand war-ships, still keeps her millions of human blood-hounds ready for their prey, and loads her toiling, struggling, starving myriads with debts and taxes ? Have not the chief energies of our race for nearly six thousand yeqrs, been absorbed, all over the earth, in the work of mutual butchery 1 Surely, then, the result must be a fearful sacrifice of life. The sum total we cannot ascertain ; but let us consider first how war obstructs the increase of mankind, and next how it actually destroys them ; its work of prevention, and its work of destruction, both of which conspire to swell the incalculable amount of its havoc. We cannot dwell on the thousand ways in which war prevents the legitimate and salutary growth of our species. The general poverty which it creates, must tend to hold back the mass of the community from marriage. Virtue is the chief nurse of population ; but this custom is a hot-bed of vice and crime. It reeks with licentiousness ; and every one knows that such habits in a community are fatal to the increase of its numbers, iand often suffice alone to insure, as in the South-Sea Islands, a steady and rapid diminution. Its laws, its stern exigencies, forbid in most cases the marriage of its agents ; and the great body of p. T. NO. XX. 2 LOSS OF LIFE BY WAR. 162 them become reckless libertines, whose intrigues debauch more or less every community they visit. There is no record of their countless victims ; but the general result in war-countries is seen in the fact, that in Paris, as in many other parts of Europe, every third child is a bastard. Nor does even this tell the whole truth ; for means are almost universally employed by such persons there, with the cer- tainty of success in most cases, to prevent conception, or procure abortion. In some European countries, no man is permitted to marry until he has served in the army a long term of years ; and during this time, the common soldiers indulge in the loosest debaucheries, and the officers live on a species of tolerated concubinage which creates w^hole families of illegitimate children. At the close of their ser- vice, some marry, others do not ; and the result is such a general relaxation of morals and domestic ties as must greatly diminish the number of lawful marriages, and the growth of a legitimate and virtuous population. Camps and fleets are even in peace most prolific nurseries of licen- tiousness ; every war-ship, when in port, is a floating brothel, insomuch that six hundred prostitutes are said to have perished in the sinking of the Royal George at Spit- head, in 1782; and every recruiting rendezvous, every resting-place of soldiers for a single night, is a centre or source of pollution ; nor can you well conceive the full in- fluence in these respects of three millions of men, in the vigor of health, and the fire of youthful passion, Avithdrawn from marriage, and left to sate their fierce and lawless lusts on female purity. The general result you may see in war-countries com- pared with those which have pursued a pacific policy. Such has been our own policy ; and in fifty years we have quadrupled our population. Such has been the pol- icy of China ; and, with a territory equal to little more than one third of Europe, she has nearly half the people on the globe. While our own population was doubling every quarter of a century, that of Europe, according to Adam Smith, was increasing at a rate so slow as hardly to reach the same result in five hundred years ; but since the downfall of Napoleon, the inhabitants of Prussia have been doubling in twenty-six years, those of Great Britain in forty- two, those of Russia in sixty-six, and those of France in one hundred and five. During these thirty years of general peace, (1S45,) the population of Europe, with the exception of Spain and Portugal rent with civil wars, has probably 103 LOSS OF LIFE BY WAR. 8 increased more than in any two centuries before for a thou- sand years. The sum total of prevention from war, we cannot of course estimate or even conjecture ; but, had this custom never existed, their might hitherto have been full twice as many human beings on the globe, with four times the amount of happiness. Nor can this supposition be neu- tralized by saying, that the earth would thus have been overstocked ; for experiment and calculation have proved it capable of supporting in comfort more than fifty times its present population ! But look especially at the direct havoc of mankind hy war. It introduces a variety of customs destructive to life. We are not, as friends of peace, concerned with the question of capital punishment ; but, if war did not first lead to such penalties, it certainly has increased their number to a fear- ful extent, and written the code of even some Christian States in blood. In England itself there were, in the time of Blackstone, no less than one hundred and sixty crimes punishable with death; and in the reign of Henry VIII., there perished by the hands of the executioner 72,000 per- sons, or an average of one every hour of day-light for a space of seventeen years ! War, likewise, originated duelling, judicial combats, and other practices which have swept off immense multitudes. We little suspect how many have fallen in duels alone, and can hardly believe what a French writer not long since stated, in a paper read before the French Academy, and published under their sanction, that in certain departments of France, five, six, and even ten per cent, of all the deaths in the army are occasioned by this spawn of the war-system ! But the immediate destruction of life by war, is vast and appalling. So it must be, since death is its grand aim; and if you contemplate the thousands and millions of its agents, bold, blood-thirsty and reckless, trained with all possible skill to the trade of human butchery, armed for this purpose with instruments the most terribly effective, plying every art, and stretching every nerve to destroy man- kind, and stimulated to desperation by the promise to suc- cess of the highest earthly rewards, can you adequately conceive the havoc likely to ensue 1 Far greater, however, is the incidental loss of life. Well does Dr. Johnson say, ** War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the thou- sands and ten thousands that perish, a very small part ever fbel the stroke of the enemy. The rest languish in tents 4 LOSS OF LIFE BY WAR. 164 and ships, amid damps and putrefaction, pale^ torpid and spiritless ; gasping and groaning unpitied among men ren- dered obstinate by long continuance of hopeless misery; and are at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice or remembrance. By incommodious en- campments and unwholesome stations, whole fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away." If you doubt the truth of these sweeping remarks, go to a camp, and there see human life rotting in masses into the grave. The filth, intemperance and licentiousness of sol- diers carry them off in vast multitudes, and generate dis- eases the most malignant and fatal. When seized with sickness, there is little or no care taken of them; no mother, wife or sister near to tend their couch ; no pillow of down to ease their aching head ; no escape from pinch- ing cold, or scorching heat ; no shelter from howling blasts, or drenching rains. Hence death treads sure and quick upon the heels of disease that might, in nine cases out of ten, have been cured at home, or entirely prevented. You can hardly conceive how fast an army will melt away under the influence of such causes alone, and no record kept, no notice taken of its victims. In transferring troops from one country to another, especially to sultry regions, states- men coolly calculate on losing, from this cause alone, every third man. In certain climates, and under certain circum- stances in every climate, it requires only a few brief years or even months to annihilate whole crews or regiments without shedding a drop of blood. It is often impossible to calculate or trace even the known loss of life. *' I was sixteen years old," said a venerable Christian with the frost of eighty winters on his head, *' when our Revolutionary war began ; and, on my brother's fitting out a privateer, I embarked along with him. There were ninety on board besides officers. In a fortnight we were captured, and carried to a prison in Lisbon, whence we were forced on board a British man of war, and sailed for the Indies. There I spent seven or eight years, and did not reach this country till after the treaty of 1783. What became of my companions, I know not ; but of the whole crew, not more than four or five were ever heard of again, and those were all, or nearly all, officers. The common sailors, I believe, all perished." Let us quote a single instance of the fatal effect of cli- mate. ** The climate," says Lord Collingwood, ** was 165 * LOSS OF LI'FE BY WAR. 5 deadly, and no constitution could resist its effects. At San Juan," near the Isthmus of Darien, *'I joined the ship, and succeeded Lord Nelson who was promoted to a larger ship ; but he had received the infection of the cli- mate before he went from the port, and had a fever from which he did not recover until he quitted his ship, and went to England. My constitution resisted many attacks, and I survived most of my ship's company, having buried in four months one hundred and eighty of the two hundred that composed it ;" a loss of ninety per cent, from the cli- mate alone! " Nor was mine a singular case; for every ship that was long there, suffered in the same degree. The transport's men all died ; and some of the ships, having none left to take care of them, sunk in the harbor. Trans- port ships, however, were not wanted ; for the troops they had brought, were no more ; they had fallen not by the hand of an enemy, but from the contagion of the climate." The common usage, discipline and hardships of soldiers prey upon them like murrain. It would seem impossible for them to survive some of their punishments that are not designed to take life ; and multitudes die either by the pro- cess, or from its immediate effects. The ill-treatment they receive, frequently drives them to suicide ; and their scanty clothing, their unwholesome food, their unhealthy encamp- ments, their want of shelter and bedding, their repose on the damp, cold, frozen earth, their exposures on duty day and night in all seasons, all weathers, and every clime, cannot fail to hurry countless multitudes to the grave. Scarce a peasant in Ireland, or a serf in Poland, or a slave in any country on the globe, is subjected continually to such fatal privations, hardships and exposures as fall to the common lot of soldiers. Glance at their food, often provided by avaricious, un- principled contractors with less care than a farmer ordi- narily takes in feeding his swine ! It has been sometimes so intolerably bad as to be refused even by wretches dying with hunger ; and an eminent physician once testified under oath before the British Parliament, that in the military hos- pitals of Aracan, '* monstrous reptiles, engendered in the mass o{ filth, which the soldiers had been obliged to take for food, were often seen crawling from the mouths of the sick ! " Let us select a specimen or two of the treatment of pris- oners. " Our numbers," says one of the sufferers, a 6 - LOSS OF LIPE BY WAR. ' 166 Frenchman in Spain, ** thinned rapidly on the way. Fa- tigue and insufficient provision rendered many incapable of rising to renew their march after a night's halt ; and the dawn exhibited to us the stiffened limbs of such as death had released from further earthly trouble. The survivors were gaunt and emaciated ; and frequently would a poor fellow drop to the. ground in the extremity of wearieess and despair. No effort was made to assist these sufferers ; but they were either left behind to perish, or bayonetted on the spot." The French, in their retreat from Moscow, had in one instance three thousand Russian prisoners. ** During the march," says Labaume, " having no provi- sions to give them, they were herded together like beasts, and not allowed on any pretext to quit the limits assigned them. Without fire, perishing with cold, they lay on the bare ice; to appease their ravenous hunger, they seized with avidity the horse-flesh which was distributed to them, and, for want of time and means to dress it, ate it en- tirely raw ; and I have been assured that, when this supply failed, many of them ate their comrades who had sunk under their miseries ! " Take an example of hardships not uncommon in war. " Every day," says a young Scotch soldier in the Peninsu- lar War, ** we were either on guard, or on fatigue. We were not. a night in bed out of two during all the time we remained there. Besides, the weather was dreadful ; we had always either snow or hail, the latter often as large as nuts; and we were forced to put our knapsacks on our heads to protect us from its violence. The frost was most severe, accompanied by high winds. Often for whole days and nights we could not get a tent to stand ; many of us were frost-bitten, and others were found dead at their posts. On our march, the rain poured in torrents ; and melted snow was half knee-deep in many places, and stained by the blood that flowed from our bruised and wounded feet. There was nothing to sustain our famished bodies, or shel- ter them from the rain or snow. We were either drenched with rain, or crackling with ice. Fuel we could find none. The sick and the wounded whom we had been still enabled with our own hands to drag along with us in wagons, were now left to perish in the snow. The road was one line of bloody foot-marks from the sore feet of the men ; and on its sides lay the dead and the dying." Just glance at the havoc occasioned by forced and ex- 167 ' LOSS OF LIFE BY WAR. 7 hausting marches. The French soldiers, on their retreat from Moscow, would, on halting at night, throng into the houses, throw themselves down on the first dirty straw they could find, and there perish, in large numbers, with hunger and fatigue. From such sufferings, and from the infection of the air in the warmer season by putrefied car- casses of men and horses that strewed the road, there sprang two dreadful diseases, the dysentery and typhus fever, before which they melted away like dew before the sun. At times they were so overwhelmed with whirlwinds of snow, that they could not distinguish the road from the ditches, and often found their grave in the latter. The roads, league after league, were chequered with dead bodies covered with snow, and forming undulations or hillocks like those in a grave-yard. Many of the survivors scarce retained the human form. Some had lost their hearing, others their speech; and many, by excessive cold and "hunger, were reduced to a state of such stupid phrenzy, that they roasted the dead bodies of their companions, and even gnawed their own hands and arms. " No grenade or grape," says an eye-witness, " could have so disfigured those victims of the cold. One of them had lost the upper joints of all his ten fingers ; and he showed us the stumps. Another wanted both ears and nose. More horrible still was the look of a third whose eyes had been frozen ; the eye-lids hung down rotting, the globes of the eyes were burst, and protruded from their sockets. It was awfully hideous ; But a sp^tacle yet more dreadful was to present itself Out of the straw in the car that brought them, I now beheld a figure creep painfully, which one could scarcely believe to be a human being, so wild and distorted were the features. The lips were rotted away, the teeth stood exposed ; he pulled the cloth from before his mouth, and grinned on us like a death's-head ! " How many perish from such causes, we cannot conjec- ture ; but in the Russian campaign of 1812, so fatal was the effect of hunger and fatigue, exposure and disease, that of 2*2,000 Bavarians, though they had been in no action, only 11,000 lived to reach the Duna, and the very flower of the French and the allied armies perished. A division of the Russian forces, amounting to 120,000 at the commencement of the pursuit, could not near Warsaw muster 35,000 ; and a re-enforcement of 10,000, that had marched from Wilna, arrived with only 1500, of whom one » LOSS OF LIFE BY WAR. half were the next day in the hospitals. Not a few com- panies were utterly annihilated without a single stroke froni the enemy ! Such is the waste of life in war from other causes than the sword ; and even in peace the mortality among soldiers is about twice as great as among citizens. A memoir, read before the French Academy by a distinguished writer, states that in seven years of peace, (1820-6) the mortality in the French army averaged 2.254 in the hundred, while in France it is only 1.22 ; nor does it ordinarily reach even two per cent, before the age of fifty or sixty. Of 2360 galley slaves, thirty-nine died from 1824-27 ; only 1.652 in the hundred, or little more than two-thirds of the mortality among soldiers. Though generally young and robust, they live in a time of war an average of about three years ; and even in peace their life is probably cut short not less than fifteen years. But no record is kept of peaceful inhabitants who perish in every country where war rages. In Madrid and other cities of Spain, the French, in the days of Napoleon, forced their way into the houses of citizens, bayonetted all within that chanced to have arms, and stationed parties of cavalry at the different outlets of the town to cut off those who should try to escape. In Portugal they burnt villages and towns, butchered prisoners, and massacred without dis- tinction all classes of society ; and, in their retreat from that ill-fated country, they literally strewed the roads with the dead bodies of nobles and peasants, of women, and children, and priests, all put to death like so many dogs. Of such havoc it is impossible to form any estimate or conjecture ; but we know that war has sometimes entirely depopulated immense districts. In modern as well as an- cient times, large tracts have been left so utterly desolate, that a traveller might pass from village to village, even from city to city, without finding a solitary inhabitant ! The war of 1756, waged in the heart of Europe, left in one in- stance no less than twenty contiguous villages without a single man or beast ! In one ancient campaign, 50,000 la- borers died of hunger ; Hannibal alone, in sixteen years, plundered no less than four hundred towns; the barbarous invaders of the Roman Empire sometimes swept all the in- habitants from province after province ; and some of the most notorious conquerors have, like Jenghiz-khan, waged wars of utter extermination, and butchered thousands and 169 LOSS OF LIFE BY WAR. 9 millions of unarmed men, women and children in cold blood. Let us quote the testimony of an eminent reviewer to the general havoc of life in war : " The levies of soldiers in France, during her late wars, exceeded four millions, and not less than three millions of these, on the lowest calcula- tion, perished in the field, the hospital, or the bivouac. If to these we add, as we unquestionably must, at least an equal number out of the ranks of their antagonists, it is clear that not less ihan six millions of human beings, in the course of twenty years, perished by war in the very heart of civilized Europe, at the commencement of the nineteenth century. But even these stupendous numbers give us no adequate conception of the destruction of hu- man life directly consequent on the wars of the revolution and the empire. We must add the thousands who perished from want, outrage and exposure, and the hundreds of thousands who were subsequently swept away by the rav- ages of that pestilence which took its rise amid the retreat from Russia, and the crowded garrisons of the campaign of 1813, and for several years afterwards desolated in suc- cession every country of Europe." We can scarcely glance at the multitudes that perish in sieges and hospitals. In the latter alone nearly as many die as on the field of battle ; nor will such a statement seem exaggerated to any one who will minutely investigate this loathsome and horrid subject. Look at the havoc of sieges. In that of Londonderry, 1689, there perished more than 12,000 soldiers, besides a vast number of the inhabi- tants. During the siege of Paris, in the sixteenth century, the famine was so severe that mothers ate their own chil- dren, and 30,000 persons died of hunger alone. In the siege of Magdeburg, 1631, more than 5000 of the slain were thrown into the Elbe, to clear the streets; and a much greater number had been consumed in the flames ; the victims of famine, disease and hardship could not be reckoned ; but the sum total of the lost was estimated at 30,000. Such was the havoc of life at the storming of Belgrade, 1717, that " the Jews were compelled to throw into the Danube the bodies of 12,000 slain, merely to spare the trouble and expense of burying them." In the siege of Malplaquet in the north-east of France, 1709, there fell on both sides no tess than 34,000 soldiers alone. The storming ofHlsmail by Suwarrow, 1790, cost 40,000 men. 10 LOSS OF LIFE BY WAR. 170 In the siege of Hamburgh, 1813, there perished 15,000 of the garrison, besides all the victims among the inhabitants, and the besieging army. In the siege of Mexico, more than 100,000 were slain in battle, and upwards of 50,000 more died from the infection of putrefying carcasses. The siege of Vienna sacrificed 70,000 lives, and that of Ostend 120,000. At the siege of Acre, by the Crusaders, 300,000 fell ; ancient Carthage, containing 700,000 inhabitants, was so utterly destroyed, that not a single edifice was left stand- ing; during the siege of Jerusalem, 1,100,000 persons perished, and during that of Troy, according to Burton, not less than 946,000 Trojans, and 870,000 Greeks ; in all, 1,816,000 for a worthless courtezan! Mark the havoc of single battles. At Durham, 1346, there fell 15,000 ; at Halidonhill and Agincourt, 20,000 each ; at Bautzen and Lepanto, 25,000 each ; at Auster- litz, Jena and Lutzen, 30,000 each ; at Eylau, 60,000 ; at Waterloo and Quatre Bras, one engagement, 70,000; at Borodino, 80,000; at Fontenoy, 100,000; at Yarmouth, 150,000; at Chalons, no less than 300,000 of Attila's army alone ! The Moors in Spain, about the year 800, lost in one battle 70,000 ; in another, four centuries later, 180,000, besides 50,000 prisoners, and in a third, even 200,000. Still greater was the carnage in ancient times. At Cannae, 70,000 fell. The Romans alone, in an engage- ment with the Cimbri and Teutones, lost 80,000. The Carthagenians attacked Hymera in Sicily with an army of 300,000 men, and a fleet of 2000 ships, and 3000 trans- ports; but not a ship nor a transport escaped destruction, and of the troops, only a few in a small boat reached Car- thage with tlie melancholy tidings. Marius slew, in one battle, 140,000 Gauls, and in another, 290,000. In the battle of Issus, between Alexander and Darius, 110,000 were slain, and in that of Arbela, 300,000. Julius Caesar. once annihilated an army of 363,000 Helvetians ; in a bat- tle with the Usipetes, he slew ^00,000 ; and on another oc- cjxsion, he massacred more than 430,000 Germans, who " had crossed the Rhine, with their herds, and flocks, and little ones, in quest of new settlements." It is difficult to conceive the havoc of aqcient warfare. During a single war of the northern barbarians in Africa, no less than five millions, according to Procopius, perished by the sword, famine and pestilence ; and in the war of twenty years waged by Justinian against the barbarous 171 - LOSS OP LIFE BY WAR. 11 hordes that poured into Italy, the Goths alone are supposed to have lost more than fifteen millions ! Look at two cases more. The army of Xerxes, accord-' ing to Rollin, was composed of 1,700,000 foot, 80,000 ho'rse, and 20,000 men for conducting the carriages and camels. On passing the Hellespont, he received a re-en- forcement of 300,000, making the whole 2,100,000. His fleet consisted of 1207 vessels, each carrying 230 men ; in all, 277,610 men. This number was augmented from the European nations with 1200 vessels carrying 240,000 men ; and on board the small galleys, transports, and other craft, to the number of 3000, were 240,000 more men. In- cluding the multitude of usual attendants on an army in the East, Dr. Dick supposes " the whole number of souls that follovved Xerxes into Greece, must have amounted to 5,283,320 ;" and, if the attendants were onl^ one-third as great as common at the present day in Eastern countries, the sum total must have reached nearly six millions ! What became of this vast multitude ? In one year it was re- duced to 300,000 fighting men ; and of these only 3000 escaped destruction. More than five millions lost in a single year ! During the thirteenth century arose Jenghiz-khan, and ravaged the heart of Asia. His armies sometimes exceeded a million, and his wars were those of utter extermina- tion. He seemed the war-demon incarnate. His spirit feasted on death. On the plains of Nessa, he shot 90,000 persons in cold blood. At the storming of Kharasm, he massacred 200,000, and sold 100,000 for slaves. In the district of Herat, he butchered 1,600,000, and in two cities with their dependencies, 1,760,000. During the last twen- ty-seven years of his idJig reign, he is said to have massa- cred an average of more than half a million every year ; and in the first fourteen years, he is supposed by Chinese historians to have destroyed not less than eighteen mil- lions; a sum total of 32,000,000 human beings sacrificed in forty-one years by a single hand on the Moloch shrine of war ! Do you ask, now, for an epitome of the havoc war has made of human life? In the Russian campaign, there perished in less than six months nearly half a million of the French alone, and perhaps as many more of their ene- mies. During only twelve years of the recent wars of Europe, no less than 5,800,000 Christian lives are supposed tSS LOSS OP XIFE BY WAR. 172 to have been lost. Even the French admit,' that the wars of Napoleon alone must have sacrificed six millions ; and, if we reckon all the victims, both among the soldiers and the people, of the wars consequent on the French Revolu- tion, the sum total cannot be less than nine or ten millions. The Spaniards are said to have destroyed in forty-two years more than twelve millions of American Indians. The wars in the time of Sesostris cost 15,000,000 lives ; those of Semiramis, Cyrus and Alexander, 10,000,000 each ; those of Alexander's successors, 20,000,000. Grecian wars sac- rificed 15,000,000 ; Jewish wars, 25,000,000 ; the wars of the twelve Ccesars, 30,000,000 in all ; the wars of the Ro- mans before Julius Caesar, 60,000,000 ; the wars of the Roman Empire, of the Saracens and the Turks, 60,000,000 each ; the wars of the Reformation, 30,000,000 ; those of the Middle Ages, and the nine Crusades in two centuries, 40,000,000 each ; those of the Tartars, 80,000,000 ; those of Africa, 100,000,000 ! Such estimates may well seem incredible ; but we have taken them all from sources entitled to credit. On such a subject, perfect accuracy is impossible ; you might as well think of counting the spires of grass on the whole globe, or the drops of rain that fell in Noah's flood ; but, if the foregoing statements make any approximation to the truth, the entire havoc of human life by war must defy our utmost powers of conception. " If we take into consideration," says the learned Dr. Dick, *' the number not only of those who have fallen in battle, but of those who have perished through the natural consequences of war, it will not perhaps be overrating the destruction of human life, if we affirm, that one-tenth of the human race has been destroyed by the ravages of war; and, according fo this estimate, more than fourteen thousand millions of human beings have been slaughtered in war since the beginning of the world." Ed- mund Burke went still further, and reckoned the sum total of its ravages from the first at no less than thirty-five THOUSAND MILLIONS ! AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XXI. WITNESSES FOR PEACE. " America," says the Rev. Mr. Jeffries, a distinguished Eng- lish Episcopal Missionary, and one of the Chaplains of the East India Company, " America has the honor of inventing two of the most valuable institutions that ever blessed mankind, — the Peace Society, and tlie Temperance Society ; and, if every American viewed them as I do, he would join them iminediately." The cause of peace is common to all Christians ; and from men of eminence in different denominations, we will quote a few specimens of their views on this subject. Wycliffe, the Reformer, deserves to stand at the head of them all. " What honor falls to a knight that kills many men ? The hangman killeth many more, and with a better title. Better were it for men to be butchers of beasts than butchers of their brethren ! As, according to common law, no man will make battle, except he have leave from tlie prince of the people ; so no man should take vengeance, unless God move him, and warn him as his instrument, saying hoiv he will liave vengeance. Methodists. — Let us hear the father of Metliodism, John Wesley. " You may pour out your soul, and bemoan the loss of true, genuine love in tlie earth. Lost indeed ! you may well say, but not in the ancient sense. »S'ee how these Christiaivs love one anotker ! These Christian kingdoms that are tearing out each other's bowels, desolating one another with fire and sword ! These Christian armies that are sending each other by thousands, by tens of thousands, quick to hell ! These Christian nations that are all on fire with intestine broils, party against party, faction against faction ! Yea, what is most dreadful of all, these Christian churches, (tell it not in Gath ; but, alas ! how can we hide it from Jews, Turks or Pagans ?) that bear the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace, yet wage continual war with each other ! O God ! how long will thy promise fail ? EpiscoPALiAiVS. — Soame Jenyns. If Christian nations were na- tions of Christians, all Avar would be impossible and unknown among them. Thomas Scott. War in every case must be deemed the triumph or the harvest of the first great murderer, the devil. Bishop Waison. Christianity looks upon all the human race as children of the same father ; and in ordering us to do good, to love as bretliren, to forgive injuries, and to study peace, it quite anni- hilates the disposition for martial glory, and utterly debases the pomp of war. Dr. Jortin. The consequences of war are too well known. They are the desolation of populous and flourishing regions, the p. T. NO. XXI. 2 • WITNESSES FOR PEACE. 174 loss of tn^e, the incre^e of taxes and debts, poverty both public and private, the destruction of thousands, and the ruin of almost as many families, besides the sicknesses, the famines, the iniqui- ties and cruelties which always accompany a state of hostility. — The wars continually waged by Christian nations, are most noto- rious offences against the sixth commandment, against the law of nature, against the laws of God given by Moses, against the Christian religion. In all wars, one side is in fault, sometimes both ; and in this case war is no better than robbery and murder, the guilt of which lies, I do not say, upon the soldiers, but upon those in whose hands is lodged the power of declaring war. Baptists. — fVard, the veteran and venerable missionary, says, " the glory of our Christian profession lies in our business on earth resembling the work which the Father gave to Christ to do ; but how unfavorable to this is the profession of arms ! Ratlier, how totally incompatible with it ! Christianity says, love your enemies ; the maxims of statesmen say, kill them off. Christ says, resist not evil ; the statesman saivs, fight, and leave the reasons to me. — What a shocking sight to tie a handkerchief over a man's eyes, and tell him to shoot in the crowd at persons whom he never saw, a com- pany of fathers, sons, brothers ; but, more tlian this, a company of men Avho have to live forever in happiness or misery, and every bullet perhaps sends a man to hell. Either our religion is a fable, or there are unanswerable arguments, (urged, it is true, till they are stale enough,) against war, and the profession of arms. Thou shall do no murder. ' One murder makes a villain ; millions, a hero.' Where ? At the bar of God ? I trow not Satan was a murderer from the beginning, a kind of hero reigning in hell. Judson, the Apostle of Burmah, says, " I hail the establishment of peace societies as one of the most auspicious signs of the pres- ent eventfiil era, and regard them as combining with Bible and mis- sionary societies to form that three-fold cord which will ultimately bind all the families of man in universal peace and love. — Since war has been universally advocated and applauded, it appears to me that it is not optional with any to remain neutral or silent on this great question ; since, thus remaining, they must be considered as belonging of course to tlie war party. Notwithstanding, tiiere- fore, I am a missionary, I have for some time determined to make whatever efforts were necessary to comply with the dictates of conscience, and wash my hands of the blood tliat is shed in war. I regret that I have so long delaye^ to enter my protest against this practice by some overt act ; a measure which appears, in the present state of things, the indispensable duty of every Christian. Presbyterians.— />r. Madeod. War is a school of vice, a nursery of debauchery. By it cities are sacked, and countries laid waste. The dearest ties of kindred are unloosed ; fathers made childless, children fatherless, and wives converted into widows. What more cruel, and less congenial with the spirit of the gospel ? Dr. Berrmn. The character of war is not less incompatible with the genius of the gospel, and an advanced stage of intellec- tual refinement, than that of despotism or slavery. It is a relict 175 WITNESSES FOR PEACE. 3 of barbarism which would long since have disappeared from hu- man society, had the laws of nations kept pace with the positive statutes which govern tlie political and social compact. With two guardian angels, — Christianity on my right hand, and Science on my left, — methinks I am conducted to an eminence from which I survey the surrounding and subjected world. The freshness of Eden covers tiie scene, and the smile of heaven gilds the prospect. The trumpet of carnage is blown no more ; nor does the crimson flag ever again unfurl itself to the breeze. The demon of ven- geance, ever hungry for human flesh, is chained, and commis- sioned no more to imprint his bloody footsteps upon the earth ; nor do the sighing zephyrs ever again wafl; the death-groans of mur- dered victims. The ensanguined field is no more covered with the mangled bodies of the slain ; nor do the broad streams of blood ever again pursue their dark, and deep, and melancholy course amidst the shouts of victory, and the agonies of despair. The wife is no more hastened into widowhood, nor her babes con- signed to orphanage. The bow of victory is broken, the spear of death is cut asunder, and the chariot of conquest is burned in the fire. This is a consummation devoutly to be sought ; an enter- prise which may well command our most vigorous efibrts while we live, and the successful termination of which will deserve to be perpetuated by a monument as high as heaven. CoNGREGATiONALisTs. — Dr. Dwight. War has prevailed in every age, and through every country ; and in all it has waded through human blood, trampled on human corpses, and laid waste the fields and dAvellings, the happiness ahd the hopes of mankind. It has been employed to empty earth, and people hell, to make angels weep, and fiends triumph over the deplorable guilt and de- basement of the human character. We slaughter thousands and millions in war, and then plant laurels amid the bones, and nourish them with the blood of those whom we have destroyed. Yet, to men of such characters, statues are erected, nay, temples have been built, and altars have smoked with victims. To them the page of the historian, and the harp of the poet are consecrated. To their praise the sculptor bids the marble breathe, and the painter teaches the canvass to glow. They live in palaces, and are entombed in mausoleums. Dr. Jippleton. If the suflTerings of the soldier are great in the camp, they are terrible in the field. I can hardly imagine a scene more dreadful than that which is subsequent to the hour of battle. Suppose yourself in a hospital crowded with the wounded and the dying. Here one limb has been shattered, and another severed from the body. Here some part of the body itself has been pierced through, or still retains the weapon which inflicted the wound. In that comer you behold a wretch with his head lacerated, his jaws fractured, or an eye dislocated. In another you see those whom want of reason renders unconscious of their etate, or those who are frantic, and perhaps blaspheming under the intolerable severity of their anguish. Here is one impatient for tiie knife and the tourniquet, from a conviction that his present 4 WITNESSES FOR PEACE. 176 pains cannot be augmented. There is one shrieking under opera- tions more painful than the malady tliey are designed to assuage. Look now at tlie condition of tlie common inhabitants in a coun- jy where contending armies are stationed. The regular pursuits of life must be interrupted or abandoned. Honor, property and life itself are at the mercy of those whom no earthly power is able to control, and who perhaps will acknowledge no law but their own wants and passions. Children and females, the aged and the feeble, find themselves surrounded by every terror, and exposed to every indignity. Ferocious troops are quartered in houses which had been the abodes of wealth, taste and domestic enjoyment The owners, if not arrested, are constrained to witness tliese rav- ages without complaint, and compelled to become tlie slaves of those by whom they are impoverished. Churches and public edi- fices are converted into barracks ; rich gardens are plundered and laid waste ; and harvests are consumed in a day to give forage to a devouring cavalry. All enclosures are made common ; flocks and herds are slaughtered and consumed ; wardrobes are despoiled, and store-houses exhausted. Do not Christian nations, then, worship an idol more savage and hideous than the Moloch of the Hindoos ? Dr. Paysoiu War is surrounded by a deceitful lustre. The monster, unveiled in all his deformity, is seen steeped from head to foot in human gore, gorging his insatiable maw with the yet quivering limbs of mangled victims, and feasting his ears with the wailings of disconsolate widows and helpless orphans ; while the flash of cannon, the glare of bombs, and the red blaze of cities wrapt in conflagration, furnish the only light which illuminates his horrid banquet. Such is the idol M'hom the votaries of war adore ; such tlie Moloch on whose altars men have exultingly sacrificed, not hecatombs of beasts, but millions of their fellow creatures ; on whose blood-thirsty worshippers beauty has lavished her smiles, and genius its eulogies ; whose horrid triumphs, fit only to be cele- brated in the infernal world, painters and sculptors, poets and histo- rians, have combined to surround witli a blaze of immortal glory. But let the monster's hideous form be exposed in its true colors ; and it will be an honor to Christianity, a powerful argument in her favor, to be known as his most decided and successful foe. To accomplish this work, to place before men in naked deformity the idol they have so long ignorantly worshipped in disguise, and thus turn against him the powerful current of public opinion, is the great object of tlie associated fi-iends of peace. Nor is it easy to conceive how any one who believes the Scriptures, and professes to be a disciple of the Prince of Peace, or a friend to tlie human race, can justify himself in ivithholdin^ his aid from a cause so evidently the cause of God. Who would not wish to share this honor ? After tlie glorious victory shall have been won, after wars shall have been made to cease under the whole heaven, who will not then wish to have been among the few that first unfurled the consecrated banner of peace ? AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. xxn. VIEWS OF WAR.* By ROBERT HALL. Real war is a very different thing from that painted image of it which you see on parade, or at a review. It is the most awful scourge that Providence employs for the chastisement of man. It is the garment of vengeance with which the Deity arrays himself, when he comes forth to punish the inhabitants of the earth. It is the day of the Lord, cruel both ivith wrath and fierce anger. Let us consider it in two views — as a source of misery y and as a source of crimes. It is impossible for a humane mind to contemplate the rapid extinction of innumerable lives without concern. To perish in a moment, to be hurried instantaneously, without preparation and without warning, into the presence of the Supreme Judge, has something in it inexpressibly awful and affecting. In war death reigns without a rival, and without control. War is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph of death, who glories, not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims ; here it is the vigorous and the strong. It is remarked by an ancient historian, that in peace chil- dren bury their parents, in war parents bury their children ; nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely indeed, but with that moderate and tranquil sorrow which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many ten- der ties, many animating prospects. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair ; the aged parent, the wid- owed mother, loses, when she is deprived of her children, every thing but the capacity of suffering ; her heart, withered and deso- late, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel iveeping for her children, and refusing to be cornforted, because they are not. But, to confine our attention to the number of the slain would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from religious prospects, as comparatively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are liable. We cannot see an individual expire, though a stranger or an enemy, without being sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment ; every other emotion gives way to pity and terror. In these last extremities we remem- * From Mr. Hall's Sermon entitled Refections on War. P. T. NO. XXII. 9* VIEWS OF WAR. • 178 ber nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature. What a scene then must a field of battle present, where thousands are left without assistance and without pity, with their wounds exposed to the piercing air, while the blood, freezing as it flows, binds them to tlie earth, amid the trampling of horses, and the insults of an enraged foe ! If they are spared by the humanity of the enemy, and carried from tlie field, it is but a prolongation of torment Conveyed in uneasy vehicles, often to a remote dis- tance, through roads almost impassable, they are lodged in ill- prepared receptacles for the wounded and the sick, Avhere the variety of distress baffles all the efforts of humanity and skill, and renders it impossible to give to each the attention he demands. Far from their native home, no tender assiduities of friendship, no well-known voice, no wife, or mother, or sister is near to soothe their sorrows, relieve their tliirst, or close their eyes in death. Unhappy man ! and must you be swept into the grave unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust ! We must remember, however, tliat as a very small proportion of a military life is spent in actual combat, so it is a very small part of its miseries which must be ascribed to this source. More are consumed by the rust of inactivity than by the edge of the sword. Confined to a scanty or unwholesome diet, exposed in sickly climates, harassed with tiresome marches and perpetual alarms, their life is a continual scene of hardships and dangers. They grow familiar with hunger, cold and watchfulness. Crowded into hospitals and prisons, contagion spreads among tlieir ranks, till the ravages of disease exceed those of the enemy. We have hitherto adverted to the sufferings only of tliose who are engaged in tlie profession of arms, without taking into our account the situation of the countries which aJe tlie scene of hos- tilities. How dreadful to hold every thing' at the mercy of an enemy, and to receive life itself as a boon dependent on the sword. How boundless tlie fears which such a situation must inspire, where the issues of life and death are determined by no known laws, principles or customs, and no conjecture can be formed of our destiny, except as far as it is dimly deciphered in characters of blood, in the dictates of revenge, and the caprices of power. Conceive but for a moment the consternation which the approach of an invading army would impress on the peaceful villages in this neighborhood. When you have placed yourselves for an instant in that situation, you will learn to sympathize with those unhappy countries which have sustained the ravages of arms. But how is it possible to give you an idea of these horrors ? Here you behold rich harvests, the bounty of heaven and tlie reward of industry, consumed in a moment, or trampled under foot, while famine and pestilence follow tlie steps of desolation. There the cottages of peasants given up to the flames ; niotliers expiring through fear, not for themselves but tlieir infants ; the inhabitants flying with their helpless babes in all directions, miserable fufritives on their 179 VIEWS OF WAR ' ^ native soil ! In another part you witness opulent cities taken by storm ; the streets, where no sounds were heard but those of peaceful industry, filled on a jBudden with slaughter and blood, resounding with the cries of the pursuing and tJie pursued ; the palaces of nobles demolished, the houses of the rich pillaged, the chastity of virgins and of matrons violated, and every age, sex and rank mingled in promiscuous massacre and ruin. In contemplating the influence of war on public morals, it would be unpardonable not to remark the effects it never fails to produce in those parts of the world which are its immediate seat. The injury which the morals of a people sustain from an invading army is prodigious. The agitation and suspense universally prevalent are incompatible with every thing which requires calm thought, or serious reflection. In such a situation is it any wonder the duties of piety fall into neglect, the sanctuary of God is forsaken, and the gates of Zion mourn and are desolate ? Familiarized to the sight of rapine and slaughter, the people must acquire a hard- and unfeeling character. The precarious tenure by which every thing is held during the absence of laws must impair confidence ; the sudden revolutions of fortune must be infinitely favorable to fraud and injustice. He who reflects on these consequences will not think it too much to affirm, that the injury the virtue of a people sustains from invasion, is greater than tJiat which afiects their property or their lives. He will perceive that by such a calamity the seeds of order, virtue and piety, which it is the first care of education to implant and mature, are swept away as by a hurri- cane. If statesmen, if Christian statesmen at least, had a proper feeling on this subject, and would open their hearts to the reflections which such scenes must inspire, instead of rushing eagerly to arms, would they not hesitate long, would they not try every ex- pedient, every lenient art consistent with national honor, before they ventured on this desperate remedy, or rather, before they plunged into this gulf of horror ? The contests of nations are both the offspring and the parent of injustice. The word of God ascribes the existence of war to the disorderly passions of men. Whence come wars and Jightings among you ? saith the apostle .Tames ; come they not from your lusts that war in your members ? It is certain two nations cannot engage in hostilities but one party must be guilty of injustice ; and if the magnitude of crimes is to be estimated by a regard to their consequences, it is difficult to conceive an action of equal guilt with the wanton violation of peace. It sinks every other crime into insignificance. If the existence of war always implies injustice in one at least of the parties concerned, it is also the fruitful parent of crimes. ' It reverses, unth respect to its objects, all the rules ofmorolitjj. It is nothing less than a temporary repeal of the principles of virtue. It is a system out of which ahnost all the virtues are excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are incor- porated. Whatever renders human nature amiable or respectable, VIEWS OF WAR. 180 whatever engages love or confidence, is sacrificed at its shrine. In instructing us to consider a portion of our fellow-creatures as the proper objects of enmity, it removes, as far as they are con- cerned, the basis of all society, of all civilization and virtue ; for the basis of these is the good-will due to every individual of the species, as being a part of ourselves. From this principle all the rules of social virtue emanate. Justice and humanity, in their utmost extent, are nothing more than the practical application of this great law. The sword, and that alone, cuts asunder tlie bond of consanguinity which unites man to man. As it immediately aims at the extinction of life, it is next to impossible, upon the principle that every thing may be lawfully done to him whom we nave a right to kill, to set limits to military license ; for when men pass from the dominion of reason to that of force, whatever restraints are attempted to be laid on the passions, will be feeble and fluctuating. Though we must applaud, therefore, the attempts of the humane Grotius to blend maxims of humanity with military operations, it is to be feared they will never coalesce, since the former imply the subsistence of those ties which the latter suppose to be dissolved. Hence the morality of peaceful times is directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is to do good ; of the latter, to inflict injuries. The former coirl- mands us to succor the oppressed ; the latter, to overwhelm the defenceless. The former teaches men to love their enemies ; the latter, to make themselves terrible even to strangers. The rules of morality will not sufier us to promote the dearest interest by falsehood ; the maxims of war applaud it when employed in the destruction of others. That a familiarity with such maxims must tend to harden the heart, as well as to pervert the moral senti- ments, is too obvious to need illustration. The natural conse- quence of their prevalence is an unfeeling and unprincipled ambi- tion, with an idolatry of talents, and a contempt of virtue ; whence the esteem of mankind is turned from tlie humble, the beneficent, and the good, to men who are qualified by a genius fertile in ex- pedients, a courage that is never appalled, and a heart that never pities, to become the destroyers of the earth. While the philan- thropist is devising means to mitigate the evils and augment tlie happiness of the world, a fellow-worker together wiUi God in exploring and giving efiect to the benevolent tendencies of nature, the warrior is revolving, in the gloomy recesses of his capacious mind, plans of future devastation and ruin. Prisons crowded with captives, cities emptied of their inhabitants, fields desolate and waste, are among his proudest trophies. The fabric of his fame is cemented with tears and blood ; and if his name is wafted to the ends of the earth, it is in the shrill cry of suffering humanity ; in the curses and imprecations of those whom his sword has re- duced to despair. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XXUI. THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. BY THOMAS CLABKSON, THE PHILANTHBOPIST.* The Bible, rather tiian any human authority, should be our guide ; but, since the early Christians learned its meaning from the Apostles themselves, or their immediate successors, we natu- rally wish to ascertain how they regarded the custom of war, and shall endeavor to prove, that so long as the lamp of Christianity burnt pure and bright, Christians held it unlawful to bear arms, and actually abstained from the use of them at the hazard of their lives ; nor was it till Christianity became corrupted, that its followers be- came soldiers. I. The opinions of the first Christian writers after the Apostles relative to war, were alike for nearly three hundred years, if not longer. Justin Martyr, one of the earliest in the second cen- tury, considers war as unlawful, and makes the devil its author. Tatian, the disciple of Justin, speaks in the same terms on the subject ; and Clemens, of Alexandria, a contemporary of the latter, is equally decisive against the lawfulness of war. Tertullian, the next in order of time, strongly condemns the practice of bearing arms. In his Worship of Idols, he says, " though the soldiers came to John, and received a certain form to be observed, and though the centurion believed, yet Jesus Christ, by disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier afterward ; for custom never sanctions an unlawful act" In his Soldier^s Garland, he says, " can a soldier's life be lawful, when Christ has pronounced, that he who lives by the sword, shall perish by the sword ? Can one who professes the peaceable doctrines of the Gospel, be a soldier, when it is his duty not so much as to go to law ? And shall he who is not to revenge his own wrongs, be instrumental in bringing others into chains, imprisonment, torment, death ? " — " In all this conspiracy of evils against us," he asks, in his Apology, " what one evil have you observed to have been returned by Christians ? We could in a night's time have made ourselves ample satisfac- tion, had we not thought it unlawful to repay one injury with an- other ; but God forbid, that any of this divine sect should seek revenge. If we would not revenge ourselves in the dark, but chose to engage you in the open day, do you think we could want forces ? We are but of yesterday, and by to-day we overspread your empire. Your cities, your islands, your forts, towns, assem- blies, and very camps, wards, companies, palaces, senate, forum, all swarm with Christians. What war can we now be unprepared * This tract, though abridged, retains all the original facts and arguments, with a few additions. — Am Ed. P. T. NO. XXIII. % THE KAmLT CHWSTIANS ON WAR. 182 ibr,£d not oarrelipoD require us tio be kiUed ralher than tokiH?^ The fka. of CknstJsuiB beu^ in forts and cunps, is no proof that 4m^ neve there is soUSeis; and tbe svi^ioration is forbidden by ^he tcnwal tenor of Tertollian^ langoa^ a^nst war as unlawful ftr Onsdasis. If they uxre soUHers, it only proves, what is truo. tint 8one QoisliMB, even before tbe death of Tertullian, entered tiK «ni^, or more nralMSiIy, Tenoained in it after their conversion. CnwUK, in his EpisHf fo Donatts, speaks thus, ** When then i upon thy condition, thy thong-hts will rise in transpor.< i and praise to God for* havinor made thy escape from iJie I of the world. The things thou wilt principally obserA e te tiae Inghways beset with robbers, the seas with pirates ; en- marches, and all the terrible forms of war and blood- WIma a sing-le war is committjed, it shall be deemed per- kipB m crime; bat mA crime shall commence a virtue, when com- ■iillind onder &e ehdler of pobfic anthority ; so that punishment is not lafeed by fte measure of gmlx ; hut toe more enormous the ene of the wkfcednesa is, so much tbe greater is the chance of LCTJUTOirs, who lived some time aAer Cyprian, says, " it can ' he Ipwftd for a rigbteoins inan to 2T> to war."" To these wm^kt he added Archelafs, Ambrose, Chrtsostom, Jerome, nnd Cnn^ all of whom were of opinion, that it is unlawful for Qirif^Tis tx> ^igaoe in war. n. Wi& respect to lie i«ACTicE^lheearlvCftrulMiis, there is »^irefl aadMatioAed instance vspcm record of their entering into lor nearly the two first centuries, but they declined the iion as one in which it was not lawful for them to of evidence on this point may be found in ftds, Teftchino- from the year 170 to 195. Cassius the Emperor Vems, and was slain soon after. one part of the world, and Pcscennius Niger in reh^led Rgainst the Emperor Sleverus, and both were Now, siB^ncion fell, as it always did in those times, if any wrtmg, npon the Christians ; but Tertfixiai^ tells us that this fiOEpicion wrs totally groundless. " You defamed us,"^ m^s he, •by charging us with having bc^n guilty of treason to 1 ; for not a Christian could be found in any of the whether commanded by Cassius, Albinus, or Niger.*^ important facts : for tbe armies in question were very Cassius was master of all Syria with its four Legions : i^of the Asiatic and Egyptian Legions, and Albinus, of those "^Imn; which Legions together contained between a third hnlf cf the wtiiiiii^ Legions of Rome ; and the circura- w«B to be found in them, is tbe more re- ■e, because, according to the same TERxrixiAy, Chris- hnd ttm npnad over al _ . ^ over almost the whole of the known world. % A aeooad lycMH of evidence may be collected from expres- 183 THE EARLY CHSISTIAXS ON WAR. 3 skms and declaratkMis in certain anthms cS those times. Justqi Masttk and TATiAir wtdot duimdtiam» hebeet» mUim mmd ChiB- tiamt; and Cixmeks, of Akzandiia, gives the Cfanstians, who were contempcM-aiy with him, the appellation o€ At PeaeeMt, thus disHngviskxng thtmjrom othen ofAe ttorid; and he says ez- ]Kessly, tht PeactabU never Mse sword or bow, meaning bj these the iokniments of war. 3. A third species of evidence may be foond in the b^ie^ which the writers of these times had, }faat the praphecj of Isaah, tibat men should torn their swords into ploogh-slnfes, and tiieir speazs into pnming-hocAa, was then in the act of oonofletiaB. laEicjEus, about the year 180, affinns that this ftmans prophe q r had been completed in his time ; ^ for the C3insdan^* sajs he, <*have changed their swnds and lances into instraments of peaoe^ and tkof know not how to /ghLP Justin MAaTra, a HMw i ymi y with lasjfiEUS, asserts the same thing. *^ That the pn^riiecy,* says he, ** is fblfflled, yoa have good leastm to betieve ; for we who m times past kSled one ano&er, do not now JgU with owr ene- mies" And here it is observable, that the Grec^ word j^gM meana tojightasin war; and the Greek woid oitaqf means an caeniy of the State. Tertuixiazc, who lived after both, qwaks in these rema^able wor^ <^Deny that these (meaning Ihe tnnmig^ of swcnids into {doogfa-shares) are the things pn^thesied c^ nftai ysm see what jfou «ee, or that they are the things MBDedj when yam read wehal you read; hot if yoa deny neither o£ these iMMiili i MW, then joa most confess that the prophecy has been a <4'4l i mJiiihul , as far as the practice of every vsdaoidmtd is eameemed, to tdhsn d at oj^pHeahUJ* We might go from Tiam-UAjr eroi as far as Thb> ODORET, if it were necessary, to show that the pn^ihecj in ques- tion was considered as then in the act of compktion. 4. The fourth and last species of evidence may be foond in tibe charges of Cixsus, and the reply oi Origs^ Ceusvs, at the end of the secooA centnry, attacked the Chnstian ReUgioo, mask made it one of his charges, that Cknstiams r^matd to hear arms for the Emperor, even in cases of ^uc«.«>»j, woiud ha " their services womd have been accepted. He told that if the rest of the £mi«e woe of their (^linicHi, it woold soca be ovemm by the barbajriansL Now, Cei^us dared not haie biooght this charge, if the fact had not been pablicty known ; hot let ns see whether it was denied by those who tfaoogfat " demanded a reply. Orige^c, in the third cenbny, answ but, in his answer, he cuimits the facts as stated hy Celsma, Aof tte CTtristians womld not hear aarass, and jmgti/ka Aem eat Ow that war is wahmfid^^ OariaHama. As the eariy Christians woold not enter tiae they became converted there, they retinqpndied We find frcxn Terttixian, that many in his their conrtrsion to Christiamtyf qmUed At auiibuy aeraiet. We are told, also, by Archei^us, 278, tint many Ronan soldieis who had embraced Christiani!^ after liAving witnessed the piety 9mk 4 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 184 generosity of Marcellus, immediately forsook the profession of arms. We are tx)ld, also, by Eusebius, that about the same time numbers laid aside a military life, and became private persons ratfier than ab- jure their religion. Even Gibbon bears his sneering testimony to the pacific scru- ples of the early Christians. " The defence of our persons and property, they knew not how to reconcile with tlie patient doctrine which enjoined an unlimited forgiveness of past injuries ; nor could their humane ignorance be convinced, that it was lawful, on any occasion, to shed tlie blood of our fellow-creatures by the sword either of justice or of war, though their criminal or hostile at- tempts should threaten the peace or safety of the whole com- munity. The Christians felt and confessed, that such institutions might be necessary for the present system of the world, and they cheerfully submitted to the authority of their pagan governors ; but, while they inculcated the maxims of passive obedience," — svhmissionj a very different thing, — " they refused to take any ac- tive part in the civil administration or military defence of the em- pire." Here then are facts to show, that for nearly the first two centu- ries, no Christians would either take upon themselves, or con- tinue the profession of soldiers. But it may be said, tliat the mil- itary oath, taken in the Roman armies, and repeated annually, was full of idolatry ; that the Roman standards were 9.II considered as gods, and had divine honors paid them by the soldiery ; and that images of the Emperors were to be worshipped in the same manner. Now, these impious customs were interwoven with the military service ; nor was any soldier exempted from them. It will be urged, tlien, that no Christian could submit to such ser- vices. Indeed, when a person was suspected of being a Christian in those times, he was instantly taken to the altar to sacrifice, it being notorious that, if he were a Christian, he would not sacrifice, though the loss of his life was the certain consequence of his re- fiisal. An objector may say, that these idolatrous tests and customs operated as the great cause, why Christians refused to enter the army, or why they left it when converted. True ; these tests did operate as one cause. So Tertulltan states, and makes this one of his argument.s against the lawfulness of serving in the army. He says, " the military oath and the baptismal vow are inconsis- tent with each other, the one being the sign of Christ, the other of the Devil ;" and he calls the military standard " the Rival, or Enemy of Christ" All history confirms the fact Take the fol- lowing instance. Marinus, according to Eusebius, was a man of family and fortune, and an officer in a legion which in' SCO was stationed at Csesarea, Palestine. One of the centurion's rods hap- pened to become vacant in this legion, and Marinus was appointed to it ; but just at this moment anotlier, next in rank, accused him before the tribunal of being a Christian, stating, " that the laws did not allow a Christian who refused to sacrifice to the Emperors, 185 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. € to hold any dignity in the army." AchsBUS, the judge, asked Ma- rinus if it was true tliat he had become a Christian ? He acknow- ledged it ; and three hours were allowed him to consider whether he would sacrifice or die. When the time expired, he chose the latter. The history of those times is full of such instances ; and so desirous were the early Christians of keeping clear of idolatry in every shape, that they avoided every custom which appeared in the least degree connected with it. Thus when a largess was given in honor of the Emperors, L. Septimus Severus and his son, a solitary soldier, as we learn from Tertullian, carried the gar- land given him on that occasion, in his hand, while the rest wore it on their heads. The Church then held it unlawful to wear the garland, because it belonged to the dress of the heathen priests, when sacrificing to tlieir gods. On being interrogated by his commander why he refused wearing it, he replied, that he had become a Christian. He was immediately punished before the army, and sent into prison. But, while such idolatrous services hindered Christians from entering, and compelled them to leave the army, nothing is more true, than that the belief of its being unlawful for Christians to fight, occasioned an equal abhorrence of military life. There were three notions upon which this belief was grounded. 1. That it was their duty to love their enemies. The world was then full of divisions and bitterness. The Jews looked upon the Gen- tiles as dogs and outcasts, so as not even to tell them their road when asked, or give them a draught of water ; and the Gentiles, in turn, considered tlie Jews as the enemies of all nations, and haters of mankind. Nations, too, were set against each other on account of former and existing wars. Justin Martyr says, " we who once hated each other, and delighted in mutual quarrels and slaughter, and, according to custom, refused to sit at the same fire with those who were not of our own tribe and party, now since the appearance of Christ in the M^orld, live familiarly with them, pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade them who hate us un- justly, to order their lives according to the excellent precepts of Christ." Such was the practice of tie early Christians, as founded on this tenet. Tertullian says, " it was their peculiar character to love their enemies;" and Athenagoras, Julian and Lactan- Tius, make " this their character to have been a proof of the di- vinity of their religion." It was impossible for them, while em- bracing this heavenly tenet, even had the idolatrous services been dispensed with, to appear in the shape of warriors. 2. That it became them as Christians, to abstain from all man- ner of violence, and become distinguishable as the followers of peace. " The great King of Heaven," says Isidore of Pelusium, " came down from above to deliver rules for an heavenly conduct, which he has placed in a certain mode of contending quite contrary to that in the Olympic Games. There, he that fights, and gets the better, receives the Crown ; here, he that is struck, and bears it meekly, has the honor and applause. There, he that returns blow II THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 186 for blow ; here, he that turns the other cheek, is celebrated in the theatre of Angels ; for the victory is measured not by revenge, but by a wise and generous patience. This is the new law of Crowns, the new way of contending for the mastery." We find, accordingly, from Athenagoras and other early writers, that the Christians of their time abstained, when they were struck, from striking again, and carried their principles so far as even to refuse going to law with those Avho injured them. It was impossible for them, while interpreting the Scriptures in this manner, " to have used the sword or the bow in war." 3. Thai the. slmi^hter of men in war was neither more nor less than direct murder. They had such an abhorrence of murder, and of being thought to be implicated at all in so atrocious a crime, that they refused to be present where the life of a fellow-creature was taken away, whatever was the occasion. Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus Antiochenus, and Minutius Felix, all agree in asserting this. On these three grounds, independently of idolatrous practices in the army, the belief of the unlawfulness of war appears to have been universal among Christians of those times. Every Christian writer of the second century, who notices the subject, makes it un- lawful for Christians to bear arms ; and, as this belief seems to have been universal, so it operated as an impediment to a military life, quite as much as the idolatry connected with it, of which the following instances may suffice for illustration : Let us first take a case on this principle alone. Maximilian having been brought before the tribunal to be enrolled as a sol- dier, Dion, the Proconsul, asked him Iris name. Maximilian, turning to him, replied, " why wouldst thou know my name ? / am a Christian, and cannot Jight.^^ Then Dion ordered him to be enrolled, and bade tlie officer mark him ; but Maximilian refused to be marked, still asserting that he was a Christian ; upon Avhich Dion instantly replied, " bear arms, or thou shalt die." To this Maximilian answered, "I cannot fight, if I die ; I am not a soldier of this world, but a soldier of God." Dion then said, " who has persuaded thee to behave thus ? " Maximilian answered, " my own mind, and he who called me." Dion then spoke to his father, and bade him persuade his son ; but his father observed, that his son knew his own mind, and what it was best for him to do. After this had passed, Dion addressed Maximilian again in these words, " take thy arms, and receive the mark." " I can receive," says Maximilian, " no such mark. I have already the mark of Christ :" upon which Dion said, " I will send thee quickly to thy Christ" " Thou mayst do so," says Maximilian ; " but the glory will be mine." Dion then bade the officer mark him; but Maximilian still persisted in refusing, and spoke thus, " I cannot receive the mark of this world ; and, if thou shouldst give me the mark, I will destroy it. It will avail nothing. I am a Christian ; and it is not lawful for me to wear such a mark about my neck, when I have received the saving mark of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the 187 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 7 living God, whom thou knowest not, who died to give us life. Him all we Christians obey, and follow, as the Restorer of our life, and the Author of our salvation." Dion instantly replied, " take thy arms, and receive the mark, or thou shalt suffer a miser- able death." " But I shall not perish," says Maximihan ; " my name is already enrolled with Christ ; — / cannot Jighi.^^ Dion said, " consider then thy youth, and bear arms. The profession of arms becomes a young man." Maximilian replied, " my arms are with the. Lord. I cannot fghi for any earthly consideration. I am now a Christian.''^ The Proconsul continued, " among the life-guards of our masters, Dioclesian and Maximinian, and Constantius and Maximus, there are Christian soldiers, and they fight." Maximil- ian answered, "they know best what is expedient for them: but I am a Christian, and it is unlaivful to do evil.^^ Dion said, " take thy arms ; despise not the profession of a soldier, lest thou perish miserably." " But I shall not perish," says Maximilian ; " and, if I should leave this world, my soul will live with Christ the Lord." Dion then ordered his name to be struck from the roll, and pro- ceeded, " because out of tliy rebellious spirit, thou hast refused to bear arms, thou shalt be punished according to thy deserts, for an example to others." Then he delivered the following sentence : " Maximilian ! because thou hast, Avith a rebellious spirit, refused to bear arms, thou art to die by the sword." Maximilian replied, " thanks be to God." He was little more than twenty years old ; and, when he was led to the place of execution, he spoke thus, " my dear brethren, endeavor with all your might, tliat it may be your portion to see the Lord, and that he may give you such a Crown." Then, with a pleasant countenance, he said to his father, " give the execu- tioner the soldier's coat thou hast gotten for me ; and, when I shall receive thee in the company of the blessed martyrs, we may re- joice togetlier with the Lord." After this ho suffered. His mother, Pompeiana, obtained his body from the judge, and con- veyed it to Cartilage, and buried it near the place where the body of Cyprian the martyr lay. Thirteen days after this his mother Avas buried in the same place ; and Victor, his father, returned to his habitation, rejoicing and praising God, that he had sent before such a gift to the Lord, himself expecting to follow after. Let us now turn to a mixed case, yet still avoAving the same principle. Marcellus Avas a centurion in the Legion called Tra- jana. At a festival, given in honor of the birth-day of Galeriiis, he threw doAvn his military belt at the head of the Legion, and declared with a loud voice, that he would no longer serve in the army, because he had become a Christian. " I hold in detestation," says he, addressing the soldiers, "the Avorship of your gods ; gods, which are made of Avood and stone ; gods, Avhich are deaf and dumb." So far, Marcellus seems to have been influenced by the idolatry of the military service. But let us hear him further : " It is not lawful," says he, "for a Christian to bear arms for any earthly consideration." After a delay of more than three months 8 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 188 in prison, allowed for the purpose of sparing him, he was brought before the Prefect, and had an opportunity of correcting his former expressions ; but, as he persisted in the same sentiments, he suf- fered. It is remarkable tliat, almost immediately after his execu- tion, Cassian, tlie notary to the same Legion, refused to serve any longer, publicly throwing his pen and accompt-book on the ground, and declaring, that the sentence of Marcellus was unjust. When taken up by order of Aurelianus Agricolanus, he is described in the record preserved by Ruinart, to have avowed the same senti- ments as Marcellus, and like him to have suffered death. Here is another case on the same principle. Martin, of whom Sulpicius Severus says so much, had been bred to the profession of arms ; but on his conversion to Christianity, he declined it In his answer to Julian the Apostate for his conduct on tliis occasion,/ we find him using these words, " / awi a Christian, and therefore I cannot Jighty Let us quote the instance of Tarachus, another military man and martyr, and let tliis serve for all. He underwent his exami- nation at Tarsus in Cilicia, Numerianus Maximus sat as Presi- dent. " What is your name ? " says Maximus. " I am called Tarachus," says the prisoner, " by my father ; but my military name is Victor." " And what is your condition ?" " I have led a military life, and am a Roman. I was born at Claudiopolis, a city of Isauria, and, because I am a Christian, I have abandoned my pro- fession of a soldier.^'' Such was tlie answer usually given on such occasions, without arty specification as to which of the two principles had influenced the conduct of those M'ho were brought before them ; and, whenever we hear of such general apology or answer, we cannot doubt that tliey who made it, were actuated by both. TJve unlaafulness offsrhting was as much a principle of religion in the early times of Christianity, as the refusal of sacrifce to the heathen gods ; and tliey operated equally to prevent men from entering the army, and to drive them out of it on tlieir conversion. Indeed, these principles always went together, where the profes- sion of arms presented itself as an occupation for a Christian. He who refused the profession on account of its idolatry, would have refused it on account of the unlawfulness of fighting ; and he who refused it on account of the guilt of fighting, would have refused it on account of its idolatrous services. Both alike were impedi- ments to a military life ; and, though the noble martyrs we have mentioned, grounded their apology for declining military service, some on its idolatry, and others on the unlawfulness of fighting, yet their common plea was, that having become Christians, they could be no longer soldiers. m. We proceed now to the proof of our third point ; that not iUl Christianit}! became corrupted, did its followers become soldiers. In the two first centuries, when Christianity was the purest, there are no Christian soldiers upon record ; in the third century, when 189 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 9^ it became less pure, there is frequent mention of such soldiers ; but in the fourth, when its corruption was fixed, Christians entered generally upon the profession of arms with as little hesitation as they entered upon any other occupation of life. The ejfcellent character of the first Christians is well known ; but they sadly degenerated even in the third century. We have already stated that a Christian soldier was punished for refusing to wear a garland, like the rest of his comrades, on a public occa- sion. This man had been converted while in the army, and ob- jected to the ceremony on that accftunt. Now, Tertullian tells us, that this soldier was blamed for his unseasonable zeal, as it was called, by some of the Christians at that time, though all Christians before considered the wearing of such a garland as unlawful and profane. This blame or censure is the first expres- sion upon record, from which we may date the beginning of con- formity on the part of the early Christians with the opinions of the world. There were then, as Tertullian confesses, certain Christian casuists, who had so far degenerated as to think that many of the heathen customs might be complied with, though strictly forbidden by the Church ; in fact, that they might go any length, without the just imputation of idolatry, provided they did not sacrifice to the pagan gods, or become heathen priests. Indeed, his whole book on the Worship of Idols, is a continued satire on the occasional conformity of his brethren even in the third cen- tury ; in other words, of an occasional mercenary compliance with the pagan worship. At this time there is no question but the Christian discipline began to relax. To the ease which the Chris- tians enjoyed from the death of Antoninus to the tenth year of Severus, is to be ascribed the corruption that ensued. This cor- ruption we find to have spread rapidly. Tertullian lived long enough to see that several bearing the name of Christians, but who were no doubt the disciples of the casuists just mentioned, had entered the Roman annies. This fact we find in his Apology, one of his latest works ; for when the pagans charged the Chris- tians, as they had pretty constantly done, with being useless to the commonwealth, he answers the accusation in part by saying, that there were then Christians in tlie military service. " We serve," says he, " with you and your armies ;" a very different answer this, to that which Origen gave Celsus on a similar charge respecting what had been tlie state of things in the second cen- tury, as appears in a former page ! But the corruption did not stop here. The same Tertullian was enabled to furnish us with the extraordinary instance of manufacturers of idols being admitted into the ecclesiastical order! Many corruptions are also noticed in this century by other writers. Cyprian complained of them in the middle, and Eusebius at the end of it : and both attributed them to the ease and security which the Christians had enjoyed. The latter gives us a melancholy account of their change. They had begun to live in fine houses, and to indulge in luxuries ; but, above all, to be envious and quarrelsome, to dissemble, and cheat, and 10 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 190 falsify their loord, so that they had lost the character w hich Pliny, an adversary to their religion, had been obliged to give of tlieni, and which they had retained for more than a century afterwards. That there were Christian soldiers in this more corrupt century of the Church, it is impossible to deny ; for such frequent mention is made of them in the histories of this period, that there were in the armies either men who called themselves Christians, or men who had that name given them by others. That tliey were rtal Christians, is anotlier question. They were probably such Chris- tians as the casuists of Tertullian, or such as Dion mentioned to have been among the life-guards of Dioclesian and Maximil- ian, of Constantius and Maximus, of whom Maximilian tlie martyr observed, " tliese men may know what it is expedient for tliem to do ; but I am a Christian, and therefore cannot fight" That real Christians cotlld have been found in the army in this century is impossible ; for the military oatli full of idolatry, the worshipping of the standards, and the performance of sacrifice, still continued as services not to be dispensed with by the soldiery. No one, therefore, can believe, that men in the full practice of pagan idol- atry, as every legionary soldier must then have been, were real Christians, merely because it is recorded in history, that men, calling themselves Christians, were found in the army in those times. On the other hand, if any soldiers professed Christianity at this period, or are related by authors to have professed it, and yet remained soldiers, it may be directly pronounced, that they could have been merely nominal or corrupted Christians. Christianity was still more degenerate in the fourth century. Let us look at the evidence of Lactantius in his book on the Death of the Persecuted. He tells us " the sacrifices did not do well, when any of the Christians attended them.^^ What ! Christians present at the heathen sacrifices, and sitting at meat in the idol's temple ! But this is not all. He gives us in the same book another piece of information about the Christian conformists of his time. " The Emperor," says he, " while in the East, made a sac- rifice of oxen, and endeavored to ascertain, by inspection of the entrails, what was about to happen. At this time, some Christians, who filed the inferior oj^ces of the {heathen) priesthood, ivhile giving their assistance to the high priest on this occasion, marked their fore- heads with the sign of the cross. The consequence was, that the aruspices were frightened, and could not collect their usual marks." Here then we see not only that Christians were present at some of the heathen sacrifices, but that they filled offices belonging to the lowest order of the pagan hierarchy. We may go still fur- ther, and assert upon authority undeniable, that it was no uncom- mon thing in this age for Christians to accept heathen priesthoods ; for the Council of Elvira, in tlie beginning of the fourth century, was forced to make several canons to forbid such scandalous iisnges. But it is not necessary to detail these or other particulars ; almost every body knows that more evils sprang up to the Church in this century, than in any other. Indeed, the corruption of Christianity 191 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 11 was then fixed as it tvere by law. Constantine, on his conversion, introduced many of the pagan ceremonies and superstitions in which he had been brought up. The Christians, rejoicing to see an Emperor of their own religious persuasion, submitted, in order to please or flatter him, to his idolatrous customs and opinions. Many who had always been heathens, professed themselves Chris- tians at once, merely out of compliment to their Emperor. Thus there came to be a mixture of Christianity and Heathenism in the Church. Constantine, too, did not dispense with the blasphemous titles of Pontifex Maximus, Divinity and Eternity, given to his predecessors. Ajfler his death, he was considered also as a god; and, if Philostorgius is to be believed, the Christians, for so he . calls them, prayed to and ^worshipped him as such. Now, in this century, when the corruption of the Church was fixed, and Christians had submitted to certain innovations upon their religion, they were in a fit state to go greater lengths ; and this they did in the relaxation of their religious scruples respecting war. This relaxation was also promoted by other means. The existing government, in order to make the military service more palatable to them, dispensed with the old military oath, and allowed them to swear " by God, by Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, and by the Majesty of the Emperor, which, next to God, was to be loved and honored by mankind." This political mancBUvre did away, in some measure, apart of the ohjection to a military life, tvhich arose from its idolatries. The grand tenet on war began also to be frit- tered down by some of the leading clergy themselves. It had been formerly held unlawful for Christians to fight at all ; it was now insinuated as if it was allowable if they fought under the banners of Christian Emperors, for bloodshed in war was more excusable in the cause of virtue and religion. This new interpretation of the old tenet afforded a salvo to the consciences of many, and helped to take off that other part of the ohjection to a military life, which consisted in the unlawfulness of fighting. Hence the unlaw- fulness of fighting began to be given up. We find, however, that here and there, an ancient Father still retained it as a religious tenet ; but, these dropping off one afler another, it ceased at length to be a doctrine of the Church, and lefl her to all Jthe deep war- degeneracy of subsequent ages. Thus have we proved every point essential to our main posi- tions : 1. That the eariy Fathers generally use language which ob- viously condemns all war, and not a few of them explicitly de- nounce it as utterly unchristian : 2. That they all speak of the ancient prophecies concerning the prevalence of peace under the gospel, as actually fulfilled in the Christians of that age : 3. That Christians then abstained from war as unlawful for them, and suffered martyrdom for their refusal to bear arms : 12 THE EARLY CHRISTIANS ON WAR. 192 4. That ancient and modern infidela unite in ascribing to them these peculiar views: 5. That Celsus, near the close of the second century, charged them with refusing to bear arms under any circumstances, and Origen, in his reply fifty years after, did not deny the charge, but justified them on the ground, tliat Christianity forbids war : 6. That the war-degeneracy of the Church began very early in the third century, and went so far in the fourth, that under and after Constantine the Great, Christians engaged in war, as they generally have ever since, with as little scruple as they did in any occupation of life. We cannot well conceive what farther proof any fair mind can ask ; but we might add, that a strong odium among Christians ^ attached for centuries to the trade, of blood, the canons of the Church expressly prohibiting the ordination of any that had ever been soldiers, and refusing it, so late as the Council of Toledo, to all such persons, even tliough they had never been concerned in the shedding of blood. War was an object of deep, utter abhor- rence to the early followers of Christ ; and we deem it high time for his modern disciples to revive the primitive faith and practice on this subject How would such a revival exalt the Christian name, recommend our religion to the world, and pave the way for its universal spread and triumph ! Testimony of Dr. Cave. — "No sooner did the gospel fly abroad, but the love and charity of Christians became notorious even to a proverb. There is one circumstance respecting it wor- tliy of special notice, and that is, the universal extent of it ; thy did good to all, though more especially to them of the household of faitli. They were kind to all men, yea, to their bitterest ene- mies. This, indeed, is the proper goodness and excellency of Christianity, as Tertullian observes, it being common to all men to love their friends, but peculiar only to Christians to love their enemies. Athenagoras principally makes use of this argument to prove the divinity of the Christian religion, and challenges all the great masters of reason and learning among the heathens to produce any of so pure and refined a temper, as could, instead of hating, love their enemies, bear curses and revilings with an undisturbed mind, and, instead of reviling again, bless and speak well of them, and pray for those that lay in wait to take away their lives. And yet this did Christians ; they embraced their enemies, and pardoned and prayed for them. Nay, they did not think it enough not to return evil for evil, or barely forgive their enemies, unless they did them all the kindness that lay in their power." AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. ***' No. XXIV. ■ WAR-DEBTS. We propose to sketch the war-debts, not of the whole world, but of Europe alone. Their exact amount it is impossible to as- certain, first, because its governments often conceal the sum total of their obligations ; next, because the debts, even when reported, are frequently made up of items resembling the treasury-notes of Sweden issued without computation or limit ; and, finally, because the provincial debts, whicli form so large a part especially in the south of Europe, are often omitted entirely from governmental re- ports. We can, therefore, make only an approximation to the truth; and, while quoting official estimates that are sometimes studiously false, and generally underrated, we must leave the reader to make suCh allowances as the foregoing considerations may seem to require. I. Great Britain. — Charles IL, 1600, commenced the British debt by granting life-annuities for money furnished to support his habits of extravagance and profligacy ; but it reached, at the abdication of James IL, 1688, only $3,300,000. William III., passionately fond of war, and deeply interested in the intrigues and contests of Europe, not only multiplied taxes, but augnjented the debt more than $100,000,000. The Spanish War under Anne, 1702-13, added $187,500,000, and tliat of nine years, 1739-48, under George II., $157,500,000 more. The Seven Years' War, 1756-63, added to the taxes of England $175,000,000, and to her debt-$357,500,000. Her first war with us extorted from her in taxes $240,000,000, and in loans $515,000,000 ; in all, $755,000,- 000 ! Nine years of war with France, from 1793 to 1802, added $900,000,000, to her taxes, and $1,460,000,000 to her debt ; while her subsequent wars with Napoleon, 180^15, cost her in loans $1,680,000,000, and $1,130,000,000 in taxes, carrying her entire debt in 1815 up to $4,325,000,000 ! I * * We subjoin a brief table of the British national debt from its origin to 1838 5 estimating- a pound sterling in round numbers at five dollars : 1660-1689. Debt contracted under Charles II and James XL, ^3,f?00.000 1689-1697. Contracted in the Revolution under William III., 105,000,000 1702-1713. In the war of the Spanish Succession under Anne, 187,300,000 Total Debt in 1713, 270,000,000 1739-1748 In the war with Spain, and the Austrian Succession, 157,500,000 1756-1763. In the Seven Years' War, 367,500,000 Total Debt in 1763, 732,500,000 1775-1783. In the American War 615,000.000 Total Debt in 1783, 1,195,000^000 1793-1802. In the war of the French Revolution, . . . . 1,460,000,000 Total Debt in 1802, 2,630,0(X),000 1803-1815. In the peace of 1802-3, and war with Napoleon, 1,695,000,000 Total Debt in LS15, 4,325,000,000 Total Debt in 1838, 3,960,000,000 P. T. NO. XXIV. ti WAR-DEBTS. 194 It is surprising that any nation on earth should be able to stand under a debt so enormous. No other one could ; nor could Eng- land herself, if nearly the whole sum were not due to her own citizens. Sooner oriater, however, a day of reckoning must come ; and a terrible day will that be to England, or at least to her monied aristocracy. What enormous taxes must such a debt impose ! nearly $150,000,000 a year to pay simply the interest and management! " Taxes," says the Edinburgh Review, " upon every article which enters the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the feet ; taxes upon every thing which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell or taste ; taxes upon warmth, light and locomotion ; taxes upon every thing on the earth, and in the waters under the earth ; taxes on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at home ; taxes on the raw material, and upon every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man ; taxes on the sauce that pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health ; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal ; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice ; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride. Taxes we never escape ; at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The school-boy whips his taxed top, the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, upon a taxed road ; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, makes his will on an eight pound stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for tlie privilege of putting him to death. His whole prop- erty is immediately taxed from two to ten p«r cent Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel ; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble ; and then he is gathered to his fathers — to be taxed no more." There is, however, one important benefit resulting from the British debt It makes England reluctant to engage in war ; and well were Canning and Brougham wont to say, s^ was under bonds of eight hundred millions sterling to keep the peace. Even she, with all her wealth, could not sustain another series of wars like those she waged against Napoleon and the French. There is now no alternative for her but peace, or bankruptcy and ruin. II. France. — The history of her debt, written in the blood of her revolutions, it would be very interesting to trace ; but it must suffice here to say, that in 1830, it was 4,515,605,834 francs, and in 1840, was slightly reduced to 4,457,736,996. III. Russia. — The resources of this empire are small in com- parison with its vast extent, its annual revenue being rated at 380,000,000 rubles, or only about $75,000,000. It is impossible to learn the precise amount of the Russian debt McCulloch puts It at 956,337,574 rubles ; but the Conversation's Lexicon says it amounted in 1840 to 869,411,191 rubles. 195 WAR-DEBTS. 3 IV. Holland. — The Dutch are, if possible, worse off than the English. The debt of Holland in 1840 amounted to 800,000,- 000 German dollars, and that of Belgium to 120,000,000. The solvency of Holland is very doubtful ; for her expenses since 1830 have almost invariably exceeded her income, and thus her debt has been constantly increasing. The Dutch have tried every ex- pedient to extricate themselves, reducing the perquisites of royalty so low as to make their king little more than a burgomaster, and paring down their protective duties so as to secure the largest pos- sible amount of revenue ; yet, after all, bankruptcy is staring them in the face. What a catastrophe for a nation that once stood at' the head of the commerce of the world ! V. Spain. — The profligacy of Spain in repudiating or evading her obligations, renders it impossible to tell how much she now owes ; but, according to semi-official statements, her entire debt, in October, 1841, was $775,000,000: This sum is divided into an internal and an external debt. The latter is near $316,000,000, chiefly due to English capitalists ; but even the interest has not been paid for a long period. VI. Portugal. — The financial condition of Portugal resembles that of Spain. Her whole debt amounted in 1840 to 144,500,000 German dollars; and her income the same year was rated at 8,000,000 Spanish dollars, while her expenses were estimated at $11,000,000. VII. Denmark. — Of the Danish debt, we can form no certain estimate ; but, at the close of 1839, it was put at 62,786.804 rix dollars unftlnded debt, 5,390,385 funded debt, and 1,423,841 annuities, with an internal debt of 69,601,031 ; in all, 134,202,061. We have not space to give in detail the deists of other coun- tries. The different principalities of Germany owed in 1840, a sum total of 650,000,000 German dollars ; Austria, 733,200,000 convention florins ; Prussia, 130,000,000 rix dollars ; Bavaria, 126,550,907 florins; Naples, 108,000,000 ducats, and Sardinia, 87,000,000 crowns. The sum total of European debts exceeds ten thousand millions of German dollars ; and, if we make due allowance for the coun- tries omitted, and for estimates below the truth, the whole in 1840 would probably not be less than the same number of Spanish dol- lars. Ten thousand millions ! What an amount of war-debts for Europe alone ! Five times as much as all the coin on the globe ; the bare interest, at six per cent, $600,000,000 a year, almost two millions every day ! the simple interest nearly as much every day as all Christendom is giving annually ^ox the spread of the gospel! These liabilities we call tt'ar-debts. So they are ; they were contracted almost exclusively for war purposes ; had there been no war, there would have been no debt ; and, were the war-system now discarded, all Europe could in fifty years, most of her states in far less time, pay off the last farthing of her enormous obliga- tions, and thus start, unfettered and unclogged, upon a new, un- paralleled career of prosperity WAR-DEBTS. 196 We subjoin a genenl view of European debts in German dol- lars, equal to about eighty-two cents each. CoutUry. Debts. Inhahitavts. Aver, to each inhab. Holland, $800,000,000 3,000,000 $266.67 England, 5,556,000,000 25,000,000 222.24 Frankfort, 5,000,000 55,000 90.91 France, 1,800,000,000 33,000,000 54.55 Bremen, 3,000,000 55,000 54,55 Hamburg, 7,000,000 155,000 45.16 Denmark, 03,000,000 2,100,000 44.57 Greece, 44,000,000 1,000,000 44.00 Portugal, 141,000,000 3,800,000 38.G3 Lubec, 1,700,000 45,000 37.78 Spain, 467,000,000 13,000,000 35.92 Austria, 380,000,000 12,000,000 31.67 Belgium, 120,000,000 4,000,000 30.00 Papal States, 67,000,000 2,500,000 26.80 Hesse-Hamburg, 587,000 25,000 23.48 Saxe-Meiningen, 3,000,000 140,000 21.43 Anhalt-Kothen 800,000 39,000 20.51 Brunswick, - 5,000,000 260,000 19.23 Bavaria, 72,350,000 4,250,000 17.00 Naples, 126,000,000 7,600,000 16.58 Saxe-Weimar, 3,000,000 240,000 12.50 Hanover, :ir',ooo,ooo 1,700,000 11.47 Prussia, 150.000,000 13,500,000 11.11 Nassau, 3.700,000 370,000 10.00 Russia &. Poland,545,000,000 60,000,000 9.09 Baden, 11,000,000 1,250,000 8.80 Wiirtemburg, 14,000,000 1,600,000 8.75 Parma, 3,700,000 430,000 8.60 Hesse-Darmstadt, 6,250,000 800,000 7.81 Modena, 3,000,000 403,000 7.44 Sardinia, 32,000,000 4,500,000 7.11 Saxony, 11,000,000 1,700,000 6.47 Saxe-Altenburg, 700,000 120,000 5.83 Norway 4,125,000 1,000,000 4.13 Mecklenburg, 2,000,000 600,000 3.38 Saxe-Coburg, 1,600,000 Hesse-Cassel, 1,256,000 700,000 1.79 Schwarzburg, 150,000 116,000 1.29 $10,409,710,000 201,053,000 $52.23 P. S. — For further information on this subject, see McGregor's CormncrcifU. Lcgu/lation, McCulloch's Statistical Dictiojiary^ Hunt's Merchants Magazine for 18!r<, Conversation s Lexicon der Gegenwart. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. J ' . No. XXV. RESULTS OF ONE WAR AMONG NOMINAL CHRISTIANS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. War has ever been a mass of evils ; and a review of its history would exhibit, in every age and clime, essentially the same re- sults, physical, political and moral. Every reader of history is familiar with the so called Thirty Years' War, which raged in the heart of Europe from 1618 to 1648. . It was a religious war, and involved tlie great mass of Papists and Protestants, — the former under their Catholic League, the latter in their Evangelical Union. Schiller, in his history of this war, says, " from the interior of Bohemia to the mouth of the Scheldt, from the banks of the Po to the coasts of the Baltic, it desolated countries, destroyed harvests, and laid towns and villages in ashes ; extinguished, during half a century, the rising progress of civilization in Germany ; and re- duced the improving manners of the people to their ancient bar- barism." We have been wont to regard the wars consequent on the French Revolution, as teaching lessons of atrocity and horror unknown before ; but the following items, taken from the biogra- pher of Wallenstein, furnish some parallels even to the Russian Campaign. " Thirty years of war, carried on not with the surplus population and resources of the country, but with its very capital and sub- stance, had brought the empire to the verge of ruin and barba-"^ rism ; and the pictures of desolation handed down to us by writers and chroniclers of the period, are absolutely frightful to cojitem- plate. Of all the commanders who appeared during the war, Gustavus Adolphus was alone able to preserve in his army a strict and humane system of discipline. In most of the armies, the merce- nary soldiers, irregularly paid, and worse supplied, were obliged to tear by force from the citizens and peasants, the means of sub- sistence. The country people resisted wherever they were strongest ; acts of violence followed ; the peasantry slew and, in Catholic countries, tortured straggling soldiers, and attacked even small detached parties. The military avenged their comrades, neglecting too often to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, till ruin and devastation tracked at last the progress of every march. The war was carried on without plan or system. Expeditions were undertaken, apparently with no other view than to desolate hostile provinces ; and, in the end, provisions and winter quarters formed the principal objects of the summer campaigns. Want, p. T. NO. XXV. 2 RESULTS OF ONE WAR. 198 sickness, distress, and tho total absence of discipline, by which these evils were fearruiiy aug^mented, destroyed far more troops than the sword, and entire armies were swept away before they had even seen an enemy. Soldiers left the ranks singly, or in bands, as it suited them, and generally took to plundering ; in 1G42 the whole of Marshall Gubriant's army dispersed itself, and broke into robber hordes that conmiitted the most fearful depreda- tions. The enormities charj^ed against the French troops of the period, are equal to those charg^ed even against the Croats ; but Gubriant's army was in fact the remains of the army which had been raised by the Duke of Weimar, and was composed of adventurers from all countries. It must also be observed, that the French soldiers of the early part of the seventeenth century, were in a great pro- portion vagrants and vagibonds, taken up as bad subjects by the police, and sent to the army, either because troops were wanted, or because the individuals pressed could give no satisfactory ac- count of themselves. Historians mostly assert, that Europe was thrown back a whole century by the ruinous consequences of this war. In many parts of Germany learning was no doubt retarded, in others altogether swept away along with tlie population. An entire generation grew up amid scenes of strife, licentiousness, and the uncertainty of the morrow. But the amount of knowledge existing could not be destroyed ; and thousands of learned, able and industrious Ger- mans emigrated, and carried along with tliem into other and less enlightened countries, the arts and knowledge for which tlieir own was already distinguished. The Danes, Swedes, Poles and Scots, who fought in Germany, there came in contact with a state of , civilization superior to vv hat existed in their own countries ; and, along with much unwortliy spoil, some fair and honorable booty would at least be carried home by the military adventurers. But, whatever advantage Europe may have gained by the con- test, Germany purchased its share of the benefit at a fearful price. Law, justice, equity, in many places, all the decencies of life, had entirely vanished from a land in which force alone wielded the arbitrary sceptre of command. The country is said to have lost twelve millions of inhabitants by the contest ; and the population, which amounted to sixteen millions when the troubles first broke out, counted hardly more than fo»ir millions when the war closed ! Though this statement mny perhaps be exaggerated, it seems pretty well ascertained th it tlie population of the Dutchy of Wir- temberg was reduced fiom half a million to forty-eight thousand ; that of Bohemia had alroady been reduced from three millions to eight hundred and ninety thousand before the death of Ferdinand II. ; and Saxony and Brunswick suffered in the same proportion ; — a reduction in one case of nearly three-fourths, in another of more than nine-tenths ! In the Electorate of Hesse, seventeen towns, forty-seven castles, and three hundred villages had been burnt to the ground. In the 199 RESULTS OF ONE WAR. 3 Dutchy of Wirtemberg, eight towns, forty-five villages, and thirty- six thousand houses, had been laid in ashes, and seventy thousand hearth fires completely extinguished. Seven churches, and four hundred and forty-four houses, had been burned at Eichsted. Many towns that had escaped destruction, were almost depopu- lated. Three hundred houses stood empty at Nordheim ; and more than two hundred had been pulled down at Gottingen, merely to serve for fuel. The wealthy city of Augsburg, which contained eighty thousand inhabitants before the war, had only eighteen thousand left when it closed ; and this town, like many others, has never recovered its former prosperity. No less than thirty thousand villages and hamlets are said to have been destroyed ; in many others the population had entirely died out ; and the unburied corpses of the last victims of violence or disease, were left exposed about the streets or fields, to be mangled, and torn to pieces by birds and beasts of prey. In the last campaign of the war, the French and Swedes burned no less than a hundred villages in Bavaiia alone ; and the skulls of St. Cosmas and St. Damianus had to be sent from Bremen to Munich, in order to console Maximilian for the ruin he had brought over his beautiful country. But even these pitiable relics failed to allay the fears of the unhappy Elector; the share which he had taken in bringing about this desolating contest, pressed heavily on the latter years of his life. In vain he prayed and fasted ; the dreadful future was constantly before his sight, and the once valiant soldier and ambitious prince died at last a trem- bling and despairing bigot. The crimes and cruelties of which the troops were frequently guilty, would appear almost incredible, were they not attested in a manner to render doubt altogether impossible. But independent of private accounts, we have various reports from the authorities of towns, villages and provinces, complaining of the atrocities committed by the lawless soldiery. Peaceful peasants were hunt- ed for mere sport, like the beasts of the forest ; citizens were nailed up against doors and walls, and fired at like targets ; while horsemen and Croats tried their skill at striking off the heads of young -children at a blow ! Ears and noses were cut off, eyes were scooped out, and the most horrible tortures contrived to ex- tract money from the sufferers, or to make them disclose where property was concealed ! Women were exposed to every species of indignity ; they were collected in bands, and driven, like slaves, into the camps of tlie ruffian soldiery, and men had to fly from their homes to escape witnessing the dishonor to which their wives and daughters were subjected ! Houses and villages were burnt out of mere wantonness, and the wretched inhabitants too often forced into tlie flames, to be consumed along with their dwellings. Amid these scenes of hor- ror, intemperance, dissipation and profligacy were carried to the highest pitch. Intoxication frequently prevented the Austrian Greneral, Goltz, from giving out the countersign ; and General 4 RESULTS OF ONE WAR. 200 Banner was, on one occasion, so drunk for four days logether, that he could not receive the French ambassador, Beauregurd, who had an important message to deliver. ' Such was the state of triumphant crime,' says a writer of the period, 'that many, driven to despair, denied even the existence of a Deity, declaring that, if there were a God in heaven, he would not fail to destroy with thunder and lightning, such a world of sin and wickedness.' The peasants, expelled from their homes, enlisted witli the op- pressors, in order to inflict upon others the sufferings which they had themselves been made to endure. The fields were allowed to run waste, and the absence of industry on one side, added to de- struction on the other, soon produced famine which, as usual, brought infections and pestilential diseases in its train. In 1635, there were not hands enough left at Schweidnitz to bury the dead, and the town of Ohlau had lost its last citizen. Want augmented crime, even where an increase was thought impossible. In many places hunger had overcome all repugnance to human flesh, and the tales of cannibalism handed down to us are of far too horrible a nature to be here repeated. The cup of human sufiering was full even to overflowing, and the very aspect of the land was undergoing a rapid change. For- ests sprung up during the contest, and covered entire districts, which had been in full cultivation before the war; and wolves, and other beasts of prey took possession of the deserted haunts of men. This was particularly the case in Brunswick, Brandenburg and Pomerania, where heaps of ashes in the midst of wildernesses, served long afterwards to mark the spots where peace and civiliza- tion had once flourished. In many parts of the country, the ruins' of castles and stately edifices still attest the fury with which the war was carried on ; and on such s[X)ts tradition generally points out tlie surrounding forests, as occupying tlie sites of fertile fields, whence the lordly owners of the mansions derived food and sub- sistence for themselves and their numerous retainers." If the evils of war can of themselves dissuade men from the practice, why did not such evils as these prevent the terrible wars of the next century ? How came all Europe to plunge into the wars of the French Revolution ? Why have the latter done so much more to bring tlie custom of war into discredit, disuse and abhorrence ? Mainly, if not solely, because the friends of peace have kept its leading facts before the world, culled from them lessons of peace, and pressed these lessons incessantly upon the public mind. This it is that has under God held Europe for thirty years (1845) back from her former wars, and led her cabinets to begin the policy of adjusting their difficulties by pacific means. Let this policy continue a century, and it would probably put an end forever to the war-method of settling tlieir disputes. " This can be done ; make public sentiment what it should be, and it tmll be done. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XXVI. NECKAR ON PEACES OR THE CALAMITIES OP WAR, AND THE BLESSINGS OP PEACE. BY M. NECKAR.* With what impatience have I wished to discuss this subject ! How irresistibly has my heart been led to expatiate on the evils which are ever attendant on this terrible calamity ! War, alas ! impedes the course of every salutary plan, exhausts the sources of prosperity, and diverts the attention of governors from the happi- I ness of nations. It even suspends, sometimes, every idea of justice and humanity. In a word, instead of gentle and benevolent feel- ings, it substitutes hostility and hatred, the necessity of oppression, and the rage of desolation. The first idea that occurs to me when reflecting on the origin of most wars, is, that those great combinations of politics which have so often kindled the torch of discord, and occasioned so many ravages, have very seldom merited all the admiration that has been so lavishly bestowed upon them. I have also been forcibly struck with this consideration, that most governments appear satis- fied, if at the conclusion of a bloody and expensive war, they have made an honorable peace ; but each should consider what would have been its situation at the period when the treaty was con- cluded, if war had not interrupted the course of its prosperity. Let us suppose France obliged to alienate from fifty to sixty million francs of its annual revenue for the prosecution of a given war ; and let us next take a cursory view of the different uses to which such a revenue might have been applied, not only for the advancement of the national happiness, but for the augmentation of the military force. With eighteen millions of that annual reve- nue, the regimental companies might hive been completed to their full complement, and the army auoi rented by fifty thousand in- fantry, and ten or twelve thousand Ijorse. Two millions of that revenue would pay the interest of a loan of forty millions, which would have added to our navy thirty men-of-war, and a propor- tionate number of frigates ; and this augmentation might have been maintained by four millions yearly. Thus we see twenty- four millions of that revenue devoted solely to the military service. Let us now apply the surplus to the various parts of administra- tion, and consider the result. With eighteen millions yearly, the price of salt might have been rendered uniform throughout the kingdom, by reducing it one-third in the provinces of little gabels, (the excise on salt,) and two-thirds in those of the great, and not * Formerly Minister of Finance. From his celebrated work on the Fi- nances of France. P. T. NO. XXVI. 2 NECKAR ON PEACE. increaBiDg the charges of the privileged provinces. With from four to five millions annually, the interior parts of the kingdom might have been freed from all custom-house duties. With 2,500,000 livres, all the necessary canals might have been exe- cuted, that are still wanting in the kingdom. With one million more per annum, government might be enabled to bestow suf- ficient encouragement on all the establishments of industry that can advance the prosperity of France. With 1,500,000 livres, the sums annually destined to give employment to the poor, might be doubled ; and, while great advantages would thus accrue to the in- habitants of the country, the neighboring communications might be multiplied. With the same sum, the prisons throughout the kingdom might in a few years be improved, and all tJie charitable institutions brought to perfection. And with 2,000,000 annually, the clearing of the waste lands might proceed with incredible vigor. These distributions amount to thirty-one millions, which, joined to twenty-four millions for military expenses, make together the annual revenue of fifty -five millions employed as above ; a sum equal to that which I have supposed to be alienated for the disbursements of the war. Nor is this all ; for, if we estimate the diminution of commerce which results from a war of five or six years' duration, it will be found that the kingdom is deprived of a considerable increase of riches. In fine, war, and the loans which it occasions, create a very sensible rise in the rate of interest. On the contrary, peace, under a wise administration, would lower it annually, were it only in consequence of the increase of specie, and of the influence of the stated reimbursements. This successive reduction of interest is likewise a source of inestimable advantages to commerce, agri- culture and the finances. Let tliese eflTects be now compared with the advantages which a fortunate Avar (and all wars are not so) would secure ; and it will be found that ten seeds have been sown, in order to gather the fruit of one. A government may humble its rivals, and extend its dominions ; but to employ its resources for the happiness of its subjects, and command respect witliout the assistance and dan- gers of an ever restless policy, is a conduct which alone can cor- respond to the greatness of its situation, or secure all the advan- tages to be derived from it It is not Avar, but a wise and pacific administration, that can procure all the advantages of which France may be yet in want The quantity of specie in the king- dom is immense; but the want of public confidence very often occasions the greater part of it to be hoarded up. The population of the kingdom is immense ; but the excess and nature of the taxes impoverish and dishearten the people. The revenue is im- mense ; but the public debt consumes two-fifths of it The contri- butions of the nation, in particular, are immense ; but it is only by the strengthening of public credit, that government can succeed in finding sufficient resources in extraordinary emergencies. Finally, *he balance of commerce in favor of the kingdom is an inrniense source of riches ; but war interrupts the current. 203 NECKAR ON PEACE. What, then, would be the case, if we join to all these consider- ations, the calamities inseparable from war ? How would it ap- pear, should we endeavor to form an estimate of the lives and sufferings of men ? In the midst of a council convened to in- fluence the opinion of the sovereign, the most upright of his servants might address him in this language : — " Sire, war is the source of so many evils, it is so terrible a scourge, that a gracious and discerning Prince ought never to undertake it but from motives of justice that are indisputable; and it behoves the greatest monarch in the world to give that example of the morality of kings which assures the happiness of humanity, and the tranquillity of nations. Do not give way, Sire, to vain anxieties, or to uncertain expectations. Ah ! what have you to fear, and what can excite your jealousy? You reign over 26,000,000 of men. Providence, with a bountiful hand, has dif- fused the choicest blessings through your empire by multiplying the productions of every kind. The war proposed will cost you eiglift or nine hundred millions ; and, were even victory every where to follow your arms, you will devote to death, or cruel sufferings, so great a number of your subjects, that were any one, who could read futurity, to present you this moment with the list, you would start back with horror. I^pr is this all ; your people, who have scarcely had a respite, you are going to crush with new taxes. You are going to slacken the activity of commerce and manufac- tures, those inestimable sources of industry and wealth ; and, in order to procure soldiers and seamen, the men accustomed to the cultivation of the earth, will be forced from the interior provinces, and a hundred thousand families deprived of their supporters. "And when crowned by the most splendid success, after so many evils, after so many calamities, what may you perhaps obtain? An unsteady ally, uncertain gratitude, an island more than two thousand leagues from your empire, or some new subjects in another hemisphere. Alas ! you are invited to nobler conquests. Turn your eyes to the interior parts of your kingdom. Consider what communications and canals may still be wanting. Behold those pestilential marshes which ought to be drained, and those deserted lands which would be cultivated on the first tender of support from government Behold that part of your people whom a diminution of taxes would excite to new undertakings. Look, more especially, on that other tmly wretched class, who stand in immediate need of succor in order to support the misery of their situation. In the mean time, in order to'' effectuate so many bene- fits, a small part of the revenues which you are going to consume in the war to which you are advised, would perhaps be sufficient. Are not the numerous inhabitants of your extensive dominions sufficient to engage your paternal love ? And is not their happi- ness equal to the greatest extent of good which it is in the power of a single man to perform ? "But if you are desirous of new subjects, you may acquire them without the effusion of blood, or the triumphs of a battle ; for they will spring up in every part of your empire, fostered by the benefit 4 NECKAR ON PEACE. 204r cent means that are in your hands. A good government multiplies men as the morning dews of the spring unfold the buds of plants. Before you seek, tSierefore, beyond the ocean, for tliose new sub- jects which are unknown to you, reflect that, in order to acquire them, you are going to sacrifice a greater number of those who love you, whom you love, whose fidelity you have experienced, and whose happiness is conmiitted to your protection. " What personal motive, tlien, can detemiine you to war ? Is it the splendor of victories for which you hope ? Is it the ambition of a greater name in the annals of mankind ? But is renown con- fined to bloodshed and devastation ? And is that which a monarch obtains, by diffusing ease and happiness tliroughout his dominions, unworthy of consideration ? Titus reigned only three years ; and his name, transmitted from age to age by the love of nations, is still introduced in all the eulogies of princes. " Do not doubt it. Sire, a wise administration is of more value to you than the most refined political system ; and if, to such re- sources, you unite that empire over other nations which is acquired by a transcendent character of justice and moderation, you will enjoy at once the greatest glory, and the most formidalsle power. Ah ! Sire, exhibit this magnificent spectacle to the world ; and then, if triumphal arches be wanting, ^j^ake the tour of your prov- inces, and, preceded by all the good you have diffused, appear surrounded by the blessings of your people, and the ecstatic ac- clamations of a grateful nation made happy by its sovereign." Such would be (he language of an honest minister ; nor can I believe that such reflections would be foreign to political deliber- ations. At first, they would be thought extraordinary, and the minister who should argue thus, would not be allowed the views of an enlightened statesman. But the minister Avho, devoid alike of fear and every selfish view, s'lould dare to advance great truths, might perhaps force his way tarough prejudice, or habitual ideas. Ideas of this kind have a most extensive influence. I cannot re- member without shuddering, to have seen the following statement, in an estimate of the money requisite for a war : Forty thousand men to be embarked for the colonies . . . 40,000 To be deducted one-third for the first year's mortality . . . 13,333 Remainder 26,667 A clerk in office makes his calculation in cool blood. A minis- ter, on the perusal, has seldom any other idea than of the expense, and turns with unconcern to the next leaf for the result of the whole. How can one here refrain from indulging very melancholy sen- sations ? Alas ! if by any law of nature unknown to me, mankind deserved so much indifference, I should be very wrong to writJ, and to be so earnestly solicitous for their welfare. I should be myself but a vile heap of dust, which the wind of life agitates for a moment But I entertain a more exalted idea of our existence, and of the spirit that informs it Mankind, say apologists for war, have in every age been accus- tomed to it Certainly ; and, in every age also have storma de- 205 NECKAR ON PEACE. 5 stroyed the harvests; the pestilence has spread around its en- venomed breath ; intolerance has sacrificed her victims ; crimes of every kind have desolated the earth. But reason has also obstinately fought against folly, morality against vice, art against disease, and industry against the rigor of bad seasons. But I hear it stated, as a last objection, that men delight in haz- ards, and often seek them of their own accord. I allow it ; but, admitting that some men have voluntarily placed themselves in a situation which they know to be exposed to calamities, will the nature of these calamities be changed by that consideration ? The ignorance of the vulgar is a protracted minority ; and in every sit- uation in which they may be impelled by circumstances, neither their first choice, nor their first impulse, is to be considered in this argument. We must study their sentiments in those moments when, distracted by a thousand excruciating pains, yet still linger- ing in existence, they are carried off in heaps from the fatal field in which they have been mowed down by the enemy. We must study their sentiments in those noisome hospitals in which they are crowded together, and where the sufferings they endure, to preserve a languishing existence, so forcibly prove the value they set upon the preservation of their lives, and the greatness of tlie sacrifice to which they had been exposed. We ought also to study their sentiments in those moments in- which, perhaps, to such a variety of avo, is added the bitter remembrance of that momen- tary error which led them to such misery. We ought, more especially, to study their sentiments on board those ships, on fire, in which there is but a moment between them and the most cruel death ; and on those ramparts where subterraneous explosion an- nounces, that in an instant they are to be buried under a tremen- dous heap of stones and rubbish. But the earth has covered them, the sea has swallowed them up, and we think of them no more. Their voice, extinguished forever, can no longer arraign the calamities of war. What unfeeling survivors are we ! While we walk over mutilated bodies and shattered bones, we exult in the glory and honors of which we alone are the heirs. Let me not be reproached with having dwelt too long on these melancholy representations. We cannot exhibit them too often ; so much are we accustomed, in the very midst of society, to be- hold nothing in war, and all its attendant horrors, but an honorable employment for the courage of aspiring youth, and the school in which the talents of great officers are unfolded ; and such is the effect of this transient intoxication, that the conversation of the polite circles in the capital is often taken for the general »wish of the nation. Oh ! ye governors, do not suffer yourselves to be de- ceived by this mistaken voice. For my part, far from regretting that I have opposed, to the best of my abilities, those chimeras which are subversive of the happiness of mankind, and of the true greatness of states ; far from believing that I have displayed too much zeal for truths that are repugnant to so many passions and ~ prepossessions, I believe these truths to be so useful, so essential, and so perfectly just, that afler having supported them by my 6 NECKAR ON PEACE. 206 feeble voice in the course of my administration, and endeavored even from my retirement to diffuse them wide, I could wish that the last drop of my blood were employed to trace them on the minds of all. This subject is of unportance to every nation ; and the spirit of the reflections I have made, is applicable not merely to the nations whose interests are regulated by the pleasure of an individual. I address myself equally to you, Great Nation (England) to whom the spirit of liberty communicates all its force. Let the energy of your soul, let that abundance, or that community of knowledge which results from it, lead you to those sentiments of political humanity which ffre so well coimected with elevated tlioughts. Be not influenced by a blind avidity for riches, by the pride of confidence, or a perpetual jealousy of others ; and, since tlie waves of the ocean free you from the imperious yoke of disciplined ar- mies, recollect that your first attention is due to the preservation of that precious government you enjoy. Tremble, lest you one day become indifierent to it, if from the excessive taxes which war accumulates, you expose to the dreadful conflicts of private in- terest, that public and patriotic sentiment which has so long been the source of your greatness and your felicity. And may you, young and rising Nation (United States of America,) whose generous eflforts have released you from your European yoke, make the rights you have acquired still more respected through the world, by employing yourselves constantly in promoting the public happiness. Sacrifice it not to vague no- tions of policy, and the deceptive calculations of warlike ambition. Avoid, if possible, the passions which agitate our hemisphere ; and long may you preserve the simplicity of the primitive ages. What more can be said ? Here I should stop, for my feeble voice is altogether unequal to so important a subject ; nevertheless, I venture once more to solicit a moment's attention. It is in con- siderations of public good, and just conceptions of true power, that I have hitherto sought motives to deter sovereigns from war ; but I should imperfectly perform my task, if I did not endeavor to in- terest them in truths, the defence of which I have undertaken, by urging on them the close connection of these truths with their personal happiness. How much has ambition, however dazzling and renowned, dis- quietude and remorse for its attendants ! In the midst of battles and of ruins ; in the midst of heaps of cinders, where the flames have destroyed flourishing cities ; from the graves of that field where whole armies are buried, witliout doubt a name is raised and commemorated in history, even tliat of a sovereign who, to satiate his thirst for glory, has commanded these ravages, haa willed these desolations. I will depict to myself this prince in the zenith of his glory and his triumphs, and imagine iiim listening to the flatteries of his courtiers, and feeling intoxicated witli tlieir praises, then retiring alone, holding in his hand the details of a battle. He reads attentively the recital, not as a mere curious inquirer who, having notiiing to reproach himself with, calmly 207 NECKAR ON PEACE 7 takes a view of the events, but as the author of such an accumula- tion of wrongs, and of which there is not one, perhaps, for which, in the inmost recesses of his soul, his conscience does not reproach him. He is at the same time on the point of giving orders for a fresh effusion of blood, of increasing the weight of the taxes, of aggravating the misfortunes of his people, of laying his conquering arm heavily on them. What distressing reflections must present themselves to him ! At this moment he would fain recall the crowd that had surrounded him. ' Return,' " he would spontaneously ex- claim, ' return, and repeat to me all that has even now intoxicated me. Alas ! you are far off, and I find myself in a frightful desert, in solitude. I no longer discover the traces of my former senti- ments ; the light which dazzled me, is extinguished ; my joy is departed, and my glory vanished ! ' Such is nearly the train of reflections that would present them- selves to the monarch when alone. In the mean time night comes on, darkness and silence cover the earth, peace appears to reign every where except in his breast. The plaintive cries of the dying, the tears of ruined families, the various evils of which he is the author, present themselves to his view, and disturb his imagination. A dream, the noise of the wind, a clap of thunder, are sometimes sufficient to agitate him, and remind him of his own insignificance. ' Who am I,' he is impelled to say, ' who am I, that I should com- mand so many ravages, and cause so many tears to flow ? Born to be the benefactor, I am the scourge of mankind. Is this the use ' to which I should appropriate the treasures at my disposal, and the power with which I am entrusted ? Hereafter I shall have to de- liver up an account ; and what will this account be ? ' It is then in vain for him to attempt to prop up his pride, and exculpate himself in his own eyes, by presenting to the Supreme Being his successes and his triumphs; he feels an invisible hand repulsing him, and apparently refusing to acknowledge him. Disturbed with these cogitations, he endeavors at last to bury in sleep the mo- ments which thus annoy him, impatient for the dawn of day, for the splendor of tlie court, and the concourse of his servants, to dissipate his anguish, and restore to him his illusions. Ah ! wliat a different picture does the life of a beneficent king present ! He finds in the inclination of his soul a continual source of pleasing sensations. The shadows of the night, by gathering around him consoling recollections of the past, enliven his retire- ment ; the concussions of agitated nature, far from disturbing his imagination, awaken in him ideas which sweetly harmonize with his feelings ; the love of mankind with which he is smitten, the public benevolence with which he is animated, that order which he has been desirous to maintain, recall to his mind the most de- lightful recollections. In such a career, the beneficent king sees his days pass away ; and, when warned that the period draws nigh m which hjs strength must give way, he surveys with tranquillity this inevitable hour, and satisfied with the wise use he has made of his power, resigns himself to those hopes of which virtuous and sensible souls alone are capable. 8 NECKAR ON PEACE. 208 How different is the closing scene of tliat sovereign whose views were influenced only by ambition and the love of war ! How often does this last moment appear terrible to him, and of what avail are his most glorious exploits ? Weighed down by age and sickness, when the shades of deatli surround him with melancholy reflections, does he then command his attendants to entertain him with a recital of his victorious battles ? Does he order those tro- phies to be spread before him, on v/hich he might discern the tears that watered them ? No ; all these ideas terrify and distract him. / have been too fond of war, was the last speech of the most power- ful of kings ; such were the words he addressed to his great grandson. Too late regret! which certainly did not sufiice to calm the agitations of his soul ! Ah ! how much happier he would have been, if, after a reign similar to tliat of Titus and Antoninus, he had been able to say to tlie young prince, ' I have experienced all sorts of pleasures ; I have been acquainted witli all kinds of glory : believe a dying king ; I have found no real content but in 3ie good I have been able to do. Tread in my steps ; entertain for your people the same tender affection I have felt for them. Instead of destroying the establishments I have formed for the prosperity of the state ; instead of rejecting my principles of order and economy ; instead of abolishing the laws I have promulgated for the benefit of the lower class, and the comfort of the wretched, proceed still farther, and let our names, blended together, be equally blessed. The only just opinion of us, is that which we leave be- hind ; the only glory, that which remains attached to our memory. ' My task is now at an end, and you are going to begin yours. Ves, a moment longer, and those courtiers who surround me, will attend on you ; a moment longer, and the drums of the guards will announce your accession, and all the splendor of the throne will be displayed before your eyes. Do not suffer yourself to be dazzled by these brilliant seductions of the supreme rank ; but more especially resist those wrong ideas of the greatness of kings, which ambitious or interested men will endeavor to inculcate on you. You will be rendered envious of the power of other nations, before you have time to be acquainted with your own ; you will be urged to destroy their felicity, before you have time to reflect on the good you may do to your own subjects ; you will be solicited to overturn the peace of the world, before you have secured the maintenance of order within your own kingdom ; and you will be inspired with the desire of increasing your dominions, before you have even ascertained what cares and informations are necessary to govern with prudence the smallest of your provinces. Mistrust all those measures with which tliey attempt to make sovereigns forget, not only the limits of their faculties, but the shortness of their life, and every thing that they have in common with other men. Stay by me a little longer, my son ! to learn that the sove- reign of a most powerful empire vanishes from tlie earth with less noise than a leaf falls from the tree, or a light is extinguishjed.' AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. ci; ^ No. XXVII. PEACE PRACTICABLE. Setting aside persons who hold political or military office, or who by their connection with government are led to imagine they have an interest in war, it is believed there are few intelligent or benevolent men who now advocate that cruel practice as a good in itself or its results ; but there are many sincere philan- thropists, who, fully perceiving the vast amount of suffering and corruption caused by this custom, believing such calamity to be unalleviated, and uncompensated by any resulting good, and earn- estly desiring the extinction of Avar, still doubt the practicability of that extinction by any means in the power of the friends of peace to apply. First, it is objected that the magnitude of the evil is such as to be irremovable by private effort. The insatiable ambition, the pride of honor, fancied interest, and deep-rooted customs of nations, the enthusiastic canonization of warriors, the bril- liant examples of classic history, the flattering voice of poetry, the splendor of monumental arts, the chivalry of patriotism, and the imposing fascinations of military display, all combine to drown the still small voice of humanity, — altogether form an overwhelm- ing power, against which individual or associated philanthropy must strive in vain. What can a few peace societies and their friends effect against the gigantic pride and customs of sovereign rulers and the political world ? It is not to be wondered at, that men, — even intelligent and considerate men, — make an objection like this ; for the world has hitherto seemed to be governed or revolutionized by force ; and they are naturally incredulous of any important change without the perception of physical power to effect it. But it is overlooked, that many of the most signal revolutions of the globe have origi- nated in some new or disregarded principle, — religious, moral or political, — brought out by some obscure, perhaps despised individ- uals, which afterwards proved to be the actuating soul of the great physical movement. Such was the case with the Crusades, the Reformation, the discovery of America, the American and French Revolutions. The most remarkable revolution of the earth was the promulgation of Christianity by a few fishermen of Galilee, and their associates, changing the religion and moral habits of a large portion of the civilized world. It may be thought that this should not be adduced as an instance, as it was under the special and miraculous direction of the Most High ; but we are taught that all events are, in reality, guided by his Provi- dence ; and, if the progress of peace principles is predicted, and their promotion enjoined by this revelation, there is as much rea- P.* T. NO. XXVII. 2 PEACE PRACTICABLE. 210 son to expect his divine aid in their extension, as in that of the gospel, of which it forms so essential a part. Again, it should be recollected, that under the perpetual advance of Christianity and civilization, mere physical power is every where losing, and moral power gaining social and political influence. In former ages, it might perhaps be said, that before the proud thrones or passion-led multitudes of the world, moral effort would avail but little in presenting truth, or advocating humanity. Already has tiie religious and intellectual change been such, that no op- pressive abuse of physical power can be long continued in face of the unequivocal rebuke of religious enthusiasm, or philosophical philanthropy ; and under tlie obvious progress of society we have every promise that the claims of enlightened benevolence n«ist be heard, and will be effectual. But the friends of universal peace, if guided by truth, and warmed with zeal, are plainly possessed of a moral influence superior to tlie poAver of brute force, however imposing ; and, if efficiently sustained by those who are in senti- ment Avith them, so that they could bring all the religious and benevolent of the civilized world into an united, energetic protest against the practice of war, neitlier despotism, nor custom, nor chivalric delusion, could withstand it ; the pride of the martial world must bend before the frown of Christian reproof Let us not, then, in timid distrust of moral power, witlihold it. Give it in sanguine faith, and it will be decisively victorious. But we meet witli a more serious objection to specific efforts for the cause of peace, among those religious and enlightened men on whom our chief reliance is placed as instruments of the cause. They doubt not the power of Christianity to overthrow the power of war ; but they consider the process proposed on tliis subject as wrong in its order ; general Christian faith must pre- cede it " Make men Christians," tliey say, " and universal peace will follow." They have no expectation that peace principles will ever be received, until Christianity, as they understand it, is made to prevail in the world ; and they accordingly think time and money wasted in any previous attempts to diffuse them. And yet a little attention will make it plain, that the whole strengtli of this objection lies in its ambiguity ; an examination of what is here meant by Christianity, will dissipate it If a Christianity is made to prevail over the world which involves the doctrines of forbear- ance and peace as essential elements, undoubtedly the prevalence of such a Christianity would forever extinguish war ; and the course of the peace-makers is precisely that which the objectors would desire, but which they refuse to aid ; for these peace-makers strive to engraft this very feature inseparably on Christianity, and may be considered as missionaries of that religion in its g^uine pacific form. But the objectors have not in mind this idea of Christianity in making the objection ; they mean Christianity as each under- stands it, according to the doctrines laid down by his sect or de- nomination respectively, in few of which, (with the exception of 211 peacf/ practicable. 3 the Friends and Moravians,) is the peace principle included as fundamental. The extension of such a Christianity will never produce peace. History is full of instances of pious and devoted men, under every form of religious faith, who have not only sanc- tioned, but participated in, the revolting violence and cruelties of war. No one will call in question the religious character of the early fathers of the church, the reformers with Luther, the Cov- enanters of Scotland, or the pilgrims who landed on the Rock of Plymouth. Perhaps even the crusaders to Palestine, the German invaders of Saxony, and the Spanish conquerors of South Ameri- ca, may he alloAved to have been actuated by a sincere faith in what they received as Christianity ; but in none of these instances or similar ones which history records, has the aspect of the Cross, in any of its varied lights, obliterated the heathen spirit of Mars ; and what reason is there to believe that any view of Christianity, which includes not its peace principle as essential, whatever as- cendency it may gain, will ever spread over the future a for- bearing tranquillity which it has always failed to do in the fairest trials of the past ? The true teachers of Christianity then, arc the peace-makers. They alone preach a gospel from which peace can spring forth. They alone exhibit its love in connection with its faith. Another objection to the practicability of peace efforts comes from a numerous class, confiding less in the power of Christianity. The war-spirit is said to be ineradicable, as founded in nature. All brute animals are by instinct prone to violence and conflict, and human beings have been engaged in war and bloodshed from the earliest ages, and in every realm- War must, then, ever con- tinue, while man retains his present passions ; and his race must be miraculously changed in nature, or extirpated from the earth, for a new creation, before peace can dwell over its extensive sphere. We then strive to counteract the laws of Providence, when we oppose war ; every generation must pass through its bloody trials, and look to a future life for a regenerated, pacific constitution. The fact of the universal custom of conflict, brutal and human, is indisputable ; that in brutes it is founded in their unalterable nature, will not be questioned ; but when this law is applied also to man, the whole truth is not shown ; it is forgotten that man has higher and freer impulses, which counteract and modify his ani- mal nature. His calculating reason, and penetrating foresight of consequences, direct his very passions to an action, by which their present gratification is sacrificed to future good. Moral princi- ple^ too, is perceived by his mind, and an instinct, nobler than the animal, bends him into obedience to it. Man, by nature, is ac- quisitive and grasping ; and yielding only to this nature, the world would be a universal scene of robbery and plunder. Civiliza- tion, pointing through experience to general good, has brought him under laws which respect the right of property, and induce scruples of honesty, restricting desire where no punishment would follow its violation. Man, naturally, is indolent and self-indul- 4 *' PEitCE^RACTICABLE. 212 gent; the view of future melioration rouses his energy, sloth is shaken off, self-denial practised, and active enterprises undertaken, which ultimately lead to exertions and privations for the good of others. Naturally, man is ambitious and despotic ; how seldom is the person seen, who do«s njit love to rule ; but civilization again has induced a general r^peot for equal rights, and the thrones of despotism are fast sinking tfefore the rising claims of universal freedom. Now, enlightened interest^ justice and humanity, all plead strongly for tlie abolition of w^. They call on man to modify his nature for peace, as he has done for other blessings. Christianity enforces this demand with higher authority, and still more im- posing motives ; and, if his animal nature has given way before "weaker impulses for otlier objects^ there can be no reason to de- spair of a conquest over it in this case, when all the lights of rea- son, humanity and religion are made to bear u}X)n it, and in full view, aU the horrors, depravities and sufferings of war, and the rich blessings of unbroken peace, are duly presented and appreciated. If it is still objected that these reasonings are merely theoretical, and ought to be sustained by facts, the reply is, that ultimate facts are, from the nature of the case, future ; but the progress already made in this cause is a full warrant of its practicability. This progress is seen in the collected testimonies of the most eminent statesm jn in Europe and America to their desire and expectation of ur^versal peace. It is seen in the altered tone of the literary and political press, now ever deprecating war^ in the evident re- luctance of civilized governments to this cruel resort, so that irri- tating collisions, which formerly would have kindled immediate hostility, are now (1845) settled by compromise, and in the conse- quent prevalence of peace for the last thirty years ; but above all in the fact, that proposals made for arbitration or a permanent Congress to settle international disputes, are every M-here received with favor, both by rulers and people, and believed by many to be safe and adequate substitutes for the dreadful appeal to tlie sword. And these circumstances may be all traced to the action of the associated friends of peace. These replies are offered to the consideration of intelligent men, who entertain the objections stated. To the confiding Christian who relies on the revealed will of God, a decisive answer can be made to every discouraging argument God has, by his prophets, declared there shall be a reign of universal peace, when men shall beat their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning- hooks, and shall learn war no more. Christ has enjoined, with peculiar emphasis and repetition, that forbearing love from which peace must necessarily result These predictions and injunctions are the warrant of the peace-makers. Fortified with these, they are assured they shall not labor in vain ; they see in them certain pledges of divine assistance, and ultimate success. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. til No. xxvin. SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. War is now tolerated only as a necessary evil ; but there is in truth no more necessity for it than there is for duelling, the slave-trade, or any other species of folly or crime. War comes solely from the wrong choice of men ; that choice may be changed ; and whenever it shall be, nations, like individ- uals, will find other methods for the settlement of their dis- putes, far better than the sword for all purposes of protection and redress. I. The first substitute, then, would be negotiation. So long as nations keep cool and kind enough to adjust their own difficulties, this method is decidedly the best of all. If the code of national honor did not goad them at once into blood ; if they made the sword really their last resort, instead of their first ; if popular sentiment should always hold them back from conflict till mutual forbearance, explanation and concession nad exhausted their utmost power, this expedient alone would, in nine cases out of ten, prevent an appeal to arms. II. Should this expedient fail, our next resort would be to ARBITRATION ; a Substitute adopted when the parties are un- able to adjust their own difficulties, or prefer the decision of an umpire mutually chosen. Better for the parties to agree among themselves, if they can ; but, if they cannot, we wish nations in every case to settle their disputes as individuals do theirs, by some mode of reference. We urge this as an established, permanent principle. Nations should, in accordance with the recommendation of the First General Peace Convention in London, 1843, incorporate in every treaty a clause binding the parties to adjust whatever differences may arise between them, not by the sword, but by reference to umpires mutually chosen, and agree to abide by their decision, and to claim, if dissatisfied, only the privilege of renewing or changing the reference. To such a substitute, what objection can be urged ? It re- linquishes no right ; it sacrifices no interest ; it would startle feAv, if any prejudices ; it can offend neither the strong nor the moderate peace-man, neither the Quaker nor the warrior ; it is adapted to the present state of the world, and consis- tent alike with the precepts of Christianity, and the dictates of sound policy ; a measure level to the comprehension of all, and commei^ding itself to their common sense as simple, p. T. NO. XXVIIl S SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 214 feasible, and likely to prove successful. Nor is the principle new, but as old as human society ; it lies at the bottom of every trial in our courts ; we often find the wisest and best men preferring it in their own case even to a regular course of law ; and we merely ask nations to use the same degree of justice, candor and good sense in adjusting their difficulties, that individuals do in theirs. Can they not do so? ni. Should both these expedients fail, we should still have in reserve tlie principle of mediation. When rulers become 80 exasperated against each other, as to withdraw from official intercourse, and the strange, semi-barbarous code of national honor requires tliem to keep aloof, or to meet only on the field of battle, a tliird power friendly to both, interposes with the ofier of its services as mediator ; such services the parties are now bound in courtesy to accept ; and this simple expe- dient, a new development of the pacific tendencies of the age, promises to obviate the most delicate and difficult cases of misunderstanding. It is well known that duellists cannot fight so long as a mutual friend stands between them as mediator ; and, if so effectual for the prevention of duels, the principle, equally applicable to war, would be likely to prove still more successful here, from the longer delay necessary, from the greater publicity of the transaction, and. from the overwhelming majority on both sides interested in a peaceful issue of the dispute. Thus might a single cabinet, by the well-timed tender of its services, hold in check the war-spirit of the whole civilized world, and keep its nations in perma- nent peace. Not unfrequently has this expedient been em- ployed since the downfall of Napoleon ; and every one can remember with what speedy and signal success, England alone acted, in the course of only a few years, as mediator be- tween France and ourselves, between Holland and Belgium, between Sweden and France, and between France and Swit- zerland. It is a new antidote to war, and may do much to insure the steady and lasting peace of Christendom. IV. But the perfection of all substitutes for war, would be a CONGRESS or NATIONS. By this we mean a congress, or meeting in convention, of as many nations as could be brought into the measure, to. agree upon a full code of international law, and next a High Court of Nations, or board of interna- tional arbitrators, to interpret and apply that code, to adjudi- cate whatever cases might be referred to them by consent of parties, and to act for tlie great brotherhood of nations as tlie guardian of tlioir common rights and interests. It would per- form for nations substantially tlie same services" that a civil tribunal does for individuals, or the Supreme Court of the United States does for the diflTerent States in our confederacy. 215 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 3 It would have no right to touch any case not voluntarily re- ferred to it by the nations in dispute ; and all its decisions would be merely advisory, and become binding only by the consent of each party, and efficacious solely by the force of public opinion in their favor. There would be at its com- mand no fleets, no armies, no power whatever besides the in- fluence of its own reputation, the voice of the civilized world, tmd perhaps an application in extreme cases of peaceful pen- alties, to awe refractory states into acquiescence. An expe- dient founded on the very same principle with our codes and courts of law ; an expedient as old, in one form or another, as civil government or human society ; an expedient just as applicable to nations as to individuals, and likely, if once established, and used aright, to prove as successful in the former case as it has in the latter ; an expedient that could certainly do no harm, and might suffice at once to prevent forty-nine wars in fifty, and eventually supersede forever the whole war-system. * Here, then, are four substitutes for war, each simple, easy and effective ; substitutes which every man of the least sense or candor must admit to be infinitely better than an appeal to the savage argument of lead and steel; substitutes which recognize right instead of might, reason in place of brute force, as the arbiter of national disputes ; substitutes which nations could, if tliey would, adopt in part, without delay, and ere-long, the whole of them ; substitutes which would at once supersede every plea of necessity for war, insure far more justice in the intercourse of nations, and guaranty in due time their permanent peace and prosperity. Now, we insist on the duty of nations to adopt such substi- tutes as these. If they are moral agents like individuals, they are equally bound to an amicable, bloodless adjustment of their difficulties ; and, if war is held by none to be justifiable except as a last resort, and should never be employed till after all other expedierts have failed, then must nations, on the lowest principles of peace or common sense, abstain from the sword until they have not only tried in good faith negotiation, reference and mediation, but established a congress of na- tions, and submitted their disputes to its high and impartial arbitrament. All this they can do, if they urill ; and, until they do it, how can war be called their last resort ? ' But nations have no common judge, and hence they must decide each its own case.' — True, they have at present no such judge ; but they might have, if they would ; and we call upon them by every motive of reason, duty and self-interest, to establish one as soon as possible. ' Meanwhile, however, what shall settle their disputes ? ' — 4 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 216 Surely not the sword, but some one of the substitutes we have proposed. War settle disputes ! Never ! The parties invariably sheatli the sword before they dream of a settle- ment, and then despatch, not men of blood to fight, but men of peace, plenipotentiaries, to negotiate. And why not do this before fighting, and thus obviate all necessity of war.? We had a controversy with England about our north-eastern boundary ; and, had we gone to war, would that have settled the dispute? No; it would only have aggravated its diffi- culties. There is no logic in bullets and bomb-shells ; the butchery of millions on the disputed territory could not have' thrown a single ray of new light on the points in controversy ; and, after wasting myriads of treasure, and shedding oceans of blood, we should have been obliged to employ for tlie final adjustment the very same pacific means that might have been used even more successfully before the war than after it. * True, if the parties were willing ; but can you make them willing before they have fought awhil^?' — Yes, we could, if we would ; but how little effort is made for peace in compar- ison with Avhat must be for war ? No tAvo nations could begin a war in earnest without sacrificing, in one way and another, scores of millions ; but a tenth or even a hundredth part as much, if wisely spent in the use of moral means for the pur- pose, would form such a public sentiment, that no power on earth could goad tlie parties into conflict — Unwilling for a peacefiil adjustment ! — who is unwilling? Am I ? Are you ? We resent the charge ; and, should you go through both coun- tries, you would find scarce a man that would not profess to be equally anxious for a bloodless issue of the dispute. ' Perhaps the people are willing ; but the nders are not' — Rulers not willing ! — why not ? Because the people do not call loud enough for a peaceful settlement Rulers will , generally go either for peace or for war, just as the people go ; Siey can, if they will, settle their disputes without war, quite as well as individuals can theirs without duels ; they loUl do so, whenever the people shall come every wliere to demand it aright; the people icill thus demand it, whenever they shall be duly enlightened on the subject ; and hence do we urge the pulpit and the press, every sect in religion, and every party in politics, all Christians, philanthropists and patriots, to unite in filling every community with such an abhorrence of war, and such strong desires for peace, as shall hereafter constrain rulers to employ pacific expedients alone for the settlement of all national disputes. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS JVo. XXIX, ARBITRATION, AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. ADDRESSED ESPECIALLY TO RULERS. The evils of war are coming to be more generally known, and more deeply felt than in ages past. Its suspension or de- rangement of business ; — its havoc of life and property ; — its crippling of agriculture, manufactures, and the various arts that minister to individual and national prosperity ; — the ob- structions it opposes to commerce, to travel, and every kind of useful intercourse between nations ; — its baneful influence on morality and religion, on the cause of liberty and popular im- provement, on the various enterprises now in progress for the welfare and redemption of our whole race, on the dearest in- terests of mankind for time and eternity ; all these and many other results of this custom are rapidly conspiring more and more to make every good man deplore it as a terrible scourge, and earnestly desire its speedy, universal abolition. Such views are no longer confined to peace societies ; but the mass of the people, wherever enlightened on the subject, and free to utter their sentiments, are beginning to call for peace. It is fast becoming the popular demand of the age, the cry of millions sighing for relief. They begin to dis- cover in war the source of tlieir worst evils. It is the origin and support of the tyranny that rules them with a rod of iron ; ■ its enormous burdens have long been grinding them into the dust all over the old world ; 5ie war-debts of Europe alone, secured by mortgage upon their bones and sinews, exceed by far the entire amount of specie now on the globe ; more than four-fiflhs of all their taxes go to pay the interest on these debts, and to maintain even in peace some three millions of standing warriors as moths on the community ; and, when they remember how many centuries this monster has revelled in their blood, and how often it has plundered and burnt their cities, and laid waste their villages, and trampled down their harvests, and desolated their peaceful homes, and butchered their sons upon the battle-field, and subjected their wives and daughters to a fate still more deplorable, can we wonder, that the people, always the chief sufferers from war, are at length demanding of their rulers to obviate its alleged necessity by the adoption of other means than the sword for the settlement of national disputes ? p. T. NO. XXIX. 2 ARBITRATION, AS A 218 Nor is this demand unreaBonable. Rulers could, if they would, adjust their difficulties, and regulate the entire inter- course of nations, without war. There is no real need of this custom ; and, were they so disposed, they could supersede it at once and forever by substitutes far better thao lead and steel. They compel tlie people to settle their quarrels without bloodshed ; and we see not with what sort of consistency they can require or permit the wholesale butchery of their subjects in war for the adjustment of differences in which the combatants themselves have no personal concern. It' is a cruel outrage upon tlie people, as well as a bitter mockery of common sense ; and it is quite time tliis foul stain were wiped from the escutcheon of Christendom forever. And can it not be done ? Yes, witli ease and safety. Do you ask how ? We might suggest a variety of feasible and efficient methods ; but we now restrict ourselves to one which relinquishes no right, and sacrifices no interest, contravenes no important principle, and startles few, if any prejudices ; a measure adapted to the present state of the world, and con- sistent with the precepts of Christianity, and the dictates of sound policy ; a measure level to tlie comprehension of all, and commending itself to their common sense ; simple, prac- ticable, and likely to prove successful. It is arbitration as a recognized substitute for loar. Better to agree among them- selves, if they can, without the intervention of a third party ; but, if they cannot, we wish nations in every case to settle their difficulties, as individuals in society do theirs, by some form of reference. The method we propose has been occa- sionally employed ; but we urge its adoption as an established, permanent principle. We would have nations incorporate in every treaty a clause binding the parties, as their last resort, to adjust whatever differences may arise between them, not by an appeal to arms, but by reference to umpires mutually chosen. The arrangements for this purpose might safely be left in every case to the contracting parties ; but they should invariably bind themselves in good faith to abide by the de- cision of their referees, and claim, if dissatisfied, only the privilege of renewing or changing the reference. Here is the outline of our plan. It speaks for itself, and may seem too clear to require either argument or illustration. Common sense decides, that no man should be allowed to judge in his own case ; and this principle is quite as applica- ble to communities as to individuals. The former, equally liable to all the influences that bias the judgment, and lead to wrong conclusions, should never be permitted, any more than individuals, to act as witness, jury and judge in their own 219 SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. 3 case. The voice of common sense, in every age and clime, cries out against it as manifestly wrong, and demands, that parties in dispute, whether individuals or communities, should in the last resort leave their differences to impartial judges. This is all we ask. Nations are only large communities; and we insist merely on their adopting this simple, equitable principle for the settlement of their difficulties. Nor is this principle new or untried. It is as old as human society ; it has been acted upon more or less from the earliest dawn of civilization ; we oflen find the wisest and best men preferring it even to a regular course of law for the amicable adjustment of their own differences ; and we simply ask, that nations should exercise an equal degree of sense, candor and justice, by referring their disputes in like manner to compe- tent and impartial arbiters. The same principle lies at the bottom of all our courts. Every trial in them is a reference. No litigant is allowed to decide, or even to testify in his own case ; but he must, whether willing or unwilling, submit to the judgment of his peers^on the testimony of credible witnesses. Nor has he any direct voice in the selection of his arbiters ; society chooses them for him; and before a judge and jury thus ap- pointed, he is compelled to go, and abide their decision. Such is the ordinary course of justice, the common, legal mode of reference ; and ought not governments, in the adjust- ment of their difficulties, to act on principles as equitable and elevated as those which they prescribe to their own subjects ? Shall common sense, common honesty, the established rules of right and wrong, never be extended to the intercourse of nations ? Must this highest eartlily province of duty and in- terest be abandoned forever to savage, brutal violence as the arbiter of right ? Are rulers idiots that they cannot, or vil- lains that they will not, use, in the settlement of their own ^disputes, and the regulation of their intercourse, as much reason, justice and common sense, as the humblest of their subjects do in theirs ? We appeal to acknowledged authorities in the case. All writers on international law represent nations as subject to the same general rules of right as individuals. Chancellor Kent says, " they are properly regarded as moral persons ;" . and Vattel considers them as ' under the same obligations that are binding upon men in their intercourse one with another, and the law of nations as no more than the law of nature applied to nations.' No respectable writer, since the time of Grotius, has ventured to call this principle in question ; but does it not obviously require governments to settle their dis- putes in essentially tiie same way that individuals do theirs ? 4 ARBITRATION/AS A 220 If the latter may not decide their own case, and wreak ven- geance at will on the objects of their displeasure, why should §ie former be allowed to do so ? Why should nations be in- dulged in principles of action that would in individuals out- rage common seiise, trample on all law, and subvert the very foundations of society ? Let us quote from the great masters of international law. Grotius says, " war should never be declared until all other means of redress have been faithfully tried ; " and Vattel asserts, that "the law of nature, which recommends peace, concord and charity, obliges nations to attempt the mildest metliods of terminating tlieir tlifferences. — Nature gives us no right to have recourse to force, but where mild ^id pacific methods are ineffectual. — When sovereigns cannot agree about their pretensions, they sometimes trust the decision of their disputes to arbitrators. This method is very reasonable, and very conformable to the law of nature. Though the strict right may be mistaken by the arbitrator, it is still more to be feared that it will be overwhelmed by the fate of arms." On this point, Vattel adduces a series of striking examples. •* The kings of Denmark formerly condescended by solemn treaty to refer to those of Sweden the differences that might arise between them and their Senate ; and the kings of Swe- den did the same with regard to those of Dermiark. The princes and states of West Friesland, and the burgesses of Embden in the same manner constituted the republic of the United Provinces tlie judge of their differences. The princes of Neufchatel established in 1400 the canton of Berne the judge and perpetual arbitrator of their disputes. The Swiss have had the precaution, in all their alliances among themselves, and even in those they have contracted with the neighboring powers, to agree beforehand on the manner in which their disputes were to be submitted to arbitrators, in case they could not themselves adjust tjiem in an amicable manner.* This wise precaution has not a little contributed to maintain the Helvetic Republic in that flourishing state which secures its liberty, and renders it respectable throughout Europe." Such was the law of nations on this point centuries ago ; but within the last twenty or thirty years, the principle has come into still higher repute, and more general use. Often has it been employed by the leading «abinets of Europe for the adjustment of their differences ; and we ourselves have in several instances resorted to it with a degree of success calculated to encourage its general adoption. A question relative to the interpretation of our last treaty of peace with Great Britain, was referred to the Emperor of Russia, and de- cided to mutual satisfactiwi in our favor. The dispute con- 221 SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. , 5 ceming our north-eastern boundary, we submitted to Hie King of the Netherlands ; and, though his award, being a com- promise not authorized by the terms of reference, failed to satisfy either England or ourselves, yet it doubtless served to prevent for the time a resort to arms, and to secure in the end a settlement very nearly resembling that award, and satisfac- tory to both parties. Our difficulties with Mexico had brought us to the brink of war ; but the danger was instantly averted by a reference of the points in dispute to the King of Prus- sia. Thus is the practice of enlightened and powerful na- tions strongly tending to establish this principle as a most important part of international law. Already is it a favorite antidote or remedy for war, a substitute proved by actual ex- perience to be far better than the sword ; and all we now ask, is the formal incorporation of this principle in every treaty between nations as tlie last resort for the adjustment of their difficulties. The voice of public opinion, that mistress of the civilized world, is also coming to demand this substitute for war. The people, whose treasures and blood have been so recklessly wasted in the quarrels of rulers, are already in favor of the plan, and may be expected ere-long to become clamorous for its general adoption. They begin to learn that rulers can settle their disputes without the butchery of their subjects, and will one day insist that they skcdl. That day is coming on apace ; and, when it does come, no congress, no cabinet, no despot in Christendom will be able to witJhstand the united, inflexible demand of the whole people for the adjustment of national difficulties without the shedding of their blood. We speak not at random ; the popular will has already ex- pressed itself on this point in ways not to be misunderstood. There is not in Christendom any intelligent community, scarce a solitary press, or respectable writer, that would not favor the adoption of our principle as a substitute for war. The ques- tion has been fairly submitted to some of them. A friend of peace in Massachusetts, some fifteen years after the fall of Napoleon, brought it before a large number of persons in several States, and readily obtained from men of every rank, profession and employment, — from farmers and mechanics, from merchants, lawyers and physicians, from judges, gov- ernors and Christian ministers of every name,— some thousands of signatures in favor of having all national disputes settled by amicable reference. The principle commends itself at once to every man ; and, if fully understood, not one in a thousand of the people but would instantly prefer it to the blind and brutal arbitrament of the sword. To this voice of the people some of our legislators have # ARBITBATION, AS A 222 already given a partial response. The late accomplished Legare, in his report from the Committee on Foreign Rela- tions, says " they heartily concur in recommending a refer- ence to a third power of all such controversies as can safely be confided to any tribunal unknown to the constitution of our own country." The legislature of Massachusetts had previously gone still further, and passed resolves, with per- fect unanimity in the House, and with only two dissenting votes in the Senate, recommending not only " tlie practice of arbitration as an occasional substitute for war, but a Congress and Court of Nations as a permanent system to carry the principle into effect" In 1844, they adopted still stronger resolutions in favor of both these modes of reference ; nor would any legislature, when fully informed on the subject, refuse their sanction to principles so obviously reasonable and salutary. Long ago did the fathers of our Republic cherish similar desires for some preventive of war. Jefferson says, " nations, like individuals, stand towards each other only in the relations of natural right ; and might they not, like them, be peaceably punished for violence and Avrong ? — Wonderful has been tlie progress of human improvement in other respects ; let us hope that the law of nature will in time influence the pro- ceedings of nations as well as of individuals, and that we rfiall at length be sensible, that war is an instrument entirely inefficient towards redressing ivrong, and multiplies instead of indemnifying losses."" Franklin, who used so oflen to repeat his favorite maxim, " there never was a good ivar, or a bad peace,^^ said, " we daily make great improvements in natural philosophy ; there is one I wish to see in moral — ^the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting one another's throats. When will human reason be sufliciently improved to see the advan- tage of this ? When will men be convinced, that even suc- cessful wars become at length misfortunes to the victorious themselves ? " The time for which Franklin and Jefferson thus longed, is well nigii come. Already are the people in this country, if not in others, sufficiently prepared for such a measure as we propose ; and, should rulers adopt it as a permanent substitute for war, we doubt not they would find themselves at once sustained and applauded by the popular voice. The general Bentiment of Christendom would soon ratify the act as a glorious era in the history of the world ; and countless mil- lions yet unborn would bless the wisdom, patriotism and philanthropy which had thus stayed the stream of blood, and left nations at liberty to start anew upon a career of unex- ampled prosperity and happiness. 223 SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. 7 In favor of our Scheme, we might marshal a host of argu- ments and motives. Should it utterly fail, there is no possi- bility of its doing any harm ; but, should it succeed according to our hopes, how many evils would it prevent, how many blessings confer ! What myriads of treasure, what rivers of blood, what numberless forms of crime and wo, would it save ! How many wives would it rescue from widowhood ; how many children from orphanage ; how many families from ruin ; how many provinces from plunder and devastation ; how many cities from fire and sword ; how many countries from all the nameless calamities of war ! It would give the world a jubilee hitherto unknown. Free from the dangers of war, its teeming myriads could gird themselves, wiSi new zeal and hope, to every enterprise for their own or the general good. Millions of warriors, no longer drones fed from the public crib, might return to the arts of peace, and contribute their share to tlie common weal. Population would swarm anew ; agriculture would spread its golden harvests over hill and vale ; the various mechanic arts would ply afresh their thousand forms of improved machinery ; commerce without fear would unfurl its canvass on every sea, and barter its commodities in every port ; learning, and philanthropy, and religion would pass without obstruction from land to land, and ere-long cover the globe with their blessings. Every interest of man calls aloud for such a policy. The prosperity of our own country, the welfare of Christendom, the happiness of the world ; patriotism, humanity and religion ; the great and glorious movements of the age ; all, all demand it. And what excuse "can we plead for refusing a demand so reasonable? Is it impossible to bring nations into the measure ? We have seen that the people are even now ready for it; and why should rulers object or hesitate? What interest or claim of theirs would it sacrifice or endan- ger ? Would it cripple their power, or interfere with any of their rightful prerogatives ? No ; it would rather confirm them all, and ere-long endear itself both to rulers and sub- jects, as a most effectual safeguard of their respectfve rights and interests. War is the enemy, and peace the friend of them both. But is arbitration inconsistent with the dignity of govern- ments ? If so, why and how ? We deem it honorable for individuals to refer their disputes to competent, impartial umpires ; and why should it be dishonorable for nations to do the same ? When a dispute arises between two (nf our towns or counties, they appeal to the courts of the State, and when oetween two States, to the supreme court of the United States, 8 ARBITRATION, AS A 224 as their last resort, without a suspicion ih either case of its being disreputable for them thus to settle their difficulties ; and, as some of our States contain more inhabitants than many a nation both in ancient and modern times, we see not what should make it inconsistent witli the dignity of the latter to adjust their differences in the same way. It is now shame- ful for individuals to fight like bull-dogs about any matters in dispute between them ; and, when public opinion becomes what it should be, and is likely ere-long to be, it will be equally dishonorable, a deep, everlasting disgrace, for nations to butcher one another for the adjustment of their difficulties, or to employ for the purpose any other means than those of amicable agreement, or mutual reference. ' But governments may be reluctant to pledge themselves in advance to this or any other mode of settling their disputes.' — Such a plea is more plausible than sound ; for it would, if carried out, forbid all agreement between nations. Every treaty binds them in advance ; and, if we discard such pledges, we must abjure all treaties ; but, if nations may consistently pledge themselves on one point, they may on another, and agree beforehand to the settlement of their disputes by refer- ence, just as well as they noAv agree to a reciprocity of trade, or a mutual surrender of fugitives from justice. The principle is the same ; nor is there any more dishonor or inconsistency in one case than in the other. Nay, a pledge in advance is the very thing we need, to prevent a sudden rush to arms under the blind and reckless impulses of passion or prejudice. It is a dictate of common sense ; and often do we find shrewd, sensible men forestalling the evils of litigation by mutual promise to adjust their affairs in the last resort by arbitration. It might not be safe to wait for the hour of trial ; for nations it is even less so than for individuals ; and hence we deem it especially desirable for them, while both parties are calm and candid, to agree beforehand upon the mode of settling what- ever difficulties may arise between them. But it may be said, ' we can take care of ourselves, and decide jour own controversies.' — Be it so ; but how will you do it ? Is your will to be law ? Is no voice but your own to be heard in the case ? A dispute implies at least two parties ; and can one decide it without consulting the other ? Would you concede to your antagonist such a claim ? If not, you must both unite in settling the dispute ; and, if you cannot agree between yourselves, no method remains but some form of reference. — Tell us not, you rely on your sword. Your antagonist may say the same; but will both, or either, be satisfied with ^e decision of such an arbiter 7 Can there be, in the murderous enginery of war, any logic likely to satisfy SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. 9 each party ? — JVbr does the sword ever settle such disputes ; for well has Vattel said, " it is an error, no less pernicious than absurd, to suppose that war is to decide controversies between nations." The sword decides nothing ; it leaves the points in dispute just where it found them, and merely makes the par- ties Avilling, after enduring its countless evils for years, to settle the whole controversy by negotiation, reference, or some other pacific expedient, generally without touching the original bone of contention. Perhaps you plead the uncertainties' of arbitration. But are these to be compared with the evils inseparable from war ? Is the latter more certain in its results than the former ? Should you draw the sword, can you after all be sure of gaining your point ? Well does an able writer say, " We can , scarcely anticipate any future national difference which it would not be more safe and prudent to submit to arbitration, than to the chances of war. However just may be our cause, however united our people, we cannot foresee the issue of the conflict, nor tell what new enemies we may be called to en- counter, what sacrifices to bear, what concessions to make." But do you doubt whether such pledges of mutual reference would be kept by nations ? " It is readily admitted," says a worthy son of the immortal Jay, " that if the only guarantee for their faithful performance consisted in the virtue and in- tegrity of statesmen and politicians, the confidence to be re- posed in them would be but faint. Happily, however, we have a far stronger guarantee in national interest, and in public opinion. Every government that felt disposed to vio- late such a treaty, would be conscious that, by doing so, it would be sacrificing substantial interests for precarious ad- vantages, exchanging the blessings of continued peace for the hazards and calamities of war. It would, indeed, require some very powerful temptation to induce a people to forego the peace, security, and exemptions from military burdens, conferred by such a treaty. Public opinion, moreover, would unite with self-interest in preserving these treaties inviolate. A government who for the purpose of avoiding war, had pledged its faith to abide by the award of umpires, would, by going to war in defiance of that award, and in palpable viola- tion of its solemn engagements, shock the moral sense of mankind, and would probably disgust even its own subjects. At the present day all governments are more or less con- trolled by public opinion ; and the progress of education, and the power of the press, enable every individual to sit in judg- ment on the conduct of his rulers. Such a war would be odious, because it would be felt by all to be unjust and dis- honorable. It would also be reprobated by the umpires 10 ARBITRATION, AS A 226 whose decision would thus be contemned, and by every na- tion which had entered into a similar treaty. It ought, also, to be remembered, that each new treaty would tend to secure the observance of all the preceding ones, as each nation would feel tliat the value of its own treaty would greatly de- pend on the faithful performance of all the others ; since, if one were violated with impunity, the power of the others to preserve peace would necessarily be weakened. In short, such a war would most probably be prevented, or speedily terminated by the intenerence of other powers interested in enforcing treaties for the preservation of peace. " But surely it would be the height of folly to refuse entering into an advantageous treaty, because it might pos- sibly be violated. What profitable commercial treaty was ever rejected on this ground ? Even admitting the case sup- posed, our local situation, our population and resources, relieve us from all danger of a sudden and hostile attack. No future enemy of the United States will ever indulge the idea of con- quest ; and the only serious consequences we could apprehend from unexpected hostilities, would be the interruption of our commerce, while tlie nation, strengthened in all its resources by her past exemption from war, could immediately place itself in the attitude of defence. " Dismissing, then, all idle fears that these treaties honestly contracted, and obviously conducive to the highest interests of the parties, would not be observed, let us contemplate the rich and splendid blessings they would confer on our coun- try. Protected from hostile violence by a moral defence more powerful than all the armies and navies of Europe, we might, indeed, beat our swords into plough-shares, and our spears into pruning-hooks. The millions now expended on our military establishments, could be applied to objects directly ministering to human convenience and happiness. Our whole militia system, with its long train of vices, and its vexatious interruptions of labor, would be swept away. The arts of peace would alone be cultivated, and would yield com- forts and enjoyments in a profusion and perfection of which mankind have witnessed no parallel. In tjie expressive lan- guage of Scripture, our citizens would each ' sit under his own vine and under his own fig-tree, with none to make him afraid,' and our peaceful and happy republic would be an ex- ample to all lands. , " It is impossible that a scene so bright and lovely, should not attract the admiration of the world. The extension of education in Europe, and the growing freedom of her institu- tions, are leading her people to think, and to express their thoughts. The governments of the eastern continent, what- 227 SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. 11 ever their form, are daily becoming more and more sensitive to popular opinion. The people, already restive under their burdens, would soon discover that those burdens would be re- duced, if not wholly removed, by the adoption of such an American policy, and they Avould inquire why they were de- nied tjje blessings of peace. Before long, some minor states would commence the experiment, and the example be followed by others. In time, these treaties would be merged in more extensive alliances, and a greater number of umpires would be selected ; nor is it the vain hope of idle credulity, that at last a union might be formed of every Christian nation for guaran- teeing the peace of Christendom, by establishing a tribunal for the adjustment of national differences, and by preventing all forcible resistance to its decrees. That such a court formed by a congress of nations in obedience to the general wish, would, next to Christianity, be the richest gift ever bestowed by heaven upon a suffering world, will scarcely be questioned by any who have impartially and candidly investigated the subject J^ Here is high testimony to the importance and ultimate practicability of a Congress of Nations ; a system based on the principle of mutual reference, and embodying that principle in a permanent and perfect form. Well does one of the most enlightened legislatures in Christendom, while " regarding arbitration as a practical and desirable substitute for war," still say, " that a system of adjudication, founded on a well-digested code of international laws, and administered by a standing court or board of mutual reference, is prefera- ble to the occasional choice of umpires who act without the aid or restriction of established principles or rules." Prince Eugene. — " The thirst of renown sometimes in- sinuates into our councils, under the garb of national honor. It dwells on imaginary insults ; it suggests harsh and abusive language ; and people go on from one thing to another, till they put an end to the lives of half a million of men. A military man becomes so sick of bloody scenes in war, that in peace he is averse to re-commence them. I wish that the first minister who is called to decide on peace and war, had only seen actual service. What pains would he not take to seek, in mediation and compromise, the means of avoiding the effusion of so much blood ! " Lord Brougham. — " My principles — I know not whether they agree with yours ; they may be derided, they may be unfashionable ; but I hope they are spreading far and wide — my principles are contained in the words which that great man, Lord Faulkland, used to express in secret, and which I 12 ARBITRATION. 228 now express in public — Peace, Peace, PEACE. I abominate war as unchristian. I hold it the greatest of human crimes. I deem it to include all others — violence, blood, rapine, fraud, every thing which can deform the character, alter the nature, and debase the name of man." Louis Bonaparte. — "I have been as enthusiastic and joyful as any one else after victory ; yet I confess that even then the sight of a field of battle not only struck me with horror, but even turned me sick. And now that I am ad- vanced in life, I cannot understand any more than I could at fifteen years of age, how beings who call themselves reason- able, and who have so much foresight, can employ this short existence, not in loving and aiding each other, and passing through it as quietly as possible, but in striving, on tlie con- trary, to destroy each other, as though time did not itself do this with suflUcient rapidity. What 1 thought at fifteen years of age, I still think, that war, and the pain of death which so- ciety draws upon itself, are but organized barbarisms, an in- heritance of the savage state." Seneca. — " Some deeds, which are considered villanous. while capable of being prevented, become honorable and glo- rious, when they rise above the control of law. The very things which, if men had done them in their private capacity, they would expiate with their lives, we extol when they per- petrate them in their regimentals. We punish murders and massacres committed among private persons ; but what do we with wars, the glorious crime of murdering whole na- tions ? Here avarice and cruelty know no bounds. Barbari- ties are authorized by decrees of senate, and votes of the people ; and enormities, forbidden in private persons, are here enjoined by legislatures." Franklin. — "After much occasion to consider the folly and mischiefs of a state of warfare, and the little or no advantage obtained even by those nations which have conducted it with the most success, I have been apt to think there never has been, nor ever im.ll be, any such thing as a good war or a bad peace. — Jill wars are follies, very expensive and very mis- chievous ones. When will mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their difierences by arbitration ? Were they to do it by the cast of a die, it would be better than by fighting and destroying each other." AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. ^^sOhti. 6^: '/.o^auM s»^4m«aL3v^ ■ No. XXX. CONGRESS OF NATIONS.* Section 1. — ^Its General Principle. There are only two ways of settling disputes either be- tween individuals or communities — one by amicable agree- ment between the parties themselves, and the other by refer- ence to a third party. In the intercourse of nations, the for-, mer is called negotiation ; but the latter principle is applied either by the interposition of a friendly power as mediator, by reference to an umpire mutually chosen, or by some inter- national tribunal resembling more or less our courts of law for the adjustment of difficulties between individuals. Media- tion and arbitration are only different modes of reference ; and a congress of nations, like our statute-books and civil courts, would merely embody both principles in a permanent form. All writers on international law consider nations as moral agents subject to the same obligations as individuals. Here is the clue to all our plans and arguments for an international tribunal that shall, like our codes and courts of law for indi- viduals, regulate their intercourse, and settle their disputes, vindicate their rights, and redress their wrongs, without the effusion of blood. We wish nations to treat each other as individuals are required to do, and to provide, in a code and court of nations, essentially the same system for an equitable, peaceful adjustment of their difficulties, that every civilized, well-regulated community has for its own members. Sect. 2. — ^Plan or the proposed Congress. We shall not enter into the details of a plan for a congress of nations. We are not sticklers for any particular plan or name, but propose merely to incorporate the grand principle of reference in some standing tribunal for the peaceful adjust- ment of all international difficulties. How it shall be consti- tuted or controlled ; what shall be the number or qualifications of its members ; in what way, or for what term, they shall be * This synopsis is furnished mainly to prompt the reader to a more thorough invest ig^ation of the subject in the Prize Essays on a Congress of Nations, published by the American Peace Society 5 a vohime of great ability and research, that well deserves to be carefviJly studied by every intelligent Christian, philanthropist and patriot. P. T. NO. XXX. 2 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 230 chosen; whether tlie states associated shall each send an equal number of delegates, or, if not, on what principle the representation shall be regulated ; what shall be the form of the tribunal, its rules of procedure, and the lengtli or fre- quency of its sessions ; all such points must be left for time and trial to determine, and would very easily be settled by men fully bent on carrying into effect any plan of the kind. A right purpose would soon find a feasible way ; and, wishing merely to start and guide inquiry concerning such a tribunal, we will give only a few of its outlines. 1. Our plan includes two measures — one temporary, or oc- casional ; the other settled and permanent We would have first a congress of nation^^ grand convention of delegates plenipotentiary from all parts of the civilized world that could be brought into the measure, to deliberate and agree upon a code of international law. We would have them invested like ambassadors with power, not to establish such a code, but merely to recommend its principles in detail to their respec- tive governments for their adoption or rejection. The next measure would be the establishment of an international tribu- nal to interpret that code, and adjudicate whatever cases any nations in dispute might refer to their decision. 2. The character of its members would of course be pre- eminent, all master-spirits. The lawgiver of nations, the judge between cabinets and courts, kings and emperors, it would be the most august tribunal on earth ; a seat in it might come ere-long to be regarded as the climax of human ambi- tion ; every state would desire to be represented by its purest and ablest men ; and thus would it soon become, far more than the senate of Rome, or the Areopagus of Athens, the admiration of the world. 3. Its jurisdiction should extend only to matters connected with the intercourse of nations ; and no case should come before it except by consent and choice of parties. Its deci- sions should be final, and preclude by mutual agreement all right of appealing to any further means of adjustment, except a new hearing, an amicable consultation, or reference to spe- cial umpires mutually chosen. 4. Its decrees should be merely advisory. Whetlier legisla- tive or judicial, they should bind no party without their con- sent, and depend for success entirely on the high repute of the tribunal, on the obvious equity of its decisions, and the strong tide of public opinion in their favor. It should act as a diet of ambassadors to mature terms for the ratification of their respective constituents, or as a board of referees whose arbitrament the parties would still be at liberty to accept Dr reject d^ CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 3 5. Its sanctions should never include or involve a resort to the sword. Its decrees should be enforced only by moral or peaceful means. Penalties there might be ; but they should all be pacific, and consist in the recoil of public opinion, in the withdrawal of friendly intercourse, or the curtailment of commercial and other privileges. These outlines should be constantly borne in mind ; for they obviate most of the objections hitherto brought against the project of a congress of nations, and would at least render such a tribunal perfectly harmless. If it did no good, it cer- tainly could do no evil. Sect. 3. — Objects sought. The mesLSure we propose, aims at a variety of results, each highly important to the welfare of nations. It would seek mainly to preserve peace without the sword ; but tliis purpose, however prominent and sublime, is only one among the mul- titude of its appropriate objects. It would be not only the peace-maker of nations, but the regulator of their entire inter- course, and the guardian of all their common interests. It would perform for the kingdoms associated no small part of the services that our own Congress does for the different members of our republic, and would thus have three distinct departments of duty — to settle and complete the laio of nations, to adjust all disputes between them unthout an appeal to the sword, and direct their intercourse and combined energies in ways best adapted to the improvement, prosperity and happiness of the ivhole humxin rojce. Few are aware how unsettled and imperfect is the present law of nations. We hava in truth no such law ; and what passes under the name, is of recent origin, and insufficient authority. This code, scarcely recognized at all by Greece or Rome, and little heeded or known in Christendom itself till after the Reformation, oAves more to Grotius than to all other writers put together. He was its grand architect. He found it a chaos of clashing precedents and principles ; but his learning, and his powers of analysis and combination, reduced its heterogeneous materials to a system which has won uni- versal admiration, and exerted a benign influence over the intercourse of all civilized nations. Still, neither Grotius nor his commentators have furnished a code of international law. They possessed not the requisite authority, and have given us only a compilation of precedents, opinions and arguments. It is the work, not of legislators, but of scholars ; no law-making power was ever concerned in enacting any of its statutes ; and all its authority has resulted from 3ie deference sponta- neously paid to the genius, erudition and wisdom of its com- 4 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. . 232 pilere. It is not law, but argument ; not decrees, but rules ; not a code, but a treatise ; and tlie nations are at liberty, ex- cept from the force of custom and public opinion, to adopt or reject it as they please. A code of international law is still a desideratum ; to supply this deficiency would be one of tlie first and highest duties of the tribunal we propose ; and a mere glance at tlie subjects which would thus come before it, must sufiice to show its necessity and vast importance. Our limits will hardly allow us even to name these sub- jects — articles contraband of war ; — protection of neutral commerce ; — security of private property in war ; — the rights and rules of blockade ; — right of search and impressment ; — protection of non-combatants ; — property in navigable rivers ; — the armed interposition of one nation in tlie domestic affairs of another ; — right of interference with a nation at war ; — passage of belligerents through a neutral territory ; — surrender of fugitives from justice or oppression ; — various meliorations of war ; — measures for the entire extinction of the custom ; — the settlement of national boundaries ; — the regulation of car- tels, and flags of truce ; — the rules and rates of salvage ; — the improvement and expansion of commerce ; — the adoption of some common standard of weights and measures ; — tlie inter- pretation of treaties by definite and established rules ; — the naturalization of foreigners, and the transfer of their alle- giance ; — the determination of what shall be deemed the in- alienable rights of man, such as life, liberty of conscience, and the use of his own powers ; — ^the reconcilement of laws that come into conflict in the intercourse of nations, such as those respecting contracts, majority, evidence, and the law of domicil ; — improvements in various parts of the international code ; — measures in common for the relief of nations, as in the case of Greece, or the Cape de Verd Islands, and for the suppression or punishment of such practices as torture, infan- ticide, human sacrifices, the slave-trade, and similar outrages upon humanity. This enumeration includes only a part of the subjects that would come before a congress of nations ; but, for the sake of a brief illustration, just glance at a few of the topics we have mentioned. Take the question of blockade. The law of nations is very loose on this subject ; tlie practice of bel- ligerents has taken a still wider license ; and the exigencies of the case call aloud for some means to prevent the repetition of such outrages. Some writers have questioned the pro- priety, under any circumstances, of blockade against neutrals ; but, right or wrong, it ou^ht certainly to be restrained from that immense sweep of mischief to which it has so often as- pired in modern times. All the ports of a nation, most of 233 CONGRESS OP NATIONS. 5 those skirting an entire continent, have, by a mere stroke of the pen, been closed against all neutral vessels. England once declared the whole coast of France to be under blockade, and Napoleon in return did the same to all England, without a fleet in either case sufficient to enforce a tenth part of the blockade. It was a mere scare-crow, a blockade only on paper, a shallow pretence for licensing a species of wholesale piracy ; yet did an English admiral, in the late war between Great Britain and ourselves, declare our whole coast, two thousand miles in extent, under blockade, without a twentieth part of the ships requisite to enforce a blockade so extensive. The evils of such a practice must be immense ; for the block- ade of a single port might cripple the commerce of the world. The blockade of Canton by the English (1840) injured the United States alone at the rate of some ten million dollars in a single year. Glance next at the conjlid of laws in the intercourse of na- tions. A man is legally of age in the United States at twenty- one, but in France, we will suppose, not till twenty-five ; and, consequently, should a Frenchman, only twenty-one years old, purchase goods in this country, he would not there be bound in law by the bargain, because deemed incapable of making such a contract. A man, making his will according to our laws, but not in accordance with those of Holland, would, by removing to that country, and dying there without any change in the instrument, render it null and void. In the same way might a marriage contract be nullified, and a man's whole family be disinherited and disgraced. Look, also, at articles contraband of war. On this point the opmicjns of writers, the decisions of courts, and the practice of nations, have been extremely variant ; and this diversity or collision has been a prolific source of irritation, disputes and wars. Each party condemns as contraband nearly every thing it pleases ; and hence have come not only vast losses to commerce, but fierce and bloody conflicts. . The door is open to almost interminable disputes ; and the most trifling articles of trade have thus become bones of protracted contention be- tween some of the first states in CJiristendom. Vessels have been condemned for having on board a barrel of tar, a keg of white lead, or even a single gross of buttons ! and two con- siderable nations were actually plunged into a long and bloody war by the paltry question, whether a bar of iron is, or is not, contraband of war ! ! There is, moreover, the question of private property in war. Such property on land is now secured in a time of war; but shall the same guaranty be extended to the ocean ? Shall the law of nations spread its broad segis over the property of non- 6 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 234 combatants in all circumstances ? Shall privateering ceaae, and no more letters of marque and reprisal be allowed ? Shall this practice of legalized piracy be utterly abolished, and commerce be left, alike in peace and war, to traverse every sea, and bsuter its commodities in every port, safe from the attacks of privateers or of public ships ? A consummation incalculably important to the commerce and prosperity of the whole world. It would strip war of more than half its re- maining pecuniary evils, and hasten its entire abolition. We may allude, also, to the ri^ht of interference loUh a na- tion at toar. May troops be raised in one country to fight against another, without violating the laws of neutrality.? Was the part taken by some of our own citizens in the trou- bles of Canada, or in the war of Texas, an infringement of our amicable relations with England and Mexico ? This practice has for ages prevailed more or less throughout Christendom. English officers have in India raised considerable armies avowedly on purpose to fight for pay ; English admirals and American commodores have sold their services to other nations in the trade of human butchery ; and whole regiments went, year after year, from England to engage in the civil broils of the Peninsula. There is scarce a country in Europe that has not occasionally furnished mercenaries for foreign wars. There is, likewise, tJie question of search and impressment. This right, boldly claimed by some nations, is resolutely de- nied by others ; and this collision of views and practices must be a fruitful source of strife. Here was the main cause of our last war with England ; but the point, left at the close of that war just where it was before, still remains a magazine of mischief ready to be kindled by a spark into such an ex- plosion as mignt convulse each nation to its centre, and cover its fairest fields with carnage and devastation. But far more important would be measures in concert for the abolition of the whole war-system. This would be the grand aim of such a congress as we propose ; but a result so mighty and glorious, can be reached only by a gradual process. A resort to arms should be allowed, if at all, in less than a tithe of its past or present cases ; ample means should be provided even in such cases for a"peaceful adjustment of the dispute ; the conflict, if inevitable, should still be, like ancient wagers of battle, under the strictest regulations to check its tenden- cies to unnecessary mischief; and the grand provocative to war, found in standing armies, and other military preparations, should be removed, as far and as fast as possible, by a reduc- tion of all such establishments through the civilized world. The alleged necessity of them is deplored by all ^ a most enormous evil ; but no nation dares to reduce its own estab- 235 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 7 lishraent without an assurance that all the rest will do the same. This diflSculty would be met at once by a congress of nations ; one of its earliest acts would probably be to pro- pose a simultaneous, proportionate reduction of all standing armies ; and this process could easily and speedily be carried so far as to leave a force barely sufficient for the preservation of internal order and peace. This synoptical view will suffice to show the necessity of some measure to settle the law of nations as a means of pre- serving peace between them, of regulating their intercourse, and promoting a vast variety of common interests. The im- portance of our scheme in this as well as other respects, is readily admitted ; but not a few doubt both its feasibility and its efficacy. These ttre the main points, and deserve a more minute and thorough discussion than our present limits will allow. Sect. 4. — Practicability of the Measure. There is certainly no impossibility inherent in the nature of our project. Nations can, if they will, call such a conven- tion, and establish such a tribunal as we propose ; and the only question is, whether they can be induced to do so. Can they be made to see the vast importance of such a measure, its absolute necessity to their highest welfare ? • Can they be brought into the requisite degree of concert ? Will they ever consent to come into such a confederacy ? A partial answer to these questions might be inferred from tlie obvious necessity of a congress of nations. The defi- ciencies of their present code can never be supplied, the evils now incident to their intercourse never be remedied, and their highest welfare, or their perfect safety secured, without some tribunal of the kind as their acknowledged lawgiver and judge. No treatises on the law of nations, no decisions of admiralty courts, no treaty stipulations, no rectitude, capacity or vigi- lance of rulers, no degree of intelligence or honesty among the people, no force of custom or public opinion, can ever meet all the exigencies of the case, and thus supersede the necessity of an international tribunal for the various and vastly important purposes already suggested. Can such a chasm in the wants of the world never be filled ? We find a bright augury for our cause in the general pro- gress of society. The genius of universal improvement is abroad. The whole age is instinct with new life, and power, and impulse. The world is all awake and astir. Its intellect is on the stretch for new discoveries, inventions and improve- ments. Onward is the watchword ; and every thing that has wings, is spreading them for a wider range, and a loftier 8 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. t^ flight Art, and science, and manufactures, and commerce, and agriculture, and every department of human effort, are catching the inspiration of the age. What enterprises of phi- lanthropy ! What plans of reform in education, society and government ! How much has already been gained, how much more in certain prospect, for the welfare of mankind! — And will this spirit of the age never reach the great subject of in- ternational law and intercourse ? While hewing down forests, and converting entire provinces into gardens; while inter- secting almost every land with canals and railroads ; while making a thousand applications of steam-power to manufac- tures and commerce ; while remodelling entire systems of science and philosophy, of education and government ; while combining high and low, rich and p5br, old and young, in successful efforts to supply every hamlet in Christendom with the M'ord of life, to send the gospel through the world, and to banish from the earth such evils as intemperance and the slave-trade ; will such a spirit pause before accomplishing a task so needful as that of a code and court of nations ? Mark especially the increase of popular power. Knowledge is power ; and this mighty engine is fast going into the hands of every man in Christendom, and giving him an influence over the destinies of the world. Even despots are beginning to educate tlieir subjects, and legitimacy is sheltering itself under the wing of the schoolmaster. The press, like the sun in the heavens, is pouring a flood of light on the mass of com- mon minds, and revealing to them their rights and preroga- tives. The power of tlie world is passing into their hands ; and ere-long wUl they wield it, not to gratify war-loving des- pots, but to subserve their own interests by preserving peace, and promoting agriculture, commerce and tlie arts. Cannot the people be brought to favor such a project as ours ? Most certainly ; and, if so, its ultimate success is beyond a doubt Observe stDl more especially the influence of popular opinion upon rulers. It is exerting a wider and stronger sway over their policy. Even now does it silently control tliem, and is daily becoming more and more powerful. It is mightier than monarchs or warriors. No tlirone, no army, no fortress can long stand before it Napoleon, in the zenith of his power, quailed before the pen of a British reviewer ; and the press, as the chief organ of public sentiment, will ere-long give law even to rulers. Here is the secret of the people's power ; and it is forcing the high and mighty to respect them. They are coming to be courted even by emperors and auto- crats as the real depositaries of power ; their wishes, perhaps not in form, but in fact, are now consulted ; and no cabinet in Christendom dares to contravene a general and decided ex- J837 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 9 pression of their will. Monarchy, aristocracy, all the cherished forms of legitimacy, may still remain ; but they Avill be, in the spirit of our own government, only different modes of serving the people, whose fiat must one day become law to the whole civilized world. Give us the people ; and we are sure, sooner or later, of our cause. But mark, also, the special direction of the popular mind. It is busy with what most immediately concerns its own in- terests. It is looking into government, detecting its hoary abuses, and calling aloud for reform. It is forcing old opinions, usages and institutions through the ordeal of its own scrutiny and judgment. Like Samson grasping the pillars of Gaza, it is laying its brawny hands on the great principles of govern- ment, and demanding reform or demolition. One or the other must come ; and the final result of tliis popular interference wiih the government of states, and the intercourse of nations, will doubtless facilitate the establishment of some international tribunal as the guardian of popular rights, and promoter of the general weal.. Another favorable circumstance is the establishment of free, representative governments. Here we see the result of the people's voice demanding that tlieir rights shall be respected, and their interests faithfully consulted. During the last half century, there have been, besides some abortive attempts, more than eighty new written Constitutions established in Europe and America ; and about one hundred millions of peo- ple are now ruled by them. Most of these cases recognize the representative principle ; a principle which, as carried into practice in England and France, but especially in the republics on this continent, may be regarded as the grand political discovery and characteristic of these later times. When a little more extended, and brought fully into action, it will doubtless operate a change in the international policy of tlie world highly favorable to the welfare of the people. Their representatives, acquainted with their wishes, and sympathiz- ing in their wants, sufferings and prejudices, will of course plead for their interests. Ihe policy of nations has hitherto been essentially belligerent ; but popular representation will be adverse to this policy, and propitious to the great objects sought by a congress of nations. The mass of mankind, so far from being disposed to abet those ruinous contests which have blighted and cursed the earth for so many ages, will be found, when left to themselves, to be decidedly in favor of a pacific policy ; and the principle of representation, when fully developed, cannot fail to give vast expansion and influence to their wishes in this respect. Another strong omen of good, then, is found in the changes 10 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 238 of general opinion concerning war. These changes have been rapid and great Once the right of war was questioned by- few, if any ; now its lawfulness is boldly denied by large and growing numbers. Once philosophers commended it, states- men applauded it, and men of letters made it the chief theme of their eulogies; now they all unite in execrating it as a- mass of abominations and woes, to be tolerated only as a dire necessity. Once it was deemed the pastime of master-spirits, the sole pathway to glory ; now it is fast coming to be held in universal contempt and abhorrence as fit only for brutes or fiends. Once it formed the main business of nations ; now it is professedly their chief aim to avoid it. Once it was their only theatre of competition ; now the scene is changed to manufactures, commerce, and other sources of improvement and comfort, wealth and power. Public opinion on this sub- ject is rapidly changing in many other respects. The time- hallowed delusions of war are vanishing; its strange and guilty spell is losing its hold of five thousand years upon the popular mind ; men begin to reflect on its incalculable waste of blood and treasure, on the fearful accumulation of its crimes and its woes ; its evils will ere-long tell on the ballot-box to the sore dismay of all war-making aspirants after place and power ; and, if the custom can be superseded, the people will Boon demand that it shall be, and will thus hasten the adoption of some scheme like the one we propose, that shall put an end to its horrors forever. War is at length rallying all classes against it as their common foe. Once the high favored it, while the lower and middling classes, on whom its evils chiefly fell, had few- means of opposition or remonstrance. The principle of rep- resentation has given to the latter the power of speech ; tMs power has called into exercise that of inquiry, reflection and reason ; and now a voice, unheard before, has come up, as from " the vasty deep," loud and terrible, that war shall be no more. Not merely the suffering millions, its chief victims, but men of wealth, and learning, and high authority, are be- ginning to brand with infamy this Avholesale destroyer of hu- man interests. The open and avowed advocates of peace in the various classes of society, have increased an hundred-fold ; and the increase of boldness, intellectual power, and consis- tent zeal, has corresponded to the augmentation of numbers. And why should we not expect it to be thus, when any con- siderable body of men is brought to reflect on the subject? What source of misery, which is under the direction and control of man himself, can be compared to this ? When some terrible disease advances from country to country, when the seeds of the pestilence are scattered abroad by the Almighty, 239 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. ' 11 it becomes us to bow in submission, and hide ourselves in the dust before that Holy Being who knows our ill deserts, and whose secret ways are inscrutable to man. But in the de- vastations of war, it is not an Almighty Being whose preroga- tives we are not at liberty to question, but one of the feeble, erring creatures of his footstool, that seizes the burning thun- derbolt, and scatters it through the world. And what renders the act the more astonishing, it is not the mere impulse of an unforeseen phrenzy, the ebullition of a momentary madness, but a matter of calculation, and cool reasoning, carried on in the very face of heaven, and in defiance of the divine precept. t?iou shcdt love thy neighbor as thyself. It is well ordered in Providence, however, that criminal principles and practices do not fail to expose themselves, and ultimately to work their own cure. The cries of widows and orphans had been heard from every quarter, mingling on every breeze ; but they were too little regarded. The symptoms were at last observed of a great political commotion ; the clouds came ; the thunders muttered ; the lightnings gleamed ; there was a quaking and rocking of the earth, and then there suddenly opened the grand volcano of the French Revolution of 1790, to the wonder and bountiful edification of all the advocates of war. At tliat dreadful period there were certain experiments, which had a wonderful effect in enlightening the sentiments of some classes of people. It was found that the glittering sword of war could strike upward, as well as downward ; among the high and the mighty, as well as among the poor and powerless peasants. The scythe fell upon the neck of princes ; those, who had been clothed in purple and fine linen, were arrayed in beggar's rags, and ate their crumbs in a dungeon; the innocent children died with tlie guilty fathers ; delicate women, the delight of their friends, and the ruling star of palaces, were smitten by the hand of the de- stroyer, and bowed their heads in blood. And then were beheld the hundred guillotines, the horrid invention of the fusillades, the drownings in the Loire, the dreadful devasta- tions of La Vendee, the gathering of armies on the plains of Italy, the bridge of Lodi, and the battle of Marengo. These were the beginnings of terrors, the opening of the incipient seal ; but the end was not yet. For twenty successive years the apocalypse of the book of war opened itself from one end of Europe to the other, and on the ocean as well as on the land, in the thunders and fires which at once shook, and en- lightened, and awed the world, of the Nile and Trafalgar, of Jena and Austerlitz, together with the dashing of throne against throne, and of nation against nation. At length the " white horse of death " was seen taking his way through the 12 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 24G centre of Europe, and power was given to him to kill with the sword and with hunger ; and he was followed by " the beasts of the earth," an army of five hundred thousand soldiers ; and they were all offered up as victims on the frozen fields of Russia ; and the Kremlin, and the ancient and mighty city of Moscow were burnt upon their funeral pyre. The earth shook to its centre ; a howling and a lamentation went up to heaven ; the living ate the dead, and then fed upon their own flesh, and then went mad ; the wolves and the vultures held their carnival, while Rachel wept for her children, and would not be comforted. Nevertheless the sickle of the destroyer was again thrust among the clusters ; and the wine-press of war was trodden at Dresden, and Leipsic, and Waterloo, till the blood " came out of the wine-press, even to the horse-bridles." The increased intercourse of nations, and a consequent intermingling of their interests and sympathies, are tending strongly to such an international tribunal as we propose. It has heretofore been the policy of nations to be as independent of each otlier as possible, and to regard the injury of a neigh- bor as a benefit to themselves ; but they are fast learning, that God made nations, like individuals in a family, like the cluster of families in a town, or the multitude of towns constituting a state, for a system of reciprocal dependence, and so inter- woven their interests as to render the prosperity of one tribu- tary to that of all the rest Hence the wonderful impulse given to the commerce, population and general thrift of Chris- tendom. This happy state of things war would interrupt; and its evils, felt not only on the tax-book of the belligerent, but in the workshops and counting-rooms of the neutral, are combining against it nearly all the pecuniary interests of the world. Observe, also, the growing disposition of Christendom to employ pacific expedients for the adjustment of national dis- putes. These substitutes, — negotiation, arbitration and me- diation, — are fast coming to supersede entirely the actual use of the sword. There seems to be a general, established con- cert for avoiding war by such means. Holland and Belgium referred their difficulties to England and France ; points in dispute between Great Britain and ourselves were submitted first to Russia, and next to Holland ; the United States and Mexico called on the king of Prussia to act as their umpire ; and the five powers of Europe, extending their benevolence beyond the limits of Christendom, offered to mediate between the Pacha of Egypt, and the Grand Sultan. Here are the elements, all the essential principles, of the tribunal we pro- pose ; and they must pave the way, sooner or later, for its actual establishment There is even now a strong and grow- 341 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 13 ing predisposition in favor of such a scheme. It is already a favorite. Every body hails the proposal as a magnificent con ception ; even the skeptic deems it a glorious dream of phi lanthropy ; and all profess themselves anxious to see it real- ized, if it can be, in the permanent peace and amity of the civilized world. The current of the age is setting towards it in a gulf-stream. The pursuits, the habits, the sympathies of nearly all Christendom encourage it, invite it, demand it ; nor can the general mind ever be put to rest without it. Come it must ; and the only question is, how soon ? Mark, also, the degTee of actual preparation for such a tribunal. The age even now is well nigh ripe for it. The intercourse of civilized nations by travel and commerce, by enterprises of benevolence, and interchanges of art, and sci- ence, and literature, has woven their sympathies, habits and interests into the web of a vast and glorious brotherhood. They form one community, one great family. Christendom has already become, in many important respects, a confede- racy of nations ; and, sooner or later, they must have a com- mon tribunal to regulate 'their intercourse without the sword, and to watch over tlieir common interests. They deeply need it now ; and they might come at once under its supervision with little or no violence to their present habits ; for the fre- quent resort of late to mediation, artfhration, and other pacific expedients for the adjustment of their difficulties, has paved the way for the speedy establishment of a congress embracing all Christendom. Review, likewise, the history of international law and inter- course. Trace its progress from the earliest times through Egyptians and Persians, through Greeks and Romans, through the chaos of the dark ages, through the confederacies, and leagues, and diplomacies of later periods, down to the arbi- traments and congresses of the last century or two ; and you will find ourselves drifted already to the very brink of this final improvement in the law of nations. Only one breeze more, and we reach the port. ^^ To the same conclusion would a review of consolidated governments lead us. If we go back to patriarchal ages, and observe how families expanded into tribes, how tribes were formed into petty states like the twelve hundred in ancient Italy, how such states were at length combined into large kingdoms like those of modern Europe, we shall see that only one step more in this process of fifty centuries is required for a general confederacy of Christendom under a common con- gress and court. Such a result, however sublime and mo- mentous, would be only the extension of an old and well- established principle. It would merely be pushing tlie car of p. T. NO. XXX. 2 '^ ^4 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 242 improvement a little farther on the same track of ages. It would only do for large communities or states what has been done a thousand times over for smaller ones. All the materials, indeed, are ready for the edifice. We need no new principles ; only an application of those which have been for ages at work in every well-regulated govern- ment on earth. Trace the gradations of civil courts from the justice's bench . through the court of common pleas, and the supreme court of a state, up to the judiciary of the United States ; and you will perceive that we can go no farther without reaching a high court of nations. The whole art of government must either stop-here forever, or come, sooner or later, to this glorious result, this climax of political improve- ment Sect. 5. — ^Efficacy of the Measure. The measure we recommend, might well be expected to accomplish, in a good degree, all the objects heretofore specified ; but we shall now consider merely its influence in preserving peace, and endeavor to prove, both from history, and the nature of the case, its probable efficacy for such a purpose. Listen, then, to (he teachings of history. The experiment has already been made in a variety of ancient and modern cases ; and the general result justifies the belief, that such a tribunal as we propose, would eventually put an end forever to the wars of Christendom. The Amphictyonic Council of Greece, composed of delegates from each of its states, and empowered to examine and decide all their disputes, did much to preserve peace between them for a long series of ages ; and, though unable, in tunes so barbarous and warlike, to keep tlie sword continually in its scabbard, still it must have saved rivers of blood. The Achaean League did the same, and was often solicited, even by foreign nations, to act as the arbiter of their disputes. We might also quote almost every government in Europe as a virtual illustration of this principle ; for Austria, France, Great Britain, all the leading states of Christendom, kept for the most part in domestic peace for centuries, are each a cluster of small tribes or baronies so long associated under one head as to have lost in some cases their original distinctions as independent princi- palities. Austria and Great Britain are obvious, striking examples ; and tlie fact that the three kingdoms of the latter, and the numerous principalities of the former, are preserved in amity by the general government common to them all, goes far to prove the efficacy of our principle. TJjis principle has jkewise kept peace between our own states for more tlian 11^3 ' CONGRESS OF NATIONS. ^ l5 sixty years, (1844,) and between the confederated cantons of Switzerland for more than five centuries. Even the occa- sional congresses or conferences, so frequently held during ^ tlie last two centuries between the leading powers of Europe as to average one every four years, have seldom failed either to preserve or restore peace. Not that they have always been completely successful ; but they have fully evinced the effi- cacy of the principle, and added strong confirmation to the hope of an eventual confederacy of all Christendom under a congress or court that shall keep its members in constant and perpetual peace. If experiments so partial, and under cir- cumstances comparatively so unfavorable, have still accom- plished so much even for pagan or half-christianized nations, what may we not expect from a tribunal perfect as the highest wisdom of modern times can make it, cheerfully recognized by the whole civilized world, and enforced by a strong, uni- versal, omnipresent public opinion ? Look at the nature of the case. Such a tribunal m^ouM either produce or imply a state of public sentiment strongly favorable 1o the peaceful adjustment of kll difficulties between nations. 'There would be a general, most decided aversion to the sword ; a feeling like that which made Franklin say, there never was a good war, or a bad peace ; a willingness, a full determination to preserve peace at almost any sacrifice short of national destruction or dismemberment. Would not such sentiments alone, if universally prevalent, well nigh suffice to keep all Christendom in perpetual friendship and peace ? But a congress would remove the grand incentives to war. It would crush, or chain, or neutralize the war-spirit. It would make the warrior's business odious like that of the hangman, and render it the chief glory of rulers, not to wage successful war, but to preserve unbroken, universal peace. It would give a new direction to the energies of all Christendom, and turn the ambition of princes and statesmen into peaceful channels. It would sweep away the grand nurseries of war by superseding all war-establishments. It would eventually convert standing armies into handfuls of police-men, and leave war-ships to rot, arsenals to moulder, and fortifications to crumble into ruins. Here are the chief combustibles of war ? and, when these are all removed, it will be well nigh impossible to kindle its fires on any emergency. But such a congress would obviate nearly all the occasions of war. These are noAv found in points of national honor ; — in sudden bursts of passion among rulers; — in occasional outrages of officers or citizens ; — in clashing views, customs or interests ; — in temporary misconceptions and animosities ; — in claims for redress denied, or unduly delayed ; — in mutual 16 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 244 jealousies, suspicions and fears. Most of these difficulties, such a tribunal would either prevent, or easily settle ; and for tlie rest, it would provide an antidote sufficient to supersede ninety-nine wars in a hundred. Nay ; would not this grand expedient suffice for the worst emergency possible to such a state of Christendom ? It would make nations, just like the members of a Christian church, cease to think of settling their disputes by arms. They could never draw the sword at the outset ; and the long delay occasioned by an appeal to the congress, and by subsequent preparations for conflict, would give ample time for passion to cool, and reason to gain such an ascendency as she seldom, if ever, had in any declaration of war by men. If the parties disliked the first decision, they might claim re- peated hearings ; and every new trial would create new ob- structions in the way of appealing to the sword. Such ai appeal would draw down upon them universal displeasure ; they might be put, as a species of temporary outlaws, under the ban of all Christendom, and excluded from both political and commercial intercourse ; and such measures, enforced by the high authority of a court representing all civilized na- tions, and venerated by the whole world for its integrity and wisdom, could hardly fail to hold back the most reckless from bloodshed. Sect. 6. — Objections. 1. Pvblic opinion is not yet ripe for such a measure. — Then, let us make it so. It is in some degree prepared even now for tlie measure ; and soon might the wise and good, by the right use of means within their reach, form tlirough Christendom such a public sentiment as would ere-long secure this or some other permanent substitute for war. Public opinion is certainly ripe enough to start in earnest the train of efforts indispensable to the final accomplishment of our object 2. ff'e have other means now in use sufficient for the preservation of peace. — True, they might suffice ; but they do not in fact supersede war. So might similar means suffice for the adjustment of all disputes between individuals ; but we still deem it expedient, if not necessary, to have our codes and courts of law. In spite of all methods now in use, the war-system still continues, and we wish to introduce a sub- stitute that shall actually supersede it entirely and forever. 3. Christendom is unmlling to give up the war-sr/stem. — If rulers are, the people are not ; and liie results of the French Revolution made even the sturdiest despots anxious for peace as their only security. All Europe, crushed beneath the 245 CONGRESS OP NATIONS. 17 enormous burdens of war, is even now panting for release from its evils, and would hail with joy aiiy effectual antidote or remedy. • 4. Bid ncAions would shrink from the expense. — ^We can- not believe it; such a tribunal would cost scarcely a thou- sandth part of what the war-system does even in peace. Eng- land spent for war an average of more than one million of dollars every day for twenty years, and the war expenses of all Christendom cannot be less even in peace than two or three millions a day ; while a congress of one hundred mem- bers, even with a salary for each equal to that of our own president, would cost only two millions and a half, and a sin- gle million would support a congress of fifty members at a yearly compensation of $20,000 each, or nearly sixty dollars a day for every member. 5. Bvt diversities of language, and religion, and manners, and government, and pursuits, would surely defeat the project. — None of these would oppose insuperable or very serious im- pediments to the slight degree of union required in such a confederacy. Not a few of them were overcome in the for- mation of our own general government ; and they were all found in the Diet of Switzerland, where each of the twenty- two cantons is internally as independent as any nation on earth, where tlie form of government varies from the purest democracy to the stiffest aristocracy, and where the people differ in language, manners and religion. 6. But such a' tribunal would be dangerous. — To whom or what ? Would it trample on the weak ? No ; it would have no power for such a purpose ; but its first care would be to guard them against encroachment and abuse. Would it en- danger liberty and popular governments ? Called into exis- tence by their voice, it would become of course a servant to their wishes, and a guardian of their rights and interests. Would it interfere with the domestic concerns of states ? . It would itself be the surest check upon such interference. Would it become a conclave of political intrigue, and serve only to embrpil the nations ? History refutes the charge ; and the supposition is just as absurd as it would be to expect that ambassadors appointed to negotiate peace, would only foment new wars. Would it become a tool in the hands of some future Alexander or Napoleon to subjugate all Chris- tendom ? Such monsters are the offspring only of war ; and the peaceful policy inseparable from a congress of nations, would put an end forever to the whole brood. By what pro- cess, then, could such a tribunal be thus perverted ? With no fleets or armies at their command, with no offices of emol- ument or honor to bestow, with no right to touch any subject 18 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 246 not gubnutted to them by their constituents, how could such a body become an engine of conquest, tyranny and blood ? 7. Composed chiefly of representatives from monarchies^ such a tribunal icoiUdj at aU events, be unfriendly, if not dangerous, to republican governments. — We see not how it could be ; for it would have no power to interfere with tlie internal affairs of any government, or to sit in judgment on any dispute not voluntarily referred to it by the parties. No nation would be bound by any of its decisions without tlieir own consent ; and we might as well say, that treaties with monarchies, and still more such references as we ourselves have repeatedly made to them, must endanger the freedom of our institutions. Such a court, guided by a common code, and responsible to the whole world for the rectitude of their adjudications, could not be half so dangerous as those kings and autocrats whom we have occasionally selected as um- pires. Yet who has ever dreamed of the least danger to our government from such references ? 8. But the congress, after all, ivovld be powerless. — ^Why ? Because it Avould wear no crown, wield no sword, hold no purse ? Such logic mistakes the age. Opinion is now the mistress of the world. Her voice could light or quench the fires of a thousand battle-fields. It changed the government of France in a day, and reformed the parliament of England without bloodshed. It made us free. It once marshalled all Europe in the crusades. It called up the demon-spirits of the French Revolution, and sent hurricane after hurricane of war howling in wrath over the fairest portions of Christen- dom. All this it has done ; and, when embodied in the grand Areopagus of the world, would it then be powerless ? Sect. 7. — Means requisite for such a Measure. Such a tribunal will of course be the work of time and ex- tended concert The train is already started ; but we must pass through a long process to tlie final consummation. The frequency of national intercourse, and the peaceful methods of negotiation, and of reference in its various forms, for the settlement of national disputes, are rapidly preparing the way for such a result, but can never reach it without the use of special, appropriate means. We must first rouse the people to demand some such ex- pedient Rulers can find one, if they leill ; but they never will, till driven to it by a voice from the people like that of many waters. We must spread before the community a flood of light on this subject ; we must paint before them, in burning colors, the guilt and the evils of war; we must show them how easily those at the helm of government could avoid it, if 247 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 10 they would ; and we must make them resolve not to bear this load of gratuitous mischief and misery any longer, but insist on some device for the permanent peace of Christendom. Thus roused, let millions pour their united voices upon the ear of parliaments, congresses and cabinets, till statesmen shall be constrained to take hold of the work in earnest, and push it onward to its full consummation. Let some Burke or Brougham, some Franklin or Jefferson, grasp the grand idea, and hold it up before his own nation, till it comes, like the sun in the firmament, to fill the whole hemisphere of tlieir vision ; let the government of England, France or America adopt the project as its ov/n, and commission some of its first minds to press it upon the attention of other governments ; let the process go on, till a call, loud as the longings of a crushed and bleeding world for relief from the woes of war, shall come forth to summon tlie wisdom of all Christendom to a consultation of peace, amity and love. This done, the result would be certain ; for the smaller states would rush for safety to the sheltering wings of such a confederacy, nor would any Christian or civilized nation long stand aloof, and brave the scorn of a world. The work is already begun; and we would urge every lover of his kind or his country to lend it his aid. Petitions have already been presented to the British Parliament ; and the attention of our own Congress, and several legislatures, has been repeatedly called to the subject. The project is now before the nation and the world with fair omens of suc- cess ; and fain would Ave call upon all ministers of peace, upon all churches of the Prince of Peace, upon all teachers in Christian seminaries of learning, upon all editors as the lawgivers or guardians of public opinion, upon all persons in place and power, upon every one that has a tongue, a pen or a purse for any cause of philanthropy, to co-operate in an enterprise fraught with so many blessings to mankind through all coming time. Sect. 8. — Sketch of past Attempts for something LIKE AN International Tribunal. History furnishes no exact or adequate model of what we propose. Something more or less like it, has been attempted under the name of Councils or Leagues, Diets or Congresses ; but none of them included what we deem most essential to our scheme, while they all relied on the sword for the accom- plishment of their purpose. Our plan, excluding the chiet causes of their failure, obviates nearly all the objections urged against those attempts, of which we will briefly sketch the most important 20 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 248 1. Tht Amphidyonic Council, embracing at first twelve, and finally thirty-one states or cities, was established 1497 B. C. Rollin says, " it was, in a manner, the holding of a general assembly of the Grecian States. Its establishment IS attributed to Amphictyon, king of Athens, whose chief aim was to unite in amity the several States of Greece, and thus oblige them to undertake the defence of each other, and be mutually vigilant for the tranquillity and happiness of their country. Each city sent two deputies, and had two votes in the Council. They hadfvU power to discuss all differences which might arise between the Amphidyonic cities.'" " They decided," says Rees, " all public differences and disputes between any of the cities of Greece ; and their determinations were received with the greatest veneration, and were ever held sacred and inviolable." The Council, though not always successful, did much to preserve peace among its members, and continued in spite of its own degeneracy, and the intrigues of Philip of Macedon, more tlian fifteen centuries ! 2. The Achcpun League^ formed at a very early period, and renewed in 284 B. C, continued one hundred and thirty-four years longer. " Although each city," says Rees, " was inde- pendent of the otliers, yet they formed one body ; and so great was their reputation for justice and probity, that the Greek cities of Italy referred their disputes to their arbitration. The Lacedsemonians and Thebans also referred to them an inter- esting matter of dissension between themselves. Having long retained their liberty, they ceased not to assemble when the necessity of public deliberation required it, and even when the rest of Greece was tlireatened Avith war and pestilence." 3. Passing over other confederacies of antiquity, we come down to the Hanseatic League, begun in the twelfth century, and completed near the middle of the thirteenth. It held every ten years an extraordinary general assembly to renew their league, expel refractory members, and admit new ones. This League, commenced between Lubec and Hamburgh, comprised at one time, nearly eighty cities ; and in 1730 its regular number M^as sixty-three, besides forty-four towns con- sidered as allies. A system of international laws loas adopted in their general assemblies. While pursuing a pacific pohcy, they flourished beyond all precedent ; but, on becoming so rich, powerful and ambitious as to raise fleets and armies, they provoked tlie jealousy of other powers, and were eventually reduced to three cities — ^Lubec, Hamburgh and Bremen. 4. Tlie Helvetic Union began so long ago as 1308, and has sufficed to preserve peace among its members during the greater part of five centuries. " The code of public law be- tween the combined republics of Switzerland," says Rees, " is 24d CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 21 founded on the treaty of Sempatch, in 1393, on the Conven- tion of Stantz, and the treaty of peace in 1712 at Aran be- tween the Protestant and Catholic cantons. From these sev- eral treaties, it appears, that the Helvetic Union is a perpetual defensive alliance between independent powers, to protect each other by their united force against all foreign enemies. Another essential object is, to preserve general peace and good order, for which purpose it is covenanted, that all public dis- sensions shall finally be settled between the parties in an amica- ble inanner ; and, ivith this view, particular judges and arbitra- tors are appointed with power to compose the dissensions which may arise. To this is added a reciprocal guarantee of their respective forms of government. No separate engagement of the cantons can be valid, if it be inconsistent with the fundamental articles of this general union ; but, with these exceptions, the combined states are independent of each other, and may perform every act of absolute sovereignty. The ordinary meeting of the general diet is annually in Januafjr ; and each canton sends as many deputies as it thinks proper." "No diversities of character and state," says another writer, " are greater than those which exist in tiiis confedera- tion. It comprises people of three distinct nations, speaking tliree of the prominent languages of Europe ; — the German in the east, the French in the west, and the Italian in the south-east. They are divided into twenty-two independent states, each of which has a dress and manners in some de- gree peculiar to itself, and a dialect often scarcely intelligible to those around it. The fornix of government vary from the purest democracy, in which every male above the age of seventeen is a member of the body which makes the laws, to the most rigorous aristocracy, in which the offices are confined almost entirely to patrician families. Their diet is a mere con- vention of ambassadors who merely treat with each other accord- ing to the strict tenor of their instructions, and can vote for no law without tJie consent of the government which sends thenu" 5. The Grand Scheme of Henry IV., called by the French their Good King, was started in 1601. Whether his real aim was to defend Christendom against Mohammedans, or, more probably, to humble the house of Austria, he proposed to divide Europe into fifteen states, — six hereditary monarchies, five elective monarchies, and four republics, — all of which he would fain have united in one grand confederacy, pledged with the sword to preserve peace among its members, and to resist all foreign mvasion. Henry gained the consent of Holland, Hesse Cassel, Anhalt, Hungary, Bohemia, Lower Austria, several towns and provinces in Germany, the republic of Switzerland, and Queen Elizabeth of England ; but the dag- S3 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 250 eer of the assassin Ravillac put an end in 1610 to the life of Henry, and to his great scheme. Since the death of Henry IV., no government has agitated the question of a permanent international congress. The Holy Alliance of 1815 did not aim at any such result; and, though the allied sovereigns did well in " declaring their un- alterable determination to take for the rule of their conduct alike in the administration of their respective states, and in their political relations with other governments, the precepts of our holy religion, which, far from being applicable only to private life, ought on the contrary to influence directly the resolves of princes, and guide all their measures, as being the only means of consolidating human institutions, and remedying their imperfections," yet the sudden death, if not the jealousy, of Alexander, the leader in the movement, prevented any serious benefit from it to the world. It was in itself a noble avowal ; and well did Ex-President Adams say to the late William Ladd, " the Holy Alliance was itself a tribute from the mightiest men of the European world to the purity of your principles, and the practicability of your system for the general preser\'ation of peace." Nor can we regard the Congress of Panama (1826) as nearly resembling our scheme. It was a grand movement ; and its failure was owing not so much to the nature of its objects, as to the character of the people who called it, to tlie obscure and inconvenient place where it was convened, and still more to its chief promoter, Bolivar, " the Napoleon of this hemisphere," as John Q,uincy Adams called him, " who had no more honest regard for peace or human liberty than had his prototype in Europe." The movement of Henry IV. has served to keep hefore Christendom, the idea of some common tribunal for the great brotherhood of nations. In 1693 William Penn wrote an es- say, in which he says of Henry's scheme, " his example tells us that it is fit to be done ; Sir William Temple's History of the United Provinces shows, by a surpassing instance, that it may be done ; and Europe, by her incomparable miseries, that it ought to be done^ Saint Pierre, whadied in 1743, published on the same subject, and by his zeal provoked from Voltaire the petulant remark, that "he was forever insisting on the project of a perpetual peace, and of a sort of parliament of Europe, which he called the European Diet." Rousseau, charmed with the scheme, reviewed it, and lent to it all the power and fascination of his genius. We are not aware that any other men of note took up the subject before the rise of peace societies near the downfall of Napoleon. From the first, however, have these societies aimed at a S51 CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 23 congress of nations as the perfection of all expedients for the adjustment of national disputes without the sword. The London Society early said, that " a court of nations is the end of the operations of the peace societies." The American Society from its origin took so deep an interest in the subject as to publish, soon after its organization, the first essay in modern times on a congress of nations, from the pen of the late William Ladd, and, in 1840, a large and splendid volume of Essays for which a premium of one thousand dollars had been offered, and more than forty competitors had contended for the prize. The First General Peace Convention (1843) in London recommended " a Congress of Nations to settle and perfect the code of international law, and a High Court OF Nations to interpret and apply that law for the settlement of all national disputes." Before the year 1830, a devoted friend of peace in Boston had circulated a document recommending " tiie reference of all international disputes to a Court of Nations," and readily obtained from individuals of every rank and profession, the signature of nine in ten of those to whom he presented it. The Legislature of Massachusetts, in the year 1837, recom- mended " a Congress or Court of Nations as at present the best practical method by which disputes between nations can be adjusted, and an appeal to arms avoided ;" and re- quested " the Executive of the United States to open a negotia- tion with other governments with a view to effect so important an arrangement." In 1838 the same legislature, with perfect unanimity in the House, and only two dissenting votes in the Senate, passed resolves still more explicit, in favor of " a Congress of Nations ybr tJie purpose of framing a code of inter- national law, and establishing a high court of arbitration for the settlement of controversies between nations ;" and desired " the Governor to transmit a copy to the President of the United States, and to the Executive of each State, to be communicated to their respective Legislatures, inviting their co-operation." While the subject was thus pending in Massachusetts, friends of peace in several states petitioned Congress in 1837 to settle by mutual reference our difficulties with Mexico, and also to incorporate the same principle in a Congress of Na- tions as a permanent substitute for war. The subject was referred ; and the committee in their report acknowledged, " that the union of all nations in a state of peace under the restraints and protection of law, is the ideal perfection of civil society; that they concurred fully in the benevolent object of the memorialists, and believed there is a visible tendency in the spirit and institutions of the age towards the practical ac- complishment of it at some future period ; that they heartily ^ CONGRESS OF NATIONS. 252 agree in recommending a reference to a third power of all Buch controversies as can safely be confided to any tribunal unknown to the constitution of our country ; and that such a practice will be followed by other powers, and will soon grow up into the customary law of civilized nations." Such a response might well encourage the friends of peace to continue their petitions. It is still before Congress ; and, in 1844, the Legislature of Massachusetts, in reply to a single petitioner, took the noblest stand ever yet taken in favor of this scheme. After representing war as " among the chief (destroyers of human happiness," and saying that, " if any method can be devised for the settlement of national contro- versies without the evils of war, the adoption of that method is ' a consummation devoutly to be wished,' " they state, that "the peace societies formed in this country and in Europe within the last twenty -eight years, and enrolling some of the purest and most gifted minds in either hemisphere, have poured the light of reason and revelation upon the practice of war, until multitudes have come to the conclusion, that a custom so fraught with evil, and so hostile to the first princi- ples of religion, cannot be necessary. It begins to be exten- sively acknowledged, that individuals and communities are subject to the same divine authority, and are bound to conduct their affairs, and regulate their mutual intercourse on the same principles ; and therefore, that legal adjudication should take the place of physical force, for the maintenance of national rights and interests, as it has already with regard to those of a personal and domestic nature." In the spirit of these suggestions, the Legislature, with great unanimity, passed the following resolves : — 1. That we reguid arbitration as a practical and desirable subsUtute fpr war, in the at^ustment of international differences. 2. That a system of adjudication, founded on a well-digested code of international laws, and administered by a standing court or board of mutual reference, is preferable to the occasional choice of umpires, who act without the aid or restriction of established principles and rules. 3. That it is our earnest desire that the government of the United States would, at the earliest opportunity, take measures for obtaining the consent of the powers of Christendom to the establishment of a Gen- eral Convention or Congress of Nations, for the purpose of settling the principles of international law. and of organizing a high court of nations, to adjudge all cases of difficulty which may be brought before them by the mutual consent of two or more nations. 4. That His Excellency the Governor be requested to transmit a copy of these resolves, wth the accompanying report, to the Senators and Representatives of Massachusetts in the Congress of the United Stales, with instructions to use their influence, as they may find occasion, in furtherance of this important object. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XXXI. EXTINCTION OF WAR.* BY HON. JOSIAH QUINCY, L.L. D. " In all experience and stories," says the great Bacon, " you shall find but three things that prepare and dispose an estate for war — the ambition of the governors, a state of soldiery professed, and the hard means to live among many subjects, whereof the last is the most forcible and the most constant." ' In reference to these causes of war, it may be asserted that three facts exi^ in the nature of man, and the condition of society, which give rational ground for the opinion, that they will be gradually limited in their influence, and may be made ultimately to cease altogether. The first fact is, that man is a being capable of intellectual and moral improvement ; the second, that the intel- lectual and moral improvement of our species has already ad- vanced in this very direction and on this very subject, wars being in fact far less bloody than in former periods of society ; and the third, that the intellectual and moral influences which have arisen, and are extending themsel¥es in the world, necessarily lead to a favorable change in all the enumerated causes on which the exist- ence of war depends, repressing the ambition of rulers, diminish- ing the influence of the soldiery, and ameliorating the condition of the multitude. At what previous time did the world exhibit the scenes we at this day witness ? When did science ever, until this period, pre- sent itself to the entire mass of the community as their inheritance and right ? No more immured in cells, no more strutting with pedant air and forbidding looks, in secluded halls, it adapts itself to real life, to use, and to man. It is seen in the field, leaning on the plough ; at the work-bench, directing the plane and the saw ; in the high places of the city, converting by their wealth and their liberality, merchants into princes ; in the retirement of domestic life, refining the virtues of a sex in whose purity and elevation man attains at once the noblest earthly reward, and the highest earthly standard of his moral and intellectual nature. And can know- ledge advance, and virtue be retrograde ? If such be the fact, why should not the species continue to ad- vance ? Is nature exhausted ? On the contrary, what half century can pretend to vie with the last in improvement in the arts, in advancement in the sciences, in the zeal and success of intellectual labors ? Time would fail to enumerate all ; let one suffice. Scarcely ten years have elapsed, since the projects of Fulton were the common sneer of multitudes. He indeed has already joined the great congregation of departed men of genius ; but where are his * From Pres. Quincy's Address before the Mass Peace Society in 1820. P. T. NO. x;xxi, 2 EXTINCTION OF WAR. 254 inventions ? Penetrating the interior of this new worid, smoking along our rivers, climbing witliout canvass the mountains of the deep, carrying commerce and comforts, unknown and unantici- pated, to inland regions, and already establishing a new era in navigation, and new facilities for human intercourse, incalculable in benefits and in consequences. So far from having any reason to believe that human improve- ment is stationEiry, or is henceforth to be retrograde, there is just reason to believe that it will advance with a rapidity and univer- sality never before witnessed. There are two facts characteristic of tlie present age, which encourage this belief; tlie first is tlie universal diffusion of knowledge, and the second is the facility with which this diffusion is effected. At the present day, not the few only, but the many are every where rising gradually into influence and power. Moral and intellectual cultivation are no more restricted to a few favored individuals, but proffered to the whole species. The light and warmth of science are permitted to penetrate the lowest strata of society, reaching deptiis never before explored. The press, also, by its magic power almost annihilates time and space, pervading every class and every climate, approximating the world to a state of general society, in which the bond of man to man is recognized, and humanity is becoming every day less and less the dupe of intrigue and artifica Mind embraces mind, in spite of intervening seas, or wildernesses. A i>eople highly moral and highly intellectual, would not endure the existence of such a distinct class as Bacon's " soldiery pro- fessed." They would realize that the principle of military life resulted in making moral agents machines, free citizens slaves ; that a soldier can have no will but his officer's, and know no law but his commands ; with him conscience has no force. Heaven no authority, and conduct but one rule, — implicit, military obedience. If it be asked, how a nation destitute of a military class, can be Bafe from foreign violence and invasion, it may be answered, first, that the existence of such a class is ever a main inducement both to the one and the other. For either your military force is weaker than your neighbor's, in which case he is insolent ; or it is stronger, in which case you are so ; or it is equal, in which case the very uncertainty begets in both a spirit of rivalry, of jealousy and oi' war. Secondly, all experience has shown that a well appointed militia, defending their own altars and homes, are competent to every purpose of repelling foreign violence and invasion. Thirdly, a society which should engage in no intrigues, covet no foreign possessions, and exemplify in all its conduct a spirit of justice, moderation, and regard for the rights of others, would assume a position the most favorable to predispose its neighbors to adopt towards it a kind and peaceable demeanor. The amelioration of the moral and intellectual condition of man, is not, however, at this day peculiar to any one nation. In a greater or .less degree, it is incident to all. By commerce, by the press, by a very general acquaintance with each other's language, by ideniity of pursuits, similarity in the objects of religious faith, I 255 EXTINCTION OF WAR and coincidence of interests, the various nations compo^ng the civilized quarters of the globe, have mutually elevated and in- structed, and are every day mutually elevating and instructing one another. Thought and invention, in any one nation, exist for the common benefit of all. It is impossible not to perceive, that the extension of these influences among the mass of mankind must, even in Europe, tend to diminish the recurrence of war, not only from the reasons and consequences already urged, but also from tlie actual state of European soldiery ; the necessary result of their education, their habits, and their relations to society. We can scarcely form an idea, of the degraded moral and intellectual condition of the mere soldiery of Europe, Their own statesmen and historians seem at a loss to express their abhorrence of the whole class. " War makes thieves," says Machiavel, who was himself no enemy to the profession, " and peace hangs them. For those who know not how to get their bread in any other way, when they are disbanded and out of employ, disdaining poverty and obscurity, are forced to have recourse to such ways of supporting themselves, as generally bring them to the gallows." The experience of our own day is not very different And what better can be expected from men sold like slaves from one despot to another, contracting to do the work of murder for hire, careless foi whom, indifferent against ^hom, or for what ? It is impossible, without recurrence to feelings and sentiments of a higher and purer nature than those induced by common life, to do justice to the deep moral depravity, and the cruel, blood- stained scenes of ordinary warfare. Alas ! how must they be viewed by higher intelligences ! Imagine one of these celestial spirits bent on this great purpose, descending upon our globe, and led by chance to an European plain at the point of some gTeat battle. On a sudden, the field of combat opens on his astonished vision. It is a field which men call glorious. A hundred thou- sand warriors stand in opposing ranks. Light gleams on their burnished steels. Their plumes and banners wave. Hill echoes to hill the noise of moving rank and squadron, the neigh and tramp of steeps, the trumpet, drum and bugle-call. There is a momentary pause, a silence like that which precedes the fall of the thunderbolt, like that awful stillness which is pre- cursor to the desolating rage of the whirlwind. In an instant, flash succeeding flash pours columns of smoke along the plain. The iron tempest sweeps, heaping man, horse and car in undis- tinguished ruin. In shouts of rushing hosts, in shock of breasting steeds, in peals of musketry, in the roar of artillery, in the clash of sabres, in thick and gathering clouds of smoke and dust, all human eye, and ear, and sense are lost. Man sees not, but the sign of onset. Man hears not, but the cry of onward ! Not so the celestial stranger. His spiritual eye unobscured by artificial night, his spiritual ear unaffected by mechanic noise, witness the real scene, naked in all its cruel horrors. He sees 4 EXTINCTION OF WAR. 256 lopped and bleeding linabs scattered ; gashed, dismembered trunks outspread ; gore-clotted, lifeless brains bursting from cruslied skulls ; blood gushing from sabred necks ; severed heads whose mouths mutter rage amidst the palsying of tlie last agony. He hears the mingled cry of anguish and despair issuing from a thou- sand bosoms in which a thousand bayonets turn, the convulsive scream of anguish from heaps of mangled, half-expiring victims over whom the heavy artillery wheels lumber and crush into one mass, bone, and muscle, and sinew, while the fetlock of the war- horse drips with blood starting from the last palpitation of the burst heart on which his hoof pivots. " This is not earth," would not such a celestial stranger exclaim ? " this is not earth, — this* is hell ! This is not man, but demon tormenting demon ! " Surely it needs no aid from prophecy, none from revelation, to foretel that such a custom, the greatest yet remaining curse and shame of our rax;e, shall retire to be remembered only with a mingled sentiment of disgust and wonder, like the Avar-feast of the savage, like the perpetual slavery of captives, like the pledge of revenge in the skull-bowl of Odin, like the murder of helots in Greece, and of gladiators in Rome, like the witch-burnings, the Smithfield-fires, and St Bartholomew-massacres of modern times. If these anticipations have any color of hope amid the an- tique customs and thronged population of Europe, how just and how bright are they in this favored country, where God and na- ture combine to invite man to lay the foundations of a new and happy era for our race! How does the moral, intellectual and local condition of the United States combine to repress all tlie three causes " which prepare and dispose states for war," first, by elevating and improving the condition of the people ; secondly, by restraining the ambition of rulers ; and thirdly, by rendering it easy, if we will, to expunge the entire class of " soldiers professed." The reasons of this belief, take with you into life. Carrj' them into the haunts of men, and press iherA upon all who guide and in- fluence society. Make, if possible, a recognition of them a con- dition of political power. Above all, satisfy the people of their true interests. Show your fellow-citizens of this country, and tlie men of every other, that war is a game ever played for the ag- grandizement of the few, and for the impoverishment of the many ; tliat those who play it voluntarily, do it always for selfish, never for public purposes; that war-establishments are every where scions of despotism; that, when engrafted on republics, they al- . J ways begin by determining the best sap to their own branch," and ' 1 never fail to finish by withering every branch except their own. Be not discouraged. Set before your eyes the glorious nature of the object at which you aim. Absolute failure is impossible, because your purposes concur with all the suggestions of rea- son, with all the indications of nature, with all 3ie testimony of history, and all the promises of religion. AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. I No. XXXII. ' WAR UNCHRISTIAN. ,. The Bible, as the record of God's will, is the Christian's rule of duty. By this standard have a multitude of practices once cur- rent in Christendom, been already tried, and condemned as un- christian; every other usage of society, however hallowed by time, must eventually be brought to the same test ; and we propose now to look at war in the light of revelation, and inquire whether the GOSPEL alloios it in any case. Let us first clear our way to this point Many of the old argu- ments for war are too absurd or too cold-blooded to deserve a mo- ment's consideration. It used to be gravely asserted, that war is a healthful stimulus to the body politic ; that it tends, if it be not indispensable, to preserve nations from degeneracy ; that it is the natural state of mankind, the general law of their being, and peace the exception ; that it acts as a sewer to drain off the dregs of ignorance, vice and crime ; that it is even necessary, like occa- sional depletion in the human frame, to prevent a superabundance of population and wealth. Such assumptions, however strange and savage, have been seriously maintained by eminent statesmen, philosophers and theologians ; but, true or false, what have they to do with the question, whether the gospel sanctions war ? Dram- shops, gaming-houses and brothels serve in like manner to drain off the refuse of society ; but can such a fact prove that the Bible allows all the abominations practised in those purlieus of hell ? We are told, however, that war furnishes employment and a livelihood for vast multitudes. — So does idolatry ; so does the slave-trade ; so do counterfeiters, robbers and pirates live by their villanies ; but does this prove such practices to be consistent with the gospel ? We are oflen reminded, that war developes some of the noblest traits of character, such as spirit, courage, talent, ingenuity, skill, indomitable perseverance. — Be it so ; but every species of high- handed wickedness calls forth the same qualities. It requires the union of them all to make a consummate villain, a man that can rob, or forge, or counterfeit with success on a large scale ; and in our state-prisons you will find some of the strongest, shrewdest, boldest minds, the very metal that makes heroes. Will this prove that the Bible tolerates such crimes ? If war occasion- ally produces instances of self-sacrificing patriotism, we reply that such patriotism is not the fruit of war ; and, even if it were, you may often find essentially the same in a crew of pirates, every one of whom is just as selfish in fighting for the whole gang, as he would be in fighting for himself alone. p. T. NO. XXXII. 2 WAR lnchristiXn. 258 It is said, however, that war, unlike the offences we have speci- fied, is enjoined by government, and thus becomes the duty of its subjects. — War right because rulers enjoin it ! Can they make it right to do what God forbids ? Does he authorize any of his crea- tures to nullify his own statutes ? Because governments nominally Christian have legalized the slave-trade, and duelling, and licen- tiousness, and idolatry, are such iniquities for such a reason con- sistent with the gospel ? But our ablest writers on ethics aver, that self-(kfence will justify ANT extremes. — We admit this to be the common notion ; but is it a doctrine of the gospel ? We challenge you to find the slightest intimation of it in the New Testament Does Christ or his Apos- tles tell me I may do any thing I please, to save my life ? May I renounce his gospel, and worship idols ? If not, then there is some- thing which I may not do even in defence of my life. You say, however, I may kill my assailant for such a purpose ; but how do you know I may ? Does the gospel tell me so ? Where ? Show me the chapter and verse. — The early Christians could have es- caped the stake by denying their Savior, and joining anew in the worship of idols. Did the gospel permit them to save their life on such terms ? Did any of them so understand it ? Then there was one thing which they might not do even to save their lives ; but why not do that ? Solely because God forbade it ; and, if he does not expressly permit me to kill in self-defence, then have I no more right to transgress the command, tJiou shalt not kill, than I have to renounce Christianity, or violate any and all the other pre- cepts of the Bible. — But let me suppose myself in a Mohammedan country under such circumstances, that I cannot save my life by taking that of my assailant, but can by renouncing my religion. A follower of Mohammed, with his foot on my neck, and his scimitar brandished over my head, exclaims, * deny the Nazarine, and believe in God's Prophet, or die.' Now, I cannot kill the savage zealot, but can comply with his terms. May I do so ? Why not ? Simply because God does not permit it; and I have just as little right, without his permission, to save my life by killing my assailant. It can avail notliing to say, that such a man deserv^ to die ; for this would not prove, that I have a right to kill him. So may the persecutor equally deserve death ; but what martyr ever dreamed of taking the life of his persecutors to save his own ? Where does the gospel allow it ? Still we are triumphantly told, that self-preservation is the frst law of our nature. — If it be so, every one knows that self-denial is tlie first law of Christ's kingdom ; and the only question is, which law is paramount ? Is instinct the rule of our dutv, the Christian's standard of right and wrong ? It may be said,' as it has been, that tliese instincts are the first edition of God's revelation to man- kind ; but we are now inquiring what he teaches in the last and perfect edition of his revealed will. This very argument infidel libertines, in the time of Voltaire and Rousseau, employed to jus- tify unrestrained licentiousness, and insisted on its being right for the debauchee to indulge at will those passions which God im- 259 WAR UNCHRISTIAN. 3 planted in his nature. Do you scout such logic ? Well may you ; but wherein does it differ from your own ? You plead instinct ; so did they ; and we see not why infidels may not, if Christians may, appeal to the instincts of our fallen nature against the commands of God. — But we admit both the right and the duty of preserving our own lives, yet insist that we are not at liberty for this purpose to do any thing which God forbids. I must, if not worse than an infidel, provide for " those of my own housefhold ; " but does this authorize me to use for the purpose any means I choose ? May I steal, and rob, and murder ? You say these are not necessary, just as we say they are not necessary for self-defence ; but, if ' necessary, does the right or even the duty of supporting or de- fending myself and my family, justify a resort to such crimes ? If admissible in one case, they are equally so in the other ; but the truth is, we are neither required nor permitted^to support our fam- ilies, or preserve our lives, unless we can do it without disobeying God. The right of self-defence does not involve the right to kill for the purpose, unless God requires or permits it ; and hence the original question returns in its full force, does God allow us, when we honestly think we must either kill or be killed, to take the life of our assailant rather than lose our own? Here is the whole point at issue ; and it can be met only by an express permission in the New Testament, since the plea of self-defence, or self- preservation, does not even touch it. — If it did, however, it would not settle the lawfulness of war ; because you cannot find in all profane history any war in which the only alternative for a people was either to kill or be killed, After they began to fight, that ivas the alternative ; but, had they at the outset chosen to submit, they might have been spared. The only exception I recollect, is found in the Jewish wars of extermination against the inhabitants of Canaan ; and it is quite remarkable, that in those cases the ag- gressors were justified, and the defenders condemned by Jehovah himself. We are next referred to the Jewish wars which God expressly enjoined or permitted. — But this command or permission just neu- tralizes their example as a guide to us. God bade Abraham sacri- fice Isaac. Will this justify parents now in murdering their chil- dren at pleasure ? God commanded Moses to stone the Sabbath- breaker to death. Are we bound to do the same ? God indulged patriarchs in polygamy and concubinage. Does their example make such things lawful for us ? — We are reminded, however, that God could never have enjoined or permitted any thing that is necessarily wrong. Few things are so ; but, if not necessarily wrong, who now regards filicide, and polygamy, and concubinage, and arbitrary divorce, and many other practices allowed to the Israelites, as lawful under the gospel ? Ours is a higher dispen- sation than theirs ; our Savior expressly condemns things in which they had been confessedly indulged ; arid hence the question for us to meet is, whether the gospel sanctions the practice of war ; a question not to be answered by appeals to the Old Testament. — But the wars of the Israelites were properly penal executions ; 4 WAR UNCHRISTIAN. 260 merely the infliction of such penalties as God himself prescribed against transgressors of his law. Should a bevy of constables attempt to imprison or execute a gang of sentenced criminals, and meet from them a desperate and bloody resistance, would the con- flict deserve to be called war ? Yet such were the wars of the Israelites. The idolaters of Canaan had committed high treason against Heaven ; God denounced upon them the penalty of utter extermination ; the Israelites were commissioned to inflict tliis penalty ; and all tliey did, resembles an execution far more than it does war. God assumed the whole responsibility of the deed ; the .Israelites were mere executioners of his will. — But those wars were distinguished from all others by two peculiarities ; they oc- cured under a theocracy, a government of which God himself was the head ; and they were expressly enjoined or permitted by him. Since the close of revelation, men cannot be placed in the same circumstances, and therefore can never apply to themselves this example of the Israelites. — If applied, however, the example would prove too much. The chief wars of the Israelites were wars of aggression, conquest and utter extermination ; and such an ex- ample, if it proves any tiling, would justify tlie most horrid, whole- sale butcheries ever committed in war. Does the objector aim to prove su(h wars consistent with the gospel ? If not, he should never quote those of tlie Israelites. We will merely say further, how suspicious it is, that Chris- tians, with God's last and best revelation in their hands, should leave this, and go back in search of apologies for war, to a dis- pensation acknowledged by all to have been comparatively imper- fect and dark ! Why plunge thus from tlie splendors of noon into tlie darkness of midnight, or the duskiness of early dawn ? We ask what the gospel says ; and why not let tlie gospel at once speak for itself? Go to its heaven-illuminated pages, and show the passage that sanctions war ; then, and only then, can any hon- est mind be satisfied. But we are sometimes told, that God, even before the birth of Abraham, proclaimed to the whole human race as a universal, ir- revocable law, " whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." — Now, admitting what is nevertheless denied by some of our ablest commentators, that the common interpretation of this passage is correct, it would still puzzle any one to tell what bearing it can have on the custom of war, except to con- demn this blood-leech of the world. Taken literally, it would allow us to kill an assailant only ajler he had actually she'd blood, and would moreover require all warriors, whose sole business is the shedding of blood, to be hung without mercy. Passing to the New Testament, we are met first witli the plea, that John the Baptist did not require the soldiers who came to him for instruction, to quit the army. — Now, we submit, that John, the forerunner of Christ, belonged not to the Christian, but to the Jewish dispensation ; and hence his reply, whatever it might be, could not prove war to be consistent with Christianity, because it has no bearing on the point Even if admitted, to what does it 261 WAR UNCHRISTIAN. , 6 amount? He did not bid the soldiers abandon their occupation ; nor did Christ tell the woman of Samaria to cease from her adulteries, or any others to relinquish the business in which they had been engaged. The grossest idolatry formed a part of the Roman mili- tary service. Did John's answer justify that ? " Do violence to no man, and be content with your wages," said the Baptist ; and what sort of a soldier would he be who should " do violence to no man ' " ' But the New Testament nowhere condemns war by »ia7ne.' — We ■ deny the assertion; but, if true, what does it prove? The New Testament does not in this way condemn polygamy or concubin- age, gambling or suicide, duelling, the slave-trade or piracy; but does the gospel allow such practices merely because it does not denounce them by name'? It does condemn what constitutes them, every one of their moral elements ; a mode of condemna- tion much less equivocal, and far more decisive. Equally futile is the plea, that neither Christ nor his Apostles ever expressly censured the profession of arms. — Nor did they thus censure other professions or employments ; and this argument, if it proves any thing, would justify almost every species of wick- edness prevalent in their day. Because our Savior did not con- demn the religion of the Syrophenician woman that came to him, Matt. XV. 21 — 28, does the gospel sanction idolatry ? Because he did not reprove the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well, for the adultery and concubinage in whicli she had lived for years, John iv. 7 — 30, are we to regard his silence in tlie case as an approval of such things ? Because he did not expressly condemn the former profession even of the penitent Magdalene, Luke vii. 37 — 50, does tlie gospel connive at harlotry? Surely a cause must be hard pushed, that seeks refuge in such sophistries. Essentially the same answer may be given to the case of the " centurion having soldiers under him," who besought that his servant might be healed, and of whom our Savior said, " I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel," Matt. viii. 5 — 13 ; and to the still more striking case of "Cornelius, a centurion, a devout man, one that feared God, gave much alms, and prayed to God always," Acts x. 1 — 35. Make the most of these cases ; and what do they prove ? Merely that men, under the Jewish dispensation to which they both belonged at the time, might be devout, and still remain soldiers ; a position Avhich nobody disputes. Neither Christ nor Peter says a word respecting their profession,^ but they leave us to determine in other ways whether it is consistent with the gospel ; their usual mode of treating the former profession or employment of converts to Christianity. Idolatry was an essential part of the profession of those centurions ; and, if the notice taken of them as devout men, proves the military part to be right, it equally proves the idolatrous part to be so. The truth is, those men were first soldiers, then Christians ; nor have we the slightest proof that they remained in the profession of arms, but strong presumptive evidence that tliey relinquished it, both from the idolatrous rites ^ WAR UNCHRISTIAN. 262 which it enjoined, and from the fact that there is no authentic record, for the two or three first centuries, of a single Christian continuing in the trade of blood. Biit we are gravely told, that our Savior, with a scourge of small cords, drove the dealers in cattle from the temple, John ii. 14 — 17. — But what has this case to do with war? Before it can touch the present question, you must prove, not only that Christ drove out the cattle with the cords, but actually killed their owners, since this alone resembles war ; and that his example, thus ex- plained, he left on record expressly for tlie guidance of govern- menls in settling their disputes ! ! We are reminded, however, of our duty to obey civil govern- ment as " an ordinance of God ; " and hence the alleged right and even obligation of Christians to engage in war at the call of their rulers. — Now, there is not in all tlie New Testament a syllable that requires or permits us to disobey God at the bidding of our rulers ; and both Christ, his Apostles, and all his early disciples, uniformly refused, at the hazard of their lives, to obey any requisi- tion of civil government that involved disobedience to God. The question tlien returns, does the gospel allow war ? If so, then we may wage it at the command of our rulers ; but, if not, no human authority can make it right for us to do so. ' But our Savior himself bade his disciples procure swords even by selling tlieir garments.' Luke xxii. 35 — 38 ; Matt xxvi. 51 — 53. — We will not here attempt a full explanation of this vexed passage ; it is enough for our present purpose to say, that no interpretation can make it sanction any use of the sword even in self-defence. When one of his disciples said, " Lord, here are two swords," he replied, " it is enough." Tivo swords enough to arm twelve men against the whole power of the government arrayed against them ! ! When one of them, at the crisis of danger, asked, " Lord, shall we smite with the sword ? " he gave no answer that is re- corded ; but his influence in restraining the disciples from vio- lence, proves again that he did not design the effusion of blood. Nor did he need tlie sword for his protection, since he might at will have brought to his rescue " more than twelve legions of angels." When Peter, mistaking his Master's design, or yielding to his own passions, drew his sword, and smote the servant's ear, Christ performed a miracle to heal the wound, and added this de- cisive rebuke of violent self-defence, " put up thy sword ; for all they that take the sword, shall perish by the sword." When brought before Pilate,' and taunted for his easy surrender by his disciples, he states the reason why they did not fight in his de- fence : " My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then M'ould my. servants fight, tJiat I should not be delivered to the Jews." John xviii. 35, SG. Can any thing be plainer tlian that our Savior did not, in this whole transaction, countenance any use of the sword ? ' But war is occasionally expedient, even indispensable to our liberties, and our very existence as a nation.' — These points we are not now arguing. We simply inquire whetlier tlie gospel 263 WAR UNCHRISTIAN. sanctions war ; and the moment you begin to plead its expediency or necessity, you abandon the Bible, and virtually concede that you cannot justify the custom from its pages. Does the gospel any where permit us to wage war when we deem it expedient or even necessary'^ If so, we may; but, if not, tlien no degree of expediency or necessity can prove it consistent with the gospel. ' The Bible, however, allows to government what it forbids to in- dividuals.^ — True, in som£ cases it does ; but in such cases there is a clear exception in favor of government. Government, as the representative of associated individuals, is regarded by all writers on international law, and by the common sense of the world, as a moral person, subject to the same obligations with individuals in all cases not excepted by God himself; and, unless he has expressly exempted government, the general principles of the gospel are just as binding upon rulers as upon subjects. Every precept of his word, unless an exception is made in their favor expressly, or from the nature of the case^ is as applicable to nations as to indi- viduals, and bind the former as truly as they do the latter. God has no where prescribed one set of moral principles for individuals, and another for nations or governments ; and, unless the general principles of his word are obligatory alike on them both, the latter have no obligations to bind them, and no rules to guide them. The apologists for war are very fond of representing it as ' a judicial trial, a process of justice, a mode of condign punish- ment.' — This plea is quite plausible ; but will facts justify it ? In every judicial trial, we see first a law common to the parties ; next a judge and jury as umpires between them; then the accuser in presence of the culprit, stating his charges, and bringing wit- nesses to prove them ; and finally, the sentence delivered and executed according to law. Is war like this ? Where is the law common to both parties ? Where the umpires to whose decision they refer the points in dispute ? Where the process of proving the charges by fair testimony ? Where the verdict of the jury, or the sentence of the judge? Where the penalty inflicted on the guilty alone after legal conviction ? There is not in war even the shadow of any thing like this; the plea is as sheer a fiction as was ever conceived ; and we might as well speak of a duel, a street brawl, or a fight between two madmen or a dozen tigers, as a process of justice. But we are confidently referred to the passage which speaks of civil government as ordained of God, and of the magistrate as a minister of God, armed with the sword to execute wrath upon evil- doers, Rom. xiii. 1 — 7. — Now, the whole aim of this passage is to enforce the duty of implicit submission to government, though it be as bad as that of Nero himself then on the throne ; — a princi- ple which cuts up by the roots the assumed right of armed resis- tance and revolution, which all advocates of defensive war take for granted. The Apostle is prescribing the duty, not of rulers, but of subjects alone, and authorizes only by implication, if at all, merely the sword of the magistrate, not the sword of the warrior ; the sword being used here, not as an instrument of death, but only 8 WAR UNCHRISTIAN. 264 as an emblem of authority. He is looking, not at tlie intercourse of one nation with anotlier, but solely at tlie relation and duties of subjects to their own governments. Not a word does he say about international wars ; nor does the passage express or involve a solitary principle that would, in our opinion, justify any species of war. The most it can possibly mean, is that government may enforce its laws upon its own s^ubjeds^ and punish them at discretion for disobedience. Yet it may be said, for it has been, that this right of government to punish or restrain its own subjects by force, involves the right of war. Here is the pivot of the whole controversy ; and on this point we join issue, and contend, that the right, if admitted, to in- flict capital punishment, and to use the sword in suppressing mobs and insurrections, does not include in itself the right of one na- tion to wage war with another nation under any circumstances whatever. If individuals come from a foreign country, and com- mit robbery, murder, or any other crimes, they become of course amenable to our laws as transient citizens, and the govenmient clearly has a right to punish them in the same way it would of- fenders from its own subjects. But war is not an affair between individtwls and governments; it is a conflict between govern- ments THEMSELVES ; and the agents employed in carrying it on, are treated, not as individuals, but as representatives of their re- spective governments. What then is the sole point of inquiry 7 Not how government may treat its own suhjeds, but hoio one na- tion may treat another nation. The former is the government question, the latter the peace question; points entirely distinct, and ought never to be confounded. Take an illustration. As the head of a family, I will suppose I have a right from God to punish my children ; but this right does , not authorize me to punish my neighbor's children, much less will it justify bloody contention between the two families. My au- thority is restricted to my own household ; and from what I may lawfully do there, you cannot argue to what I may do to any other family. They are distinct, independent domestic communities under the protection of a government common to them both ; if one injures the other, redress must be sought in the way which that government prescribes ; and their duties and rights in respect to one another must be determined, not by what the father of each family may do in his own sphere, but by the laws under which they live. If these laws permit families to fight each otlier, then have they such a right, so far as the government over them can give it ; and on the same principle, if the government of God, the only one over nations, allows them to war against each other, then, and only then, have they a right from God to do so. Such is the application of our argument From what a govern- ment may properly do to its owji subjects^ we cannot infer what it may rightly do to another govemimnt. Like families under a civil government, they are placed under the common jiu-isdiction of Je- hovah, and must consult his will to learn by what means tliey may lawfully protect their rights, and redress Uieir wrongs ; and thus i.-fiSS .WAR UNCHRISTIAN. 1 9 we come back once more to the question, still unsettled, whether the gospel authorizes nations to wage war in any case. Before proceeding to the New Testament, let us make some preliminary statements which few, if any will gainsay : 1. The deeds of war, in themselves considered, are confessedly forbidden in the Bible, and can be justified only on the ground, that government has a right in war to reverse or suspend the en- actments of Heaven. The New Testament gives no such right 2. The spirit of war is acknowledged by all to be contrary to that of the gospel. But can we have war without its spirit ? What is the spirit of any custom or act but the moral character of that custom or act ? Blasphemy without the spirit of blasphemy ! In- temperance and adultery, injustice and oppression, fraud and thetl, robbery and piracy, all without the spirit of such practices, all from motives directly opposed to their very nature ! ! The suppo- sition is an insult to common sense ; and we wonder how any sane man should dream of perpetrating the deeds of war without the spirit of war, and imagine he can destroy property, life and happi- ness by wholesale from motives of pure benevolence ! Kill men just for their own benefit ! Send them to perdition for their good ! ! Tremendous logic ; yet the only sort of logic that ever attempts to reconcile war with the gospel ; a logic that would fain make the veriest hell upon earth a nursery of pure, benevolent affections, and require us to suppose, that thousands of cut-throats by profession, generally unprincipled and reckless, fierce, irascible and vindic- tive, the tigers of society, will shoot, and stab, and trample one another down in the full exercise of Christian patience, forgiveness and love ! ! 3. The qualities required of warriors, are the reverse of those which characterize the Christian. Even Paley, the ablest cham- pion of war, avers that "no two things can be more different than the Heroic and the Christian characters ;" and then proceeds to exhibit the two in striking contrast as utterly irreconcilable. Must not war itself be equally incompatible with Christianity ? 4. Wars of aggression all now condemn ; but the New Testa- ment makes no distinction between offensive and defensive wars. 5. The gospel enjoins no virtue which the soldier may not dis- card without losing his military rank or reputation ; nor does it forbid a solitary vice which he may not practise witliout violating the principles of war. 6. While the gospel prescribes rules for every lawful relation and employment in life,, it lays down not a single principle appli- cable to the soldier's peculiar business, and evidently designed for his use. If war is right, why this studious avoidance, this utter neglect of its agents ? 7. The Old Testament predicts that the gospel will one day banish war from the earth forever. But, if consistent with Chris- tianity, how will the gospel ever abolish it ? The gospel destroy what it sanctions and supports ! 8. The first Fathers of the church held war to be unlawful for [Christians ; and neither Christ, nor his Apostles, nor any of hia 10 WAR UNCHRISTIAN. 266 early disciples before the church became degenerate, ever engaged in war, or any thing like it, but the very reverse. 9. Christians, in the warmest glow of their love to God and man, shrink with instinctive horror from the deeds of cruelty and blood essential to war ; nor can they, in such a state of mind, perj>etrate them without doing violence to their best feelings. 10. Converts from paganism, in the simplicity of their first faith, have, not only without the guidance, but even in opposition to the previous views of the missionaries, understood the gospel as for- bidding all war. Such was remarkably the case in the South Sea Islands ; and the fact goes far to prove, that no mind, not under the hereditary delusions of war, would ever find in the gospel any license for its manifold abominations. But let the' New Testament speak for itself. It may forbid war either by a direct condemnation of it, or by the prohibition of its moral dements, the things which go to constitute war ; and we contend that the gospel does forbid it in both these ways. I. Note first its express condemnation of war. "From whence come wars and fightings among you ? Come they not hence even of your lusts ?" James iv. 1. We cannot well conceive a denun- ciation more direct or more decisive. Our Savior before Pilate declared, " if my kingdom were of this world, then w^ould my ser- vants fight; but now is my kingdom not from hence." John xviii. 3(3. A most unequivocal condemnation of war as inconsistent with Christianity. " Follow peace with all men." Heb. xii. 14. Or, as it is in the original, seek earnestly, with all your might, after peace not only with your own countrymen, but with foreigners ; not with your friends alone, but with your enemies, with the whole human race. What language could, if these passages do not, condemn all war as unchristian ? 11. But look at the still more decisive mode of forbidding war by the condemnation of its vnoral eleTnents. The gospel puts them all under ban. Every species of war contravenes the fundamental minciple of Christianity. This principle is, enmity subdued bv jove, evil evercome with good, injury requited by kindness, ft pervades the whole New Testament; it is the soul of the Christian system. It was on this principle alone our Savior came from heaven to the cross, and his Apostles went from continent to con- tinent, through fire and blood, for the salvation of a lost race. The peculiar precepts of the gospel all rest on this principle ; nor can we take it away without subverting the entire fabric of Christian- ity. But this principle is incompatible with war in any form, be- cause war always aims to overcome evil icith evil, to return injury ^/br injury, to subdue our enemies by making them wretched, to inflict on our assailants the very evils they meditate against us, t(5"save our own life, prooerty and happiness by sacrificing theirs. Such is war in its best form ; but, if this be not a contradiction of the gospel, we know not what is, and challenge you to conceive a principle more directly opposed to that which lies at the founda- tion of Christianity. But the gospel condemns it? detail the moral elements of war. 267 WAR UNCHRISTIAN. 11 "Lay aside all malice ; and let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger be put away. — Avenge not yourselves. Recompense to no man evil for evil. See that none render evil for evil unto any man. — Whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and division, are ye not carnal ? — Now, the works of the flesh are these : hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, envyings, murders, revellings, and such like." Need any one be told, that the tilings here denounced, are inseparable from war, and constitute its very essence ? What! war without malice or hatred, without bitterness, wrath or anger, without division or strife, without variance, emu- lation or murder ! Nations go to war without avenging themselves, and rendering evil for evil ! The gospel, however, still more fully condemns war by enjoin- ing ivhat is inconsistent loith it. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and the parable of the Good Samaritan makes every hu- man being our neighbor. ""Love worketh no ill to his neighbor ; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Charity (love) suifereth long, and is kind ; seeketh not her own ; is not easily provoked ; thinketh no evil ; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. — Do good unto all men. Whatso- ever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them. — By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. Have peace one with another. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness. Put on bowels of mercies, kindness, peace- ableness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one an- other, forgiving one another, even as Christ forgave you. The wisdom which is from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated. — Blessed are the poor in spirit — the meek — the merciful — the peace-makers. — Resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Overcome evil with good. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you." Now, do not such passages convey a most unequivocal condem- nation of war in all its forms ? Love thy neighbor as thyself— by shooting and stabbing him ! Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. The soldiers only business in any war is to do his neighbor all the ill he can. Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you. Would you like to have them burn your dwelling over your head, butcher your whole family, and then send a bullet or a bay- onet through your own heart ? Love your enemies, and do them good. War teaches us to hate them, and do them all the evil in our power. Forgive as Christ forgives. Do soldiers forgive in this way ? Avenge not yourselves. War is a system of avowed and studied vengeance. If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him- drink. Is war ever waged on this principle ? Can it be without ceasing to be war ? We know well the plea, that these precepts are addressed to individuals, not to governments ; but we challenge the slightest proof from the New Testament, that one government, in its inter- course with another, is exempt from these obligations, or author- 12= WAR UNCnRISTIAN. 266 ized to exempt its subjects from them. — We are also told, that many of these passages are obviously figurative. True ; but they mean something. What then do they mean ? Resist not evil,—^ turn the other cheek to the sviiter, — overcome evil with good. Do such passages mean to allow bombardment, pillage, devastation, slaughter ? If not, they do not allow war. Love your enemies, and do thzm good. Does this mean, ruin their commerce^ sink their JleetSy bum their vilj/bges, plunder their cities, blow out their brains i So of all the precepts we have quoted ; no possible construction can make them allow any form of war. War is confessedly a bad business ; and, if we must have it, and still wish its Avork of blood and vengeance performed accord- ing to the gospel, its deeds of hell executed in the spirit of heaveri, then must we change its agents, and, instead of such villains and desperadoes as Napoleon wanted for warriors, instead of releas- ing felons, as England has been wont, from the prison and the gallows, on condition of their becoming soldiers, we must select from the church her best members, — her deacons and elders, her pastors, rectors and bishops, — as the only men that can, if any body can, rob, and burn, and ravage, and murder by wholesale, all MJtliout malice, from motives of pure benevolence, in a Christian way ! as Paul, or Gabriel, or Christ Himself would have done it ! ! If unfit for such hands, then is the whole business of war un- christian. So the warrior himself confesses ; for Napoleon's maxim was, ' the worse the man, the better the soldier,' and Wel- lington expressly says, ' a man of nice scruples about religion, has no business to be a soldier.' Here is a fair test If war is right for us, it must have been equally so for our Savior ; but can you conceive the Prince of Peace, or one of his Apostles, leading forth an army to their work of plunder, blood and devastation ? Can you point to a modern field of battle on which Christ or Paul would have been in his element amidst fire, and blood, and groans, and dying curses ? Can you show us a war begun from Christian motives, conducted on Christian principles, pervaded throughout with a Christian spirit ? Is there a Christian way of burning villages, and plunder- ing cities, of perpetrating the Mholesale butcheries of the battle- field, and hurling thousands after thousands of guilty souls into the eternal world ? Does the gospel tell us hoii^to do such things aright — how Apostles, how Christ himself would have done them ? If not, then is war utterly incompatible with tliat gospel which proclaims peace on earth as one of its first and most glorious pe- culiarities; whose Founder was the Prince of Peace; whose promised reign on earth is to be a reign of universal peace ; whose followers are all required to overcome evil m ith good, to love even their enemies, and imitate the blessed example of Him who reviled not his revilers, returned no curse for the many curses heaped upon him by his crucifiers, but prayed on his cross, " Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do." AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS. No. XXXIII. INSENSIBILITY TO THE EVILS OF WAR.* BY WM. E. CHANNING, D. D. I NOW proceed to point out some causes of that insensibility to the evils of war, so common in the world, and so common even among those from whom better things might be hoped ; and this I do, not to gratify a love of speculation, but in the belief, that this insensibility will be resisted and overcome, in proportion as its sources shall be explained. I. Among its chief causes, one undoubtedly is the commonness of war. This hardens us to its evils. Its horrors are too familiar to move us, unless they start up at our own door. How much more would they appal us, were they rare ? If the history of the race were, with one solitary exception, a history of peace, con- cord, brotherly love ; if but one battle had been fought in the long succession of ages ; if from the bosom of profound tranquillity, two armies, on one fatal day, had sprung forth and rushed to- gether for mutual destruction ; if but one spot on earth had been drenched with human blood shed by human hands — how different would be our apprehensions of war! What a fearful interest would gather round that spot ! How would it remain deserted, dreaded, abhorred ! With what terrible distinctness would the leaders of those armies stand out as monsters, not men ! How should we confound them Avith Moloch, and the fiercest fallen spirits! Should we not feel, as if, on that mysterious day, the blessed influences of Heaven h'd been intercepted, and a de- moniacal frenzy had been let loose on the race ? And has war, in becoming common, lost its horrors ? Is it less terrible because its Molochs crowd every page of history, and its woes and crimes darken all nations and all times? Do base or ferocious passions less degrade and destroy, because their victims are unnumbered ? If indeed, the evils of war were only physical, and were inevitable, we should do well to resign ourselves to that kindly power of habit which takes the edge from oft-repeated pains. But moral evils, evils which may be, and ought to be shunned, which have their spring in human will, which our higher powers are given us to overcome^ these it is a crime unresistingly to endure. The frequency and strength of these are more urgent reasons for abhorring and witlistanding them. Reflection should be summoned to resist the paralyzing power of habit. From principle, we should cherish a deeper horror of war, because its " sword devours forever." * This tract, so full of noble sentiments, tourhes some points on which there IS diversity of opinion among- the friends of peace ; but it will be borne in mind, that the Peace Society lends no countcnEuice to war in any case — Ed. P. T. NO. XXXIII " • ^ INSENSIBILITY TO THE EVILS OP WAR. 270 A second cause of insensibility to the evils of war, and one of immense power, is the common and almost universal be- lief, that the right of war belongs to civil government Let ua be just to human nature. The idea of Right has always mixed itself with war ; and tliis has kept out of view the real character of most of tlie conflicts of nations. The sovereign, regarding the right of war as an essential attribute of sovereignty, has on this ground ascribed a legitimacy to all national hostilities, and has never dreamed that in most of his wars he was a murderer. So the subject has thought himself bound to obey his sovereign, and, on this ground, has acquitted himself of crime, has perhaps imputed to himself merit, in fighting and slaughtering for the de- fence of the most iniquitous claims. Here lies the delusion which we should be the most anxious to remove. It is the legality, ascribed to war on account of its being waged by government, which produces insensibility to its horrors and crimes. When a notorious robber, seized by Alexander, asked the conqueror of the world, whether he was not a greater robber than himself, the spirit of the hero repelled the title with indignation. And why so ? Had he not, witliout provocation or cause, spoiled cities and realms, whilst the robber had only plundered individuals and single dwellings ? Had he not slaughtered ten thousand innocent fellow-creatures for one victim who had fallen under the robber's knife ? And why then did the arch-robber disclaim the name, and seriously believe, that he could not justly be confounded Avith ruffians ? Because he was a King, the head of a state, and, as such, authorized to make war. Here was the shelter for his con- science and his fame. Had the robber, after addressing his ques- tion to Alexander, turned to the Macedonian soldier, and said to him, " Are you not too, a greater robber than I ? Have not your hands been busier in pillage? Are tlicy not dyed more deeply in innocent blood?" The unconscious soldier, like his master, would have repelled the title ; and why ? " I am a subject," he would have replied, " and bound to obey my sovereign ; and, in fulfilling a duty, I cannot be sunk to the level of the most hated criminal." Thus king and subject take refuge in the right of war which is supposed to inhere in sovereignty, and thus the most ter- rible crimes are perpetrated with little reproach. I need not tell you, that there are Christians who, to strip war of this pretext or extenuation, deny that this right exists ; who teach, tliat Jesus Christ has wrested the sivord from the magis- trate as truly as from the private man. On this point I shall not now enter. I believe, that more good may be done, in the present instance, by allowing to government the right of war. I still maintain, that most wars bring the guilt of murder on the govern- ment by whom they are declared, and on the soldier by whom they are carried on, so that our sensibility ought in no degree to be impaired by the supposed legitimacy of national hostilities. I will allow, tiiat government has tlie right of war. But a right has bounds ; and when these are transgressed by us, it ceases to 271 INSENSIBILITY TO THE EVILS OF WAR. ^ exist; and we are as culpable, as if it had never existed. A higher authority than man's, defines this terrible prerogative. Wo ! wo to him, who impatiently, selfishly, spurns the restraints of God, and winks out of sight the crime of sending fbrth the sword to destroy, because, as a sovereign, he has the right of war. From its very nature, this right should be exercised above all others anxiously, deliberately, fearfully. It is the right of passing sentence of death on thousands of our fellow-creatures. If any action on earth ought to be performed with trembling, with deep prostration before God, with the most solemn inquisition into mo- tives, with the most reverent consultation of conscience, it is a declaration of war. This stands alone among acts of legis- lation. It has no parallel. These few words, " Let war be," have the power of desolation which belongs to earthquakes and light- nings ; they may stain the remotest seas with blood ; may wake the echoes of another hemisphere Avith the thunders of artillery ; may carry anguish into a thousand human abodes. Terrible is the responsibility, beyond that of all others, which falls on him who involves nations in war. He has no excuse for rashness, passion, or private ends. He ought at such a moment to forget, to annihilate himself. The spirit of God and justice should alone speak and act through him. To commit this act rashly, passion- ately, selfishly, is to bring on himself the damnation of a thousand murders. An act of legislation, commanding fifly thousand men to be assembled on yonder common, there to be shot, stabbed, trampled under horses' feet, until their shrieks and agonies should end in death, would thrill us with horror. Yet such an act is a declaration of war ; and a government which can perform it, with- out the most solemn sense of responsibility, and the clearest ad- monitions of duty, deserves to endure the whole amount of torture which it has inflicted on its fellow-creatures. I have said, a declaration of war stands alone. There is one act which approaches it, and which indeed is the very precedent on which it is founded. I refer to the signing of a death-warrant by a chief magistrate. In this case, how anxious is society that the guilty only should suffer ! The offender is first tried by his peers, and allowed the benefit of skilful counsel. The laws are expounded, and the evidence weighed, by learned aud upright judges ; and when, after these protections of innocence, the un- happy man is convicted, he is allowed to appeal for mercy to the highest authority of the State, and to enforce his own cry by solici- tations of friends and the people ; and when all means of averting his doom fail, religion, through her ministers, enters his cell, to do what yet can be done for human nature i,n its most fallen, mis- erable state. Society does not cast from its bosom its most un- worthy member, without reluctance, without grief, without fear of doing wrong, without care for his liappiness. But wars, by which thousands of the unoffending and worthiest perish, are continually proclaimed by rulers in madness, through ambition, through infer- nal policy, from motives which should rank them with tlie captains of pirate-ships, or leaders of banditti. 4 INSENSIBILITY TO THE EVILS OF WAR. 272 It is time that the right of war should not shield governments from the infamy due to hostilities to which selfish, wicked passions give birth. Let rulers learn, that for this right, tliey are held to a fearful responsibility. Let a war, not founded in plain justice and necessity, never be named but as Murder. Let tJie Christian give articulate voice to the blood tliat cries from the earth against rulers by whom it has been cruninally shed. Let no soft terms be used. On this subject, a new moral sense, and a new language, are needed throughout the civilized and Christian world ; and just, in proportion as the truth shall find a tone, war will cease. But the right of war, which is said to belong to sovereignty, not only keeps out of sight the enormous guilt of rulers in almost all national conflicts ; it also hides or extenuates the frequent guilt of subjects in taking part in tlie hostilities which their rulers declare. In this way, much of the prevalent insensibility to the evils of war is induced, and perhaps on no point is light more needed^ The ferocity and cruelty of armies impress us little, be- cause we look on them as doing a work of duty. The subject or citizen, as we tliink, is bound to obey his rulers. In his worst deeds as a soldier, he is discharging his obligations to the State ; and thus murder and pillage, covered with a cloak of duty, excite no deep, unaffected reprobation and horror. I know it will be asked, " Is not the citizen bound to fight at the call of his government ? Does not his comniission absolve him from the charge of murder, or enonnous crime ? Is not obedience to the sovereign power the very foundation on Avhich society rests ? " I answer, has the duty of obeying government no bounds ? Is the human sovereign a God ? Is his sovereignty absolute ? If he command you to slay a parent, must you obey ? If he forbid you to worship God, must you obey ? Have you no right to judge his acts ? Have you no self-direction ? Is there no unchangeable right which tlie ruler