DYMONJDJ WITH^:S I NTROD U CTORY WORDS JOHN BRIGHT 1 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES FROM THE LIBRARY OF ERNEST CARROLL MOORE V WAR. AN ESSAY BY JONATHAN DYMOND. WITH INTRODUCTORY WORDS BY JOHN BRIGHT, OF ENGLAND. FOURTH EDITION. FRIENDS' BOOK AND TRACT COMMITTEE, No. 51, Fifth Avenue, NEW YORK. NOTE. In reprinting this Essay, the Editors desire to remind its readers that it is only one of a series of Essays on Christian Morality by the same gifted writer, and that'the others are characterized by the same clear and cogent reasoning so noteworthy in the one now published. In preparing the Essay on War for tlie press, they have thought it best here and there to alter a word or sentence, or to omit a passage or note, with a view to either modern usage, clearness, brevity, or changed conditions ; but they have in no case interfered with the author's argument, either in its management or development. They desire earnestly to commend the Essay to the careful and un- prejudiced consideration of all thoughtful people. oy INTRODUCTORY WORDS M BY THE I O r.O RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT; AVITII PASSAGES FROM HIS SPEECHES, REVISED BY HIMSELF FOR THIS EDITION. T KNOW of 110 better book dealing with morals as applied to nations than Dymond's Essays. As the world becomes more Christian, this book will be more widely read, and the name of its author more revered. I have been asked on several occasions, "What do you think about the doctrine of the Peace Society, or of your own Religious Body, in their opposition to all War however necessary or however just it may seem to be, or however much you are provoked and injured ? " I think every man must make up his own mind on that abstract principle ; and I would recommend him, if he wants to know a book that says a good deal upon it, to study the New Testament, and make up his mind from that source. It will be time enough perhaps to discuss that question 15901.84 iv. INTRODUCTORY WORDS. when we have abandoned everything that can be called unjust and unnecessary in the way of War. Now, I believe, that with wise counsels, great statesmen, large knowledge of affairs combined with Christian principle, there is prabably not a single war in which we have been engaged from the time of William III. that might not have been without difficulty avoided ; and our military system might have been kept in great moderation, our National Debt would never have accumulated, our population would have been a great deal less barbarous anti less ignorant than they are, and everything that tends to the true grandeur and prosperity and happiness of the people would have been infinitely advanced beyond or above what we see now in our own time. I think we ought to begin to ask ourselves how it is that Christian nations — that this Christian nation — should be involved in so many wars. If we may presume to ask our- selves, what, in the eye of the Supreme Ruler, is the greatest crime which His creatures commit, I think we may almost with certainty conclude that it is the crime of War. Somebody has described it as "the sum of all villainies " ; and it has been the cause of sufferings, misery, and slaughter, which neither tongue nor pen can ever describe. And all this has been going on for eighteen INTRODUCTORY WORDS. v. hundred years after men have adopted the religion whose Founder and whose Head is denominated the Prince of Peace. It was announced as a religion which was intended to bring "Peace on earth, and good will towards men" ; and yet, after all these years, the peace on earth has not come, and the goodwill among men is only partially and occasionally exhibited ; and amongst nations we find almost no trace of it century after century. Now in this country we have a great institution called the Established Church. I suppose that great institution numbers twenty thousand or more places of worship in various parts of the kingdom. I think this does not include what there are in Scotland, and what there are in Ireland. With these twenty thousand churches there are at least twenty thousand men, educated and for the most part Christian men, anxious to do their duty as teachers of the religion of peace ; and besides these, there are twenty thousand other churches which are not con- nected with the Established institution, but have been built, and are maintained, by that large portion of the people who go generally under the name of Dissenters or Nonconformists : and they have their twenty thousand ministers ; also men, many of them, as well educated, as truly Christian and devoted men, as the others ; and they vi. INTRODUCTORY WORDS. are at work continually from day to day, and they preach from Sabbath to Sabbath what they believe to be the doctrines of the Prince of Peace ; and yet, notwithstanding all that, we have more than £30,000,000 a year spent by this country in sustaining armies and navies, in view of wars which, it is assumed, may suddenly and soon take place. Now, why is this, I should like to ask : for all these teachers and preachers profess to be the servants of the Most High God, and teachers of the doctrines of His Divine Son ; and being such, may I not appeal to them and say — What have you, forty or fifty thousand men, with such vast influence, what have you been doing with this great question during all the years that you have ministered, and called yourselves the ministers of the Prince of Peace ? And I would not confine my appeal to the ministers only, but to the devout men of every church and every chapel, who surround the minister and uphold his hands ; who do in many things his bidding, and who join him heartily and conscientiously in his work, — I say, what are they doing ? Why is it that there has never been a combination of all religious and Christian teachers of the country, with a view of teaching the people what is true, what is Christian, upon the subject? INTRODUCTORY WORDS. vii. I^believe it lies within the power of the churches to do far more than statesmen can do in matters of this kind. I believe they might (so brings this question home to the hearts^and consciences of the Christian and good men and women of their congregations, that a great combination of public opinion might be created, which would wholly change the aspect of this question in this country and before the world, and would bring to the minds of statesmen that they are not the rulers of the people of Greece, or of the maraud- ing hordes of ancient Rome, but that they are, or ought to be, the Christian rulers of a Christian people. INDEX. Revisers' Notb ... Introductory Words Index Paif© iii. viii. CAUSES OF WAR. Want of Inquiry i Indifference to Human Misery ... 6 National Irritability 6 Self-interest Secret Motives of Cabinets Ideas of Glory CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. Destruction of Human Life ... 17 Taxation 17 Moral Depravity 18 Familiarity with Plunder 20 Implicit Obedience to Superiors Resignation of Moral Afjency Bondage and Degradation .. I^ffects on the Community ... LAWFULNESS OF WAR. Influence of Habit 29 The Appeal to Antiquity 31 The Christian Scriptures 34 Subjects of Christ's Benediction ... 40 Matthew xxvi. 52 41 The Apostles and Evangelists ... 42 The Centurion 46 Cornelius 47 Luke xxii. 36 49 John the Baptist 52 Far-fetched Arguments 53 Negative Evidence 54 Prophecies of the Old Testament ... 54 The Kequiremcnts of Christianity are of Present Obligation 66 The Primitive Christians 57 Example and Testimony of Early Christians . 58 Christian Soldiers 62 Wars of the Jews ... 63 Duties of Individuals and Nations . 64 Offensive and Defensive War ... 66 Wars always Aggressive 69 Paley 70 War wholly Forbidden 71 OF THE PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW IN RESPECT TO WAR. Quakers in America and Ireland ... 72 Colonisation of Pennsylvania .. 76 Confidence in the Providence of God "0 Recapitulation General Observations APPENDIX. Christianity the True Remedy for War 86 Internatio lal ArHt »tion : a Fik tical Application of Christian Principles 86 Some of the Consequences of the Modern War System 87 WAR: AN INQUIRY INTO ITS CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, LAWFULNESS, Etc. IT is one amongst the numerous moral phenomena of the present times, that the inquiry is silently yet not slowly spreading in the world — Is War compatible with the Christian religion ? There was a period when the question was seldom asked, and when War was regarded almost by every man both as inevitable and right. That period has certainly ))assed away ; and not only indi- viduals but public societies, and societies in distant nations, are urging the (question upon the attention of mankind. The simple circumstance that it is thus urged contains no irrational motive to investigation : for why should men ask the question if they did not doubt ; and how, after these long ages of prescription, could they begin to doubt, without a reason ? It is not unworthy of remark that, whilst dis(iuisitions are frequently issuing from the press, of which the ten- dency is to show that War is not compatible with Chris- tianity, few serious attempts are made to show that it is. Whether this results from the circumstance that no par- ticular individual is interested in the proof, — or that there is a secret consciousness that proof cannot be brought, — or that those who may be desirous of defending the 2 WAR HAS HARDLY A DEFENDER. custom rest in security tli:it the impotence of its assailants will be of no avail against a custom so established and so supported, — I do not know : but the fact is remarkable, that scarcely a defender is to be found. It cannot be doubted that the question is one of the utmost interest and importance to man. Whether the custom be defen- sible or not, every man should inquire into its consistency with tiie Moral Law. If it is defensible, he may, by inquiry, dismiss the scruples which it is certain subsist in the minds of multitudes, and thus exempt himself from the ofience of participating in that which, though pure, he " esteemeth to be unclean." If it is not defen- sible, the propriety of investigation is increased in a ten- fold degi-ee. It may be a subject therefore of reasonable regret to the frienils and the lovers of truth, that the question of the Moral Lawfulness of War is not brought fairly before the public. I say fairly ; because though many of the publica- tions which impugn its la\yfulne.ss advert to the ordinary arguments in its favour, yet it is not to be assumed that they give to those arguments all that vigour and force which would be imparted by a stated and an able advocate. Few books, it is probnble, would tend more powerfully to promote the discovery and spread of truth, than one which should frankly and fully and ably advocate, upon sound moral principles, the practice of War. The public would then see the whole of what can be urged in its favour with- out being obliged to seek for arguments, as they now must, in incidental, or imperfect or scattered, disquisitions : and possessing in a distinct fo;ra the evidence of both narties BIAS IN FAVOUR OF WAR. 3 they would be enabled to judge justly between them. Perhaps if, invited as the public are to the discussion, no man is hereafter willing to adventure in the cause, the conclusion will not be unreasonable, that no man is desti- tute of a consciousness that the cause is not a good one. Meantime it is the business of him whose inquiries have conducted him to the conclusion that the cause is not good, to exhibit the evidence upon which the conclusion is founded. It happens that upon the subject of War, more than upon almost any other subject of human inquiry, the individual finds it difficult to contemplate its merits with an unbiassed mind. He finds it difficult to examine it as it would be examined by a philosopher to whom the sub- ject was new. He is familiar with its details ; he is habituated to the idea of its miseries ; he has perhaps never doubted, because he has never questioned, its recti- tude ; nay, he has associated with it ideas not of splendour only but of honour and of merit. That such an inquirer will not, without some efibrt of abstraction, examine the question with impartiality and justice, is plain ; and there- fore the first business of him who would satisfy his mind respecting the lawfulness of War, is to divest liimself of all those habits of thought and feeling which have been the result not of reflection and judgment, but of the ordinary associations of life. And perhaps he may derive some assistance in this necessary but not easy dismissal of previous opinions, by referring first to some of the ordinary Causes and Consequences of War. The reference will enable us also more satisfactorily to estimate the moral character of tne practice itself; for it is no unimportant auxifiary in lormmg 4 CAUSES OF WAR. such an estimate of human actions or opinions, to know how they have been produced and what are their etiects. CAUSES OF WAR. WAJNT OF INQUIRY. Of these Causes one undoubtetlly consists in the want of inquiry. We have been accustomed from earliest life to a familiarity with its " pomp and circumstance;" soldiers have passed us at every step, and battles and victories have been the topic of every one around us. It therefore becomes familiarized to all our thoughts and interwoven with all our associations. We have never inquired whether these things should be : the question does not even sug- gest itself. We acquiesce in it, as we acquiesce in the rising of the sun, witliDut any other idea than tli.it it is a ])art of the ordinary processes of the world. And how are we to feel disapprobation of a system that we do not e.xamine. and of the nature of which we do not think ? Want of inquiry has been the means by which long-continued practices, whatever has been their enormity, have obtained the general concurrence of the world, and by which they have continued to pollute or degrade it, long after the few who inquire into titeir nature have discovered them to be bad. It wa.s by these means that the Slave Trade was so long tolerated by this land of humanity. Men did not think of its iniquity. We were induced to think, and we soon abhorred, and then abolished it. Of the effects of this want of inquiry we have indeed frequent examples in connection with the subject before us. Many who have all their lives concluded that War is lawful and right, have WANT OF INQUIRY. 6 found, when they began to examine the question, that their conchisions were founded upon no evidence ; that they had believed in its rectitude, not because they had possessed themselves of proof, but because they had never inquired whether it was capable of proof or not. In the present moral state of the world, one of the first concerns of him who would discover pure morality should be to question the purity of that which now obtains. INDIFFERENCE TO HUMAN MISERY. Another cause of our complacency with War, and there- fore another cause of War itself, consists in that callousness to human misery which the custom induces. They who are shocked at a single murder on the highway, hear with indifference of the slaughter of a thousand on the field. They whom the idea of a single corpse would thrill with terror, contemplate that of heaps of human carcasses mangled by human hands, with frigid indifference. If a murder is committed, the narrative is given in the public newspaper, with many adjectives of horror, with many expressions of commiseration, and many hopes that the perpetrator will be detected. In the next paragraph, the editor, perhaps, tells us that he has hurried a second edition to the press, in order that he may be the first to gladden the public with the intelligence, that in an engagement which has just taken place, eight hundred and fifty of the enemy were killed. Now, is not this latter intelligence eight hundred and fifty times as deplorable as the first? Yet the first is the subject of our sorrow, and this — of our joy ' The inconsistency and want of proportion which have been 6 . CAUSES OF WAR. occasioned in our sentiments of benevolence, offer a curious moral plienomenon. The immolations of the Hindoos fill us with compassion or horror ; the sacrifices of life by our own criminal execu- tions are the subject of our anxious commiseration. We feel that the life of a Hindoo, or of a malefactor, is a serious thing, and that nothing but imperious necessity should induce us to destroy the one, or to permit the destruction of the other. Yet what are these sacrifices of life in com- parison with the sacrifices of War? In Napoleon's cam- paign in Russia, there fell, during one hundred and seventy- three days in succession, an average of two thousand nine hundred men per day ; more than five hundred thousand human beings in less than six months ! And most of these victims expired with peculiar intensity of suffering. We are carrying our benevolence to the Indies, but what becomes of it in Russia, or at Leipsic ? We labour to save a few lives from the gallows, but where is our solicitude to save them on the field ? Life is life wheresoever it be sacrificed, and has everywhere equal claims to our regard. I am not now saying that War is wrong, but that we regard its miseries with an indifference with which we regard no others ; that if our sympathy were reasonably excited respecting them, we should be powerfully prompted to avoid War ; and that the want of this reasonable and virtuous sympatjjy is one cause of its prevalence in the world. NATIONAL IRRITABILITY. And another consists in national irritability. It is often assumed (not indeed upon the most rational grounds) that NATIONAL IRRITABILITY. 7 the best way of supporting the dignity and maintaining the security of a nation is, when occasions of disagreement arise, to assume a high attitude and a combative tone. We keep ourselves in a state of irritability which is con- tinually alive to occasions of offence ; and he that is pre- pared to be offended readily finds offences. A jealous sensibility sees insults and injuries where sober eyes see nothing ; and nations thus surround themselves with a sort of artificial tentacula, which they throw wide in quest of irritation, and by which they are stimulated to revenge, by every touch of accident or ina^lverteucy. They who are easily offended will also easily offend. What is the experi- ence of private life ? The man who is always on the alert to discover trespasses on his honour or his rights, never fails to quarrel with his neighbours. Such a person may be dreaded as a torpedo. We may fear, but we shall not love him ; and fear, without love, easily lapses into enmity. There are, therefore, many feuds and litigations in the life of such a man, that would never have disturbed its quiet if he had not captiously snarled at tiie trespasses of accident, and savagely retaliated insignificant injuries. The viper that we chance to molest, we suffer to live if he contmues to be quiet ; but if he raise himself in menaces of destruc- tion we knock him on the head. It is with nations as with men. If on every offence we fly to arms, we shall of necessity provoke exasperation ; and if we exasperate a people as petulant as ourselves, we may probably continue to butcher one another, until we cease only from emptiness of exchequers or weariness of slaughter. To threaten war is, therefore, often equivalent « CAUSES OF WAK. to beginning it. In the present state of men's principles, it is not probable that one nation will observe another levying men, and building ships, and founding cannon, without providing men, and ships, and cannon themselves ; and when both are thus threatening and defying, what is the hope that there will not be a war ? If nations fought only when they could not be at peace, there would be very little fighting in the world. The wars that are waged for " insults to flags," and an endless train of similar motives, are perhaps generally attributable to the irritability of our pride. We are at no pains to appear pacific towards the offender ; our remonstrance is a threat ; and the nation, which would give satisfaction to an inquiry, will give no other answer to a menace than a menace in return. At length we begin to fight, not because we are aggrieved, but because we are angry. One example may be offered : " In 1789, a small Spanish vessel committed some violence in Nootka Sound, under the pretence that the country belonged to Spain. This appears to have been the principal ground of offence : and with this both the Government and the people of England were very angry. The irritability and haughtiness which they manifested were unaccountable to the Spaniards, and the peremptory tone was imputed by Spain, not to the feelings of offended dignity and violated justice, but to some lurking enmity, and some secret designs which we did not choose to avow."* If the tone had been less peremptory and more rational, no such suspicion would have been excited, and the hostility whioh was consequent upon the suspicion would, of course, ■ Sniollett'f England NATIONAL IRRITABILITY. 9 have been avoided. Happily the English were not so passionate but that before they proceeded to fight they negotiated, and settled the affair amicably. The prepara- tions for this foolish threatened war cost, however, tliree millions one hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds ! So well indeed is national irritability known to be an efficient cause of War, that they who from any motive wish to promote it, endeavour to rouse the temper of a people by stimulating their passions, just as the boys in our streets stimulate two dogs to fight. These persons talk of the insults, or the encroachments, or the contempts, of the destined enemy, with every artifice of aggi-avation ; they tell us of foreigners who want to trample upon our rights, of rivals who ridicule our power, of foes who will crush, and of tyrants who will enslave us. They pursue their object, certainly, by efficacious means ; they desire a war, and therefore irritate our passions ; and when men are angry they are easily persuaded to fight. That this cause of War is morally bad, that petulance and irritability are wholly incompatible with Christianity, will be universally admitted. SELF-INTEREST. Wars are often promoted from considerations of interest, as well as from passion. The love of gain adds its influ- ence to our other motives to support them ; and without other motives we know that this love is sufficient to give great obliquity to the moral judgment, and to tempt us to many crimes. During a war of ten years there will always be many whose income depends on its continu- 10 CAUSES OF WAR. Auce ; and a countless host of commissaries, and purveyors, and agents, and mechanics, commend a war because it fills their pockets. Arid unhappily, if money is in prospect, the desolation of a kingdom is often of little concern : destruc- tion and slaughter are not to be put in competition with definite personal gain. In truth, it seems sometimes to be the system of the conductors of a war to give to the sources of gain endless ramifications. The more there are who profit by it, the more numerous are its supporters ; and thus the projects of a cabinet become identified with the wislies of the people, and both are gratified in the prosecu- tion of War. A support more systematic and powerful is however given to War, because it offers to the higher ranks of society a profession which unites gentility with profit, and which, without the vulgarity of trade, maintains or enriches them. It i.s of little consequence to inquire whether the distinc- tion, as regards vulgarity, between the toils of War and the toils of commerce be fictitious. In the abstract, it is fic- titious ; but of this species of reputation public opinion holds the arhitrium et jus et norma ; and public opinion is in favour of AVur. The army and the navy, therefore, afford to the middle and higher classes a most acceptable profession. The pro- fession of arms is, like the profession of law or of physic, a regular source of employment and ])rofit. Boys are eiliicated fof the army as they are educated for tiie bar; and many parents appear to have no other idea than that War i.s part of the business of the world. 0^ younger sons, whose fathers, in pursuance of the unhappy system of SELF-INTEREST. 11 primogeniture, do not choose to support them at the ex- pense of the heir, the army and the navy are the common resource. They would not know what to do without them. To many of these the news of a peace is a calamity ; and though they may not lift their voices in favour of new hos- tilities for the sake of gain, it is unhappily certain that they often secretly desire it. It is in this manner that much of the rank, of the influ- ence, and of the wealth, of a country become interested in a promotion of wars ; and when a custom is promoted by wealtli, and influence, and rank, what is the wonder that it should be continued? It is said (if my memory serves me, by Sir Walter Raleigh), " He that taketh up his rest to live by this profession shall hardly be an honest man." By depending upon War for a subsistence, a powerful inducement is given to desire it ; and when the question of War is to be decided, it is to be feared that the whispers of interest will prevail, and that humanity, and religion, and ■conscience, will be sacrificed to promote it. SECRET MOTIVES OF CABINETS. Of those causes of War which consist in the ambition of 'priiices, or statesmen, or commanders, it is not necessary to speak, because no one to whom the world will listen is willing to defend them. Statesmen however have, besides ambition, many pur- poses of subtle policy which make wars convenient ; and when they have such purposes, they are sometimes cool speculators in the lives of men. They who have much patronage have many dependents, and they who have many 12 CAUSES OF WAit. dependents have much power. By a war, thousands become dependent on a minister ; and, if he be disposed, he can often pursue schemes of guilt, and intrench himself in unpunished wickedness, because the war enables him to silence by an office the clamour of opposition, and to secure by a bribe the suffrages of venality. He has, therefore, many motives to War : in ambition, that does not refer to conquest ; or in fear, that extends only to his office or his pocket : and fear and ambition are sometimes more interest- ing considerations than the happiness and the lives of men. Cabinets have, in truth, many secret motives to wars of which the people know little. They talk in public of in- vasions of right, or of breaches of treaty, of the support of honour, of the necessity of retaliation, when these motives have no influence on their determinations. Some untold purpose of ex])ediency, or the private (piarrel of a prince, or the pique or anger of a minister, are often the real motives to a contest, whilst its promoters are loudly talk- ing of the honour or of the safety of the (.-oimtry. IDEAS OF GLORY. But perhaps the most operative cause of the popularity of War, and of the facility with which we engage in it, consists in this, that an idea of glory is attached to military exploits, and of honour to the military profession. The glories of battle, and of those who perish in it, or who return in triumph to their country, are favourite topics of declamation with the historian, the biographer, and the poet. They have told us a thousarnl times of dying ktroes, who "resign their lives amidst the joys of c()n(^uest, and^ IDEAS OF GLORY. 13 filled with their country's glory, smile in death ; " and thus every excitement that eloquence and genius can command, is employed to arouse that ambition of fame which can be gratified only at the expense of blood. Into the nature and principles of this fame and glory we cannot now minutely inquire ; but in the view alike of virtue and of intellect, they are low and bad. " I cannot tell " said Jane Taylor, " how or why the love of glory is a less selfish principle than the love of riches." "Christianity" says Bishop Watson, " quite annihilates the disposition for martial glory." Another testimony, and from an advocate of War (Paley's Ev'id., p. ii. c. 2), goes further, and says " that no two things can be more different than the heroic and the Christian character." Such is the foundation of the glory which has for so many ages deceived and deluded multitudes of mankind ! Upon this foundation a structure has been raised so vast, so brilliant, so attractive, that the greater portion of mankind are content to ga/e in admiration, without any inquiry into its basis, or any solicitude for its durability. If, however, it should be that the gorgeous temple will be able to stand only till Christian truth and light become predominant, it surely will be wise of those who seek a niche in its apart- ments as their paramount and final good, to pause ere they proceed. If they desire a reputation that shall outlive guilt and fictioii, let them look to the basis of military fame. If this fame should one day sink into oblivion and contempt, it will not be the first instance in which wide- spread glor}' has been found to be a glittering bubble, that has burst, and been forgotten. Look at the days of chivalry. 14 CAUSES OF WAR. Of the ten thousand Quixotes of the middle aon mankind, appears a trite and a needless employment. W^e all know that its evils are great and dreadful. Yet the very circumstance that the knowledge is familiar may make it inoperative upon our sentiments and our conduct. It is not the intensity of misery, it is not the extent of evil alone, which is necessary to animate us to that exertion which evil and misery should excite ; if it were, surely we should be much more averse than we now are to contribute, in word or in action, to the promotion of War. 16 CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. But there are mischiefs attendant upon the system which are not to every man thus familiar, and on which, for that reason, it is expedient to remark. In referring especially to some of those Moral conse(iuences of War which com- monly obtain little of our attention, it may be observed, that social and political considerations are necessarily in- volved in the moral tendency : for the happiness of society is always diminished by the diminution of morality ; and enlightened policy knows that the greatest support of a state is the virtue of the people. And yet the reader should bear in mind — what nothing but the frequency of the calamity can make him forget — the intense sufferings and irreparable deprivations which one battle inevitably entails upon private life. These are calamities of which the world thinks little, and which, if it thought of them, it could not remove. A father or a husband can seldom be replaced ; a void is created in the domestic felicity which there is little hope that the future will fill. By the slaughter of a war, there are thousands who weep in unpitied and unnoticed secrecy, whom the world does not see ; and thousands who retire in silence to hopeless poverty, for whom it does not care. To these the conquest of a kingdom is of little importance The loss of a protector or of a friend is ill repaid by empty glory. An addition of territory may add titles to a king, but the brilliancy of a crown throws little light upon domestic gloom. It is not my intention to insist upon these calamities, intense and irreparable and unnumbered as they are ; but those who begin a war without taking them into their estimates of its consequences, must be DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 17 reganleil as, at most, haif-seeing politicians. The legiti- mate object of political measures is the good of the people ; — and a great :um of good a war must produce, if it out- balances even this portion of its mischiefs. DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. Nor should we be forgetful of that dreadful part of all warfare, the destruction of mankind. The frequency with which this destruction is represented to our minds, has almost extinguished our perception of its awfulness and horror. Between the years 114.1 and 1815, an interval of six hundred and seventy years, our country was at war with France alone tiro huiidred and sixty-six years. If to this we add our wars with other countries, probably we shall find that one-half of the last six or seven centuries has been spent by this country in war ! A dreadful pictures of human violence ! How many of our fellow-men, of our fellow-Christians, have the.-^e centuries of slaughter cut off ! What is the sum total of the misery of their deaths ! * TAXATION. When political writers expatiate upon the extent and the evils of taxation, they do not sufficiently bear in mind the reflection that almost all our taxation is the effect of War. A man declaims upon national debts. He ought to declaim upon the parent of those debts. Do we reflect that if heavy taxation entails evils and misery upon the community, that misery and those evils are inilicted upon us by War ? The amount of supplies in Queen Anne's *" Since the peace of Amiens more tlian /owr millioiu of bnnian beings have been sacrificed to the personal ainbitinn of Napoleon Buonapai tc." — Quarterly Review, No. xxv. Art. 1, 1^25. 18 CONSEQUENCES UF WAR. reign was about seventy millious ; and of this about sixty- six millions was expended in War. Where is our equiva- lent good ? Such considerations ought, undoubtedly, to influence the conduct of public men in their disagreement with other states, even if higher considerations do not influence it. They ought to form part of the calculations of the evil of hostility. I believe that a greater mass of human suff'ering and loss of human enjoyment are occasioned by the pecuniary distresses of a war, than any ordinary advantages of a war compensate. But this consideration seems too remote to obtain our notice. Anger at offence, or hope of triumph, overpowers the sober calculations of reason, and outbalances tTie weight of after and long-continued calamities. The only question appears to be, whether taxes enough for a war can be raised, and whether a people will be willing to pay them. But the great question ought to be (setting questions of Christianity aside), whether the nation will gain as much by tlie war as they will lose by taxation and its other calamities. If the happiness of the people were, what it ought to be, the primary and the ultimate object of national measures, I think that the policy which pursued this object, would often find that even the pecuniary distresses resulting from a war make a greater deduction from the quantum of felicity, than would those evils which the war may have been designed to aroid. MORAL DKPUAVITY. " But War " says Erasmus, " does more harm to the morals of men than even to their property and persons.'* MORAL DEJ^RAVITY. l» If, indeed, it depraves our morals more than it injures our persons and deducts from onr property, how enormous must its mischiefs be ! I do not know whether the greater sum of moral evil resulting from "War is suffered by those who are immediately engaged in it, or by the public. The mischief is most extensive upon the community, but upon the profession it is most intense. Rara fides pietasque viris qui castra seqmintur. — Lucan. No one pretends to applaud the morals of an army, and as for its religion, few think of it at all. The fact is too notorious to be insisted upon, that thousands who had filled their stations in life with propriety, and been virtuous from principle, have lost, by a military life, both the practice and the regard of morality ; and when they have become habituated to the vices of War, have laughed at their honest and plodding brethren, who are still spiritless enough for virtue or stupid enough for piety. Does any man ask, What occasions depravity in military life ? I answer in the words of Robert Hall, "War reverses, with respect to its objects, all the rules of morality. It is nothing less than a temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue. It is a system out of which almost all the virtues are excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are incorporated." And it requires no sagacity to discover that those who are engaged in a practice which reverses all the rules of morality, which repeals all the principles of virtue, and in which nearly all the vices are incorporated, cannot, without the intervention of a miracle, retain their minds and morals undepraved. tt CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. FAMILIARITY WITH PLUNDER. Look, for illustration, to the familiarity with the plunder of pro})erty and the slaughter of mankind which War induces. He who plunders the citizen of another nation without remorse or reflection, and bears away the spoil with triumph, will inevitably lose something of liis principles of probity.* He who is familiar with slaughter, who has himself often perpetrated it, and who exults in the per- oetration, will not retain undepraved the principles of virtue. His moral feelings are blunted ; his moral vision is obscured ; his principles are shaken ; an inroad is made upon their integrity, and it is an inroad that makes after inroads the more easy. Mankind do not generally resist the influence of habit. If to-day we rob and shoot those who are " enemies " we are to-morrow in some degree pre- pared to shoot and rob those who are not enemies. Law may indeed still restrain us from violence ; but the power and efficiency of Principle is diminished • and this alienation of the mind from the practice, the love, and the perception, of Christian purity, therefore, of necessity extends its influence to the other circumstances of life. 7 lie trhoU evil is imputable to War ; and we say that this evil forms a powerful evidence against it, whether we direct that evidence to the abstract question of its lawfulness, or to the practical question of its expediency. T/iat can scarcely be lawful which necessarily occasions such wide-spread • "This torrible tnith, which I cannot lielp repealing, must be acknowledged : indifference and sellisliness are tlie predominant feel- ings in an army." Miot's Memoir es de PExpAlition en Egypte, &a Mem. in the MS FAMILIARITY WITH PLUNDER. 2* immorality. That can scarcely be expedient, which is so pernicious to virtue, and therefore to the State. IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE TO SUPEMIORS. The economy of War requires of every soldier an implicit submission to his superior ; and this submission is required of every gradation of rank to that above it. " I swear to obey the orders of the othcers who are set over me : so help me, God." This system may be necessary to hostile operations, but I think it is unquestionably adverse to in- tellectual and moral excellence. The very nature of unconditional obedience implies the relinquishment of the use of the reasoning powers. Little more is required of the soldier than that he be obedient and brave. His obedience is that of an animal which is moved by a goad or a bit without judgment of its own ; and his bravery is that of a mastiff that fights whatever mastiff others ]iut before it.* It is obvious that in such agency the intellect and the understanding have little part. Now I think that this is important. He who, with what- ever motive, resigns the direction of his conduct implicitly to another, surely cannot retain that erectness and inde- pendence of mind, that manly consciousness of mental freedom, which is one of the highest privileges of our nature. A British Captain declares that " the tendency of strict discipline, such as prevails on board ships of war, where almost every act of a man's life is regulated by the orders of his superiors, is to weaken the faculty of inde- • By one article of the Constitutional Code even of republican France, " the army were expressly prohibited from deliberating on any- subject whatever." -22 CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. pendent tlioiit^ht." * Thus the rational being becomes reduced iu the intellectual scale : an encroachment is made upon the integrity of its independence. God has given us, individually, capacities for the reguUition of our individual conduct. To resign its direction, therefore, to the absolute disposal of another, appears to be an unmanly and unjusti- fiable relinquishment of the privileges which He has granted to us. And the effect is obviously bad ; for although no character will apply universally to any large class of men, and although the intellectual character of the military pro- fession does not result only from this unhappy subjection, yet it will not be dis{)uted, that the honourable exercise of intellect amongst that profession is not relatively great. It is not from them that we expect, because it is not in them that we generally find, those vigorous exertions of intellect which dignify our nature, and which extend the boundaries of human knowledge. RESIGNATION OF MORAL AGENCY. But the intellectual effects of military subjection foi-m but a small portion of its evils. The great mischief is, that it requires the relinquishment of our moral agency ; that it requires us to do what is opposed to our consciences, and what we know to be wrong. A soldier must obey, how criminal soever the command, and how criminal soever he knows it to be. It is certain that, of those who compose armies, many commit actions which they believe to l)e wicked, and which they would not commit but for the * Captain Basil Hall's Voyage to Loo Choo, c. 2. We make no distinction between the military and naval professions, and employ one word to indicate botli. RESIGNATION OF MORAL AGENCY, 23 obligations of a military life. Although a soldier deter- miiiately believes that the war is unjust, although he is convinced that his particular part of the service is atro- ciously criminal, still he must proceed, — he must prosecute the purposes of injustice or robbery, he must particii)ate in the guilt, and be himself a robber. To what a situation is a rational and responsible being reduced, who commits actions, good or bad, at the word of another ? I can conceive no greater degi-adation. It is the lowest, the final abjectness of the moral nature. We see that it ?> this if we take away the glitter of War, and if we add this glitter it remains the same. Such a resignation of our moral agency is not contended for, or tolerated, in any other circumstance of human life. War stands alone upon this pinnacle of depravity. She only, in the supremacy of crime, has told us that she has abolished even the obligation to be virtuous. Some writers who have perceived the monstrousness of this system, have told us that a soldier should assure him- self, before he engages in a war, that it is a lawful and just one ; and they acknowledge that, if he does not feel this assurance, he is a "murderer." liut how is he to know that the war is just? It is frequently difficult for the people distinctly to discover what the objects of a war are. And if the soldier knew tiiat it was just in its commence- ment, how is he to know that it will continue just in its prosecution ? Every war is, in some parts of its course, wicked and unjust ; and who can tell w^hat that course will be ? You say, When he discovers any injustice or wicked- ness, let him withdraw : wo answer. He cannot : and the 24 .. CONSEQUENCES OF WAR. truth is, that there is no way of avoiding the evil, but by avoiding the army. It is an inquiry of much interest, under what circum- stances of responsibility a man supposes himself to be placed, who thus abandons and violates his own sense of rectitude and of his duties. Either he is responsible for his actions, or he is not ; and the question is a serious one to determine.* Christianity has certainly never stated any cases in which jiersonal responsibility ceases. If she admits such cases, she has at least not told us so ; but she has told us, explicitly and repeatedly, that she does require indi- vidual obedience and impose individual responsibility. She has made no exceptions to the imperativeness of her obliga- tions, whether we are required by others to neglect them or not ; and 1 can discover in her sanctions no reason to sup pose that in her final adjudications she admits the plea, that another required us to do that which she required us to forbear. But it may be feared, it may be believed, that how little soever Religion will abate of the responsibility of those who obey, she will impose not a little upon those who command. They, at least, are answerable for the enormities of War : unless, indeed, any one shall tell me that respon- sibility attaches nowhere ; that that which would be wicked- * Vattel indeed tells us that soldiers ought to "submit their judg- ment." "What" says he " would be the consequence, if at every step of the Sovereign the subjects were at liberty to weigh the justice of lis reasons, and refuse to march to a war which, to tiicin, might ajipear unjust?" — Law of Nations, b. 3, c. 11, sec. 187. Gisl)onn! holds very erhaps without remorse. Here and there, however, an ancinnt father still lifted up his voice for Peace; CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS. 63 but these, one after another, dropping from the world, the tenet that War is unlawful ceased at length to be a tenet of the church. Let it always be borne in mind by those who are ad- vocating War, that they are contending for a corruption which their forefathers abhorred ; and that they are making Jesus Christ the sanctioner of crimes, which His purest fol- lowers offered up their lives because they would not commit. WARS OF THE JEWS. An argument has sometimes been advanced in favour of War, from the divine communications to the Jews under the administration of Moses. It has been said, that as wars were allowed and enjoined to that people, they cannot be inconsistent with the will of God. To such an argument our answer is short : — If C/n-is- tianity prohibits War, there is to Christians an end of the controversy. War cannot be justified by the referring to any antecedent Dispensation. But even under the Old Dispensation the prophets foresaw that wars were not accordant with the universal Will of God, since they predicted that, when that Will should be fulfilled, War should be eradicated from the world. And by what Dispensation was that Will to be fulfilled ? By that of the " Rod out of the stem of Jesse." It is worthy of recollec- tion, too, that David was forbidden to build the tenipU because he had shed blood. " As for me it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God ; but the word of the Lord came to me, saying. Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made gi-eat wars: thou shall 64 LAWFULNESS OF WAR. Qot build an house unto my name, becanse thou hast shed much blood upou the earth in My sight." So little accor- dancy did War possess with the purer offices even of tbo Jewish Dispensation. DUTIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS. Perhaps the argument to which the greatest importance is attached by the advocates of War, and by which thinking men are chiefly induced to acquiesce in its lawfulness is this, — That a distinction is to be made between rules which ap- ply to us as individiuils, and rules which apply to us a^ sub- jects of the State; and that the pacific injunctions of Christ from the Mount, and all the other kindred commands and prohibitions of the Christian Scriptures, have no reference to our conduct as members of the political body. In the judgment of the wTiter this argument possesses no force or application. When persons make such broad distinctions between the obligations of Christianity on private and on public affairs, the proof of the rectitude of the distinction must be ex- pected of those who make it. General rules are laid down by Christianity, of which in some cases the advocate of War denies the applicability. He, therefore, is to produce the reason and the authority for the exception. And that authority must be a competent authority, — the authority, mediately or immediately, of God. It is to no purpose for such a person to tell us of the magnitude of political affairs, — of the greatness of the interests which they involve, — of " necessity," — or of expediency. All these are very proper considerations in subordination to the Moral Law ; — other- DUTIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS. 65 wise they are wholly nugatory and irrelevant. Let the reader observe the manner in which the argument is sup- ported.— If an individual, it is argued, suffers aggression, there is a power to which he can apply that is above him- self and above the aggi-essor ; a power by which the bad passions of those around him are restrained, or by which their aggressions are punished. But amongst nations there is no acknowledged superior or common arbitrator. Even if there were, there is no way in which its decisions coidd be enforced, but by the sword. War therefore is the only means which one nation possesses of protecting itself from the aggression of another. The reader will observe the fundamental fallacy upon which the argument proceeds. It assumes, that the reason why an individual is not permitted to use violence is, that the laivs will use it for him. Here is the error ; for the foundation of the duty of forbearance in pi'ivate life, is not that the laws will punish aggression, but that Christianity requires forbearance. Undoubtedly, if the existence of a common arbitrator were the foundation of the duty, the duty would not be binding upon nations. But that which we require to be proved is this, — that Christianity exonerates nations from those duties which slie has imposed upon individuals. This the present argument does not prove : and, in truth, with a singular unhappiness in its application, it assumes, in effect, that she has imposed these duties upon neither the one nor the other. If it be said, that Christianity allows to individuals some degree and kind of resistance, and that some resistance is therefore lawful to States, we do not deny it. But if it b«» 66 LAWFULNESS OF WAR. said, that the degree of lawful resistance extends to the slaughter of our fellow Christians — that it extends to War, — we do deny it : we say that the rules of Christianity cannot, by any possible latitude of interpretation, be made to extend to it. The duty of forbearance, then, is ante- cedent to all considerations respectiUj^ the condition of man ; and, whether he be under the protection of laws or not, the duty of forbearance is imposed. The only truth which appears to be elicited by the present argument is, that the difficulty of obeying the for- bearing rules of Christianity is greater in the case of nations than in the case of individuals : the obligation to obey them is the same in both. Nor let any one urge the difficulty of obedience in opposition to the duty ; for he who does this has yet to learn one of the most awful rules of his religion, — a rule that was enforced by the precepts, and more es- pecially by the final example, of Christ, of apostles, and of martyrs, — the rule which requires that we should be " obedient even unto death." Let it not, however, be supposed that we believe the difficulty of forbearance would be as great in practice as it is great in theory. Our interests are commonly promoted by the fulfilment of our duties ; and we hope hereafter to show that the fulfilment of the duty of forbearance forms no exception to the applicability of the rule. OFFENSIVE AND DKIENSIVE WAR. The intelligent reader will have perceived that the "War" of which we speak is all War, without reference to its objects, whether offensive or defensive. In truth, respecting OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE WAR. 67 any other than defensive War, it is scarcely worth while to entertain a question, since no one with whom we are con- cerned to reason, will advocate its opposite. Some persons indeed talk with much complacency of their reprobation of offensive War. Yet to reprobate no more than this, is only to condemn that which wickedness itself is not wont to justify. Even those who practise offensive War affect to veil its nature by calling it by another name. In conformity with this, we find that it is to defence that the peaceable precepts of Christianity are directed. Offence appears not to have even suggested itself. It is, " Resist not evil:" it is, "Overcome evil with good:" it is, "Do good to them that hate you : " it is, " Love your enemies: " it is, "Render not evil for evil:" it is, "Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek." All this supposes previous offence, or injury, or violence ; and it is then that forbear- ance is enjoined. It is common, with those who justify defensive War, to identify the question with that of individual self-defence ; and although the questions are in practice sufficiently dis- similar, it has been seen that we do not object to their being regarded as identical. The Rights of Self-Defence have already been discussed, and the conclusions to which the Moral Law appears to lead, afford no support to the advo- cate of Wai. [See Dymond's Essays, Eighth Ed., p. 259.] We say the questions are practically dissimilar ; so that, if we had a right to kill a man in self-defence, very few wars would be shown to be lawful. Of the wars which are prosecuted, some are simply wars of aggression ; some are for the maintenance of a balance of power ; some are m 68 LAWFULNESS OP WAR. assertion of technical rights ; and some, antioubtedly, to repel invasion 'Die last are perhaps the fewest ; and of these only it can be .said that they bear any analogy what- ever to the case which is supposed ; and even in these, the analogy is seldom complete. It has rarely indeed happened that wars have been undertaken simply for the preservation of life, and that no other alternative has lemained to a people than to kill, or to be killed. And let it be remem- bered, that unless this alternative alone remains, the case of individual self-defence is n-relevant ; it applies not, practically, to the subject. But indeed you cannot in practice make distinctions, even moderately accurate, between defensive War and War for other purposes. Supposing the Christian Scriptures had said. An army may fight in its own defence, but not for any otiier purpose. — Whoever will attempt to apply this rule in practice, will find that he has a very wide range of justifiable warfare ; a range that will embrace many more wars than moralists, laxer than we shall suppose them to be, are willing to defend. If an army may fight in defence of their own lives, they may and they must fight in defence of the lives of others : if they may fight in defence of the lives of others, they will fight in defence of their property : if in defence of property, they will fight in defence of political rights : if in defence of rights, they will fight in promotion of interests : if in promotion of interests, they will fight in promotion of their glory and their crimes. Now let any man of honesty look over the gradations by which we arrive at this climax, and I believe he will find that, in practice, no curb can be OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE WAR. 69 placed upon the conduct of an army until they reach that climax. There is indeed a wide distance between fighting in defence of life, and fighting in furtherance of our crimes ; but the steps which lead from one to the other will follow in inevitable succession. I know that the letter of our rule excludes it, but I know that the rule will be a letter only. It is very easy for us to sit in our studies, and to point the commas, and semicolons, and periods, of the soldier's career : it is very easy for us to say he shall stop at defence of life, or at protection of property, or at the support of rights ; but armies will never listen to us : we shall be only the Xerxes of morality, throwing our idle chains into the lom- pestuous ocean of slaughter. WARS rt.LW\YS AGGRESSIVE. What IS The testimony of experience? .When nations are mutually exasperated, and armies are levied, and battles are fought, does not every one know that with whatever motives of defence one party may have begun the contest, both in turn become aggressors ? In the fury of slaughter soldiers do not attend, they cannot attend, to questions of aggression. Their business is destruction, and their busi- ness they will perform. If the army of defence obtains success, it soon becomes an army of aggression. Having repelled the invader, it begins to punish him. If a war has once begun, it is vain to think of distinctions of aggression and defence. Moralists may talk of distinctions, but sol- diers will make none ; and none can be made ; it is outside the limits of possibility. 70 LAWFULNESS OF WAR. PALEY. Indeed some of the definitions of defensive or of just War which are proposed by moralists, indicate how impos- sible it is to confine warfare within any assignable limits. " The objects of just War," says Paley, " are precaution, defence, or reparation." — " Every just war supposes an injury perpetrated, attempted, or feared." I shall acknowledge that, if these be justifying motives to War, I see very little purpose in talking of morality upon the subject. It is in vain to expatiate on moral obligations, if we are at liberty to declare war whenever an " injury is feared : " — an injury, without limit to its insignificance ! a fear, without stipulation for its reasonableness ! The judges also of the reasonableness of fear, are to be they who are under its influence ; and who so likely to judge amiss as those who are afraid ? Sounder philosophy than this has told us, that " he who has to reason upon his duty when the temp- tation to transgress it is before him, is almost sure to reason himself into an error." Violence, and rapine, and ambition, are not to be re- strained by morality like this. It may serve for the specu- lations of a study ; but we will venture to affirm that mankind will never be controlled by it. Moral rules are useless, if from their own nature they cannot be, or will not be, applied. Who believes that if kings and conquerors may fight when they have fears, they will not fight when they have them not ? The morality allows too much latitude to the passions, to retain uiy practical restraint upon them. And a morali'-y that will not be practised, — I PALEY. 71 had almost said, that cannot be practised, — is a useless morality. It is a theory of morals. We want clearer and more exclusive rules ; we want more obvious and immediate sanctions. It were in vain for a philosopher to say to a general who was burning for glory, " You are at liberty to engage in the war provided you have suffered, or fear you will suffer, an injury ; otherwise Christianity prohibits it." He will tell him of twenty injuries that have been suffered, of a hundred that have been attempted, and of a thousand that he fears. And what answer can the philosopher make to him ? WAR WHOLLY FORBIDDEN. If these are the proper standards of just War, there will be little difficulty in proving any war to be just, except indeed that of simple aggression ; and, by the rules of this morality, the aggressor is difficult of discovery, for he whom we choose to " fear," may say that he had previous " fear " of us, and that his " fear" prompted the hostile symptoms which made us "fear" again. The truth is, that to attempt to make any distinctions upon the subject is vain. War must be wholly foi-bidden, or allowed without restriction to defence ; for no definitions of lawful and unlawful War, will be, or can be, attended to. If the principles of Chris- tianity, in any case, or for any purpose, allow armies to meet and to slaughter one another, her principles will never conduct us to the period which Prophecy has assured us they shall produce. There is no hope of an eradication of War, but by an absolute and total abandonment of it 72 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW. OP THE PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW IN RESPECT TO WAR. We have seen that the duties of the reh'gion which God nas imparted to mankind require irresistance ; and surely it is reasonable to hope, even without a reference to experi- ence, that He will make our irresistance subservient to our interests : — that if, for the purpose of conform lug to His will, we subject ourselves to difficulty or danger, He will protect us in our obedience, and direct it to our benefit : — that if He requires us not to be concernsfi in War, He will preserve us in Peace : — that He will not desert those who have no other protection, and who have abandoned all other protection because they confide in His alone. This we may reverently hoj)e ; yet it is never to be for- gotten that our apparent interests in the present life are sometimes, in the economy of God, made subordinate to our interests in futurity. Y''et, even in reference only to the present state of exist- ence, I believe we shall find that the testimony of experience is, that forbearance is most conducive to our interests. There is practical truth in the position that "When a man's ways please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." QUAKERS IN AMERICA AND IRELAND. The reader of American history will recollect, that in the beginning of the last century a desultory and most dreadful warfare was carried on by the natives against the European aettlers ; a warfare that was provoked — as such warfare has QUAKERS IN AMERICA AND IRELAND. 73 almost always originally been — by the unjust and violent con- duct of the Christians. The mode of destruction was secret and sudden. The barbarians sometimes lay in wait for those who might come Nvithin their reach on the highway or in the fields, and shot them without warning ; and sometimes they attacked the Europeans in their houses, "scalping some, and knocking out the brains of others." From this horrible warfare the inhabitants sought safety by abandon- ing their homes, and retiring to fortified places, or to the neighbourhood of garrisons ; and those whom necessity still compelled to pass beyond the limits of such protection, provided themselves with arms for their defence. But amidst this dreadful desolation and universal terror, the Society of Friends, who were a considerable portion of the whole population, were steadfast to their principles. They would neither retire to garrisons, nor provide themselves with arms. They remained openly in the country, whilst the rest were flying to the forts. They still pursued their occupations in the fields or at their homes, without a weapon either for annoyance or defence. And what was their fate ? They lived in security and quiet. The habitation which, to his armed neighbour, was the scene of murder and of the scalping-knife, was to the unarmed Quaker a place of safety and of peace. Three of the Society were however killed. And who were they ? They were three who abandoned their princi- ples. Two of these victims were men who, in the simple language of the narrator, " used to go to their labour with- out any weapons, and trusted to the Almighty, and de- pended on His providence to protect them (it being their 74 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW. principle not to use weapons of war to otlentl others, or to defend themselves) ; but a spirit of distrust taking place in their minds, they took weapons of war to defend them- selves ; and the Indians, — who had seen them several times without them, and let them alone, saying they were peace- able men and hurt nobody, therefore they would not hurt them, — now seeino- them have guns, and supposing they designed to kill the Indians, therefore shot the men dead." The third whose life was sacrificed was a woman, who " had remained in her habitation," not thinking herself warranted in goiui; " to a fortified place for preservation, neither she, her son, nor daughter, nor to take thither the little ones ; but the poor woman after some time began to (et in a slavish fear, and advised her children to go with her to a fort not far from their dwelling." She went ; — and shortly afterwards " the bloody, cruel Indians, lay by the w^ay, and killed her." {^Select Anecdotes, by John Barclay, pp. 71, 79.] The fate of the Quakers during the Rebellion in Ireland was nearly similar. It is well known that the Rebellion was a time not only of open War but of cold-blooded mur- der; of the utmost fury of bigotry, and of the utmost exas- peration of revenge. Yet the Quakers were preserved even to a proverb ; and when strangers i)assed through streets of ruin and observed :i house standing uninjured and alone, they would sometimes point, and say, " That, doubtless, is the house of a Quaker." * So complete indeed was the preservation which these people experienced, that in an * The Moravians, whose principles upon the subject of war were similar to those of the Quakers, experienced also similar preservation. QUAKERS IN AMERICA AND IRELAND. 75 official document of the Society they say, — " No member of our Society fell a sacrifice but one young man ; " and that young man had assumed regimentals and arms. [Hancock's Principles of Pence hJxempliJiedS\ It were to no purpose to say, in opposition to the evidence of these facts, that they form an exception to a general rule. — The exception to the rule consists in the trial of the experiment of non-resistance, not in its success. Neither were it to any purpose to say, that the savages of America, or the desperadoes of Ireland, spared the Quakers because they were previously known to be an unoffending people, or because the Quakers had previously gained the love of these by forbearance or good offices : — we concede all this; it is a part of the argument which we maintain. We say, that a uniform, undeviating regard to the peaceable obligations of Christianity becomes the safeguard of those who practise it. We venture to maintain that no reason whatever can be assigned, why the fate of the Quakers would not be the fate of all who should adopt their conduct. No reason can be assigned why, if their number had been multiplied ten- fold or a hundred-fold, they would not have been preserved. If there be such a reason, let us hear it. The American and Irish Quakers were, to the rest of the community, what one nation is to a continent. And we must require the advocate of War to produce (that which has never yet been produced) a reason for believing that, although individuals exposed to destruction were preserved, a nation exposed to destruction would be destroyed. We do not however say that, if a people in the customary state of men's passions should be assailed by an invader, and should on a suddeD 76 EFFECTS OF ADiIERIN(} TO MORAL LAW. choose to declare that they would try whether Providence would protect them, — of such a ))eople, we do not say that they would experience protectioti, and that none of them would bs killed : but we say, that the evidence of experi- ence is that a people who habitnally regard the obligations of Christianity in their conduct towards other men, and who steadfastly refuse through whatever consequences to engage in acts of liostility, will experience protection in their peacefulness. — And it matters nothing to the argu- ment, whether we refer that protection to the immediate agency of Providence, or to the influence of such conduct upon the minds of men.* COLONISATION OF PENNSYLVANIA. Such has been the experience of the unoffending and unresisting, in individual life. A National example of a refusal to bear arms has only once been exhibited to the world : but that one example has proved, so far as its * Ramond, in his Travels in the Pyrenees, says he fell in from time to time with those desperate marauders who infested tlie boundaries of Spain and Italy, — men who were familiar with danger and robbery and blood. What did experience teach hmi was the most etlicient means of preserving himself from injury? To go "unarvied." He found that he had " httle to apprehend from men whom we inspire with no distnist nor envy, and everything to expect in those from whom we claim only what is due from man to man. The laws of nature still exist for tiiose who have long shaken off the law of civil government."— "Tiie assassin has been my guide in the defiles of the boundaries of Italy ; the smuggler of the Pyrenees has received me with a welcome in his secret paths. Armed I should have been the enemy of both : unarmed they have alike respected me. In such expectation I have long since laid aside all menacing apparatus whatever. Arms irritate the wicked and intimidate the simple : the man of peace amongst mankind lias a mucb more sacred defence — his character." COLONISATION OF PENNSYLVANIA. 77 political circumstances enabled it to prove, all that hu- manity could desire, and all that scepticism could demand, in favour of our argument. It has been the ordinary practice of those who have colonised di-stant countries to force a footing, or to maintain it, with the sword. One of the tirst objects has been to build a fort and to provide a military. The adventurers became soldiers, and the colony was a garrison. Pennsyl- vania was however colonised by men who believed that War was absolutely incompatible with Christianity, and who therefore resolved not to practise it. Having deter- mined not to light, they maintained no soldiers and possessed no arms. They planted themselves in a country that was surrounded by savages, and by savages who knew they were unarmed. If easiness of conquest, or incapability of defence, could subject them to outrage, the Pennsylvanians might have been the very sport of violence. Plunderers might have robbed them without retaliation, and armies might have slaughtered them without resistance. If they did not give a temptation to outrage, no temptation could be given. But these were the people who possessed their country in security, whilst those around them were trembling for their existence. This was a land of Peace, whilst every other was a land of War. The conclusion is inevitable although it is extraordinary : — they were in no need of arms because they would not use them. These Indians were sufficiently ready to commit outrages upon other States, and often visited them with desolation and slaughter ; with that sort of desolation, and that sort of slaughter, which might be expected from men whom 78 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW. civilisation had not reclaimed from cruelty, and whom re- ligion had not awed into forbearance. "But whatever the quarrels of the Pennsylvauian Indians were with others," says Clarkson in his Life of Penn, " they uniformly re- spected and held as it were sacred, the territories of William Penn." The same writer also quotes Oldmixon as saying in 1708, "The Pennsylvanians never lost man, woman, or child, by Indians ; which neither the colony of Maryland, nor that of Virginia can say, no more than the gi'eat colony of New England." The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not a tran- sient freedom from War, such as might accidentally happen to any nation. " She continued to enjoy it," says Old- mixon, " for more than seventy years : " and, says Proud, " subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations, without so much as a militia for her defence." "The Pennsylvanians," says Clarkson again, " became armed, though without arms; they became strong, thongli without strength; they became safe, without the ordinary means of .safety. The con- stable's staiT was the only instrument of authority amongst them for the greater part of a century, and never, during the administration of Penn, or that of his proper successors, was there a quarrel or a war." I cannot wonder that these ])eople were not molested, — extraordinary and unexampled as their security was. There is something so noble in this perfect confidence in the Su- preme Protector, in this utter exclusion of "slavish fear," in this voluntary relinquishment of the means of injur}^ or of defence, that I do not wonder that even ferocity could be disarmed by such virtue. A people generously living COLONISATION OF PENNSYLVANIA. 79 without arms amidst nations of warriors ! Who would attack a people such as this ? There are few men so aban- doned as not to respect such confidence. It were a pecuHar and an unusual intensity of wickedness that would not even revere it. And when was the security of Pennsylvania molested, and its peace destroyed ? — When the men who had directed its counsels and who would not engage in War were outvotea in its legislature ; when they who supposed that there wab greater security in the sivord than in Christianity became the predominating body. From that hour the Pennsylvanians transferred their confidence in Christian Principles to a con- fidence in their arms ; — and from that hour to the present they have been subject to War. [Clarkson's Penn.^ Such is the evidence, derived from a national example, of the consequences of a pursuit of the Christinu policy in re- lation to War. Here are a people who absolutely refused to fight, and who incapacitated themselves for resistance by refusing to possess arms : and these were the people whose land, amidst surrounding broils and slaughter, was selected as a land of security and peace. The only national oppor- tunity which the virtue of the Christian world has afforded us, of ascertaining the safety of relying upon God for defence, has determined that it is safe. CONFIDENCE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. If the evidence which we possess does not satisfy us of the expediency of confiding in God, what ev^idence do we a.sk, or what can we receive ? We havft His promise that He will protect those who abandon their seeming interests in 80 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW. the performance of His will ; and we have the testimony of those who have confided in Him, that He has protected them. Can the advocate of W^.r produce one single instance in the history of man of a person who had given an uncon- ditional obedience to the will of Heaven, and who did not find that his conduct was wise as well as virtuous, that it accorded with his interests as well as with his duty ? We ask the same question in relation to the peculiar obligations to irresistance. Where is the man who regrets that, in observance of the forbearing duties of Christianity, he con- signed his preservation to the superintendence of God ? — And the solitary national example that is before us con- firms the testimony of private life ; for there is sufficient reason for believing that no nation, in modem ages, has possessed so large a portion of virtue and of happiness, as Pennsylvania before it had seen human blood. I would therefore repeat the question, — What evidence do we ask or can we receive ? This is the point from which we wander : — we do not BELIEVE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. When this statement is formally made to us, we think perhaps that it is not true ; but our practice is an evidence of its truth ; for if we did believe we should also confide in it, and should be willing to stake upon it the consequences of our obedience.* We can talk with sufficient fluency of "trusting in Providence;" but in the application of it to our conduct in life, we know • " The dread of being destroyed by our enemies if we do not go to war with them, is a plain and unequivocal proof of our disbehef in the superintendence of Divine Providence." — The L'lwful nexs of Dffensivt War impart tally considered. By a Member of tlie Church of Eng- land CONFIDENCE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 81 wonderfully little. Who is he that confides in Providence, and for what does he trust Him ? Does his confidence in- duce him to set aside his own views of interest and safety, and simply to obey Divine precepts even if they appear in- expedient and unsafe ? This is the confidence that is of value, and of which we know so little. There are many who believe that War is disallowed by Christianity and who would rejoice that it were for ever abolished ; but there are few who are willing to maintain an undaunted and un- yielding stand against it. They can talk of the loveliness of Peace, ay, and argue against the lawfulne.>*s of War ; but when difficulty or suffering would be the consequence, they will not refuse to do what they know to be unlawful ; they will not practise the peacefulness which they say they ad- mire. Those who are ready to sustain the consequences of undeviating obedience, are the supporters of whom Chris- tianity stands in need. She wants men who are willing to suffer for her principles. RECAPITULATION. The positions then which we have endeavoured to estab- lish are these : — I. That those considerations which operate as general Causes of War, are commonly such as Christianity condemns. II. That the effects of War are, to a very great extent, prejudicial to the moral character of a people, and to their social and political welfare. III. That the general character of Christianity is wholly incongruous with War, and that its general duties are incompatible with it. IV. That some of the express precepts and declarations of the Christian Scriptures virtually forbid it. 82 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW. V. That the Primitive Christians l)elieved that Christ had forbidden War ; and that some of them suffered death in attirmance of tliis belief. VI. That God has declared in Prophecy, that it is His will that War should eventually be eradicated from the earth ; and that this eradication will be effected by Christianity, by the influence of its present principles. VII. That those who liave refu.sed to engage in War, in consequence of their belief that it is inconsistent with Christianity, have found that Providence has protected them. N o\v we think that the establishment of any considerable number of tliese positions is sufficient for our argument. The establishment of the whole, forms a body of Evidence, which must, I cannot but believe, convince any inquirer, to whom the subject was new. But since such an inquirer cannot be found, I would invite the reader to lay prepos- session aside, to suppose himself to have now first heard of battles and slaughter, and dispassionately to examine whether the evidence in favour of Peace be not very great, and whether the objections to it bear any proportion to the evidence itself. But whatever may be the determination upon this question, surely it is reasonable to try the ex- periment, whether security cannot be maintained without slaughter. Whatever be the reasons for War, it is certain that it produces enormous mischief. Even waiving the obli;;alions of Christianity, we have to chooise between evils that are certain and evils that are doubtful ; between the actual endurance of a great calamity, and the possibility of a less. It certainly cannot be proved that Peace would not be the best policy ; and since we know tliat the present system is bad, it were reasonable and wise to try whether RECAPITULATION. 83 the other is not better. In reality I can scarcely conceive the possibility of a greater evil than that which mankind now endures ; an evil, moral and physical, of far wider ex- tent, and far greater intensity, than our familiarity with it allows us to suppose. If a system of Peace be not produc- tive of less evil than the system of War, its consequences must indeed be enormously bad ; and that it would produce such consequences we have no warrant for believing, either from reason or from practice, — either from the principles of the moral government of God, or from the exi)erience of mankind. Whenever a people shall pursue, steadily and uniformly, the pacific morality of the Gospel, and shall do this from the pure motive of obedience, there is no reason to fear for the consequences: there is no reason to fear that they would experience any evils such as we now endure, or that they would not find that Christianity understands their interests better than they do themselves ; and that the surest and the only rule of wisdom, of safety, and of expediency, is to maintain her spirit in every circumstance of life. " There is reason to expect," says Dr. Johnson in his Falkland Islands, "that as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality will at last be reconciled." When this enlightened period shall arrive, we shall be approaching, and we shall not till then approach, that era of purity and of peace when "violence shall no longer be heard in our land, wasting nor destruction within our borders ; " — that era in which God has promised that " they shall not hurt nor de- stroy in all His holy mountain." That a period like this will come, I am not able to doubt : I believe it, because it 84 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW. is not credible that He will always endure the butchery oi man by man, because He has declared that He will not en- dure it ; and because I think there is a perceptible approach of that period in which He will say — " It is enough." In this belief the Christian may rejoice ; he may rejoice that the number is increasing of those who are asking — " Shall the sword devour for ever ? " and of those who, whatever be the opinions or the practice of others, are openly saying, "I am for Peace." [Psalm cxx. 7.] GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. It will perhaps be asked, What then are the duties of a subj