13 - A Martial Spirit Not of Christianity

Chapter 13 A MARTIAL SPIRIT NOT OF CHRISTIANITY ’Forgive us our Debts, as we forgive our Debtors’

Whatever may be our refinements in reasoning, on the question, Whether war in any instance is justifiable we cannot be mistaken when we say, that a martial spirit is not the spirit of Christianity. ’’ From whence come wars and fightings among you?" says the Apostle James; "come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ? Ye lust and have not ; ye kill, and desire to have, because ye cannot obtain ; ye fight and war, yet ye have not." This is a true account of the origin, the nature, and ends of well nigh all the wars that have convulsed the world.

If we were called upon to write an elaborate dissertation, in defence of the Scriptural doctrine of human apostasy, and the entire and unmixed sinfulness of the human heart, as it is by nature, one of our strong defences would be the whole subject of war. We would have a chapter entitled, "War, a proof of total depravity. "

It is beyond measure surprising, to see how the minds of benevolent and virtuous men have been, for centuries, perverted and blinded, on a subject -which, but for maxims sanctioned by time, and customs handed down from generation to generation, one would suppose were among the plainest subjects in the world. The causes, the nature, and the objects of war, cannot be justified by any one principle of the Christian faith or any one of those gracious affections which are the fruit cf God’s spirit.

We repeat the Apostle’s question, Whence come wars and fightings! In a multitude of cases, the great question of peace or war is determined by caprice or passion. The causes of war are often to the last degree trivial, and depend little on the magnitude of the injury received. Even as judicious a writer as Dr. Paley observes, that " in a larger sense, every just war is a defensive war; inasmuch as every just war supposes an injury perpetrated, attempted or feared." Is not this a remarkable declaration and does it not present to a belligerent world a cloak large enough to cover all the blood that is ever shed in war? Much as some of the writings of this accomplished author are to be respected we do not hesitate to say, that; a more corrupt, pestilent, atrocious sentiment has rarely been advanced than this. It is an indelible blot on the page of Archdeacon Paley’s Moral Philosophy. If an injury be either perpetrated, attempted, or even feared., there is just cause of war! The injured, or suspicious, or ambitious nation is, of necessity, the sole judge of the injury perpetrated, attempted, or feared. This wide range of " precaution, defence, or reparation," would have better suited the " Moral Philosophy" of such a man as Robespierre or Napoleon. No wonder the nations go to war.

It would be an amusing chapter, to specify some of the causes of war, though it would not be a short one. The Roman ambassador once received an insult in the city of Corinth; and the consul, Mummius, was immediately sent with an army, and the city was destroyed. An idle jest of Philip, the King of France, uttered against William I of England, sent fire and sword into the kingdom of the heedless offender. In the reign of Edward I., a bitter conflict was carried on between France and England, which originated in a personal quarrel between two seamen at Bayonne. The reign of Edward II., of England, was one of continual warfare, and for causes which brand the tyrant’s name with execration. Sir W. Moles worth stated in the British Parliament, last year, that the war with the Kaffirs, in India, which cost the British nation §12,000,000, was occasioned by the loss of one axe and two goats, which were alleged to have been stolen by the Kaffirs.

Dr. Paley did not seem to perceive, that the views he has published to the world would amount to a justification of most of the wars, and many of the vilest and wickedest, that ever scourged the human race. Powerful and ambitious rulers, and restless and avaricious people, often wish for war. Furnished with so wide a limit of permission, they could not wish for more. The object of Cyrus was to free the world from the tyranny of the Assyrian empire, and to avenge the injuries of the Medes and Persians. Alexander sought to revenge the several Persian invasions, and especially the death of his father. The Peloponnesian war was to free the States of Greece from the haughty domination of Pericles, and the alarming ascendency of Athens. The Punic war was to redress innumerable injuries, real and great. The Macedonian war had much of " reparation and precaution" at bottom. Caesar’s wars on Gaul were, on the same principle, just wars, from causes as ancient as Porsenna and Brennus. And as to Caesar and Pompey’s war, their object was to free Rome from an odious tyrant, evidently aiming at sovereign power. The wars of Charles and Francis were very just, as they were designed to redress all manner of injuries. Napoleon’s wars, too, were all very just, for their object was to break down the despotism of Europe. England’s war with Napoleon was just, for she feared his power. The immense latitude given by some writers to the definition of defensive war enables it to embrace most of those wars which are properly and strictly offensive, unwarrantable, and odious in the sight of God. It amounts to a vindication of all wars whatever, as full and complete as the most sanguinary and despotic tyrant could desire. The phrase defensive war, when stripped of the cobwebs in which the subtleties of political casuists have entangled and enwrapped it, when narrowed down from those almost unmeasured limits, given it for the purpose of an equitable pretext to justify every project of ambition, means, a war made to meet and repel an invading foe. The sound of a word leads to a radical error on this subject. A war whose prime object is the defence of something or other, is not certainly, therefore, a defensive war. Never was greater perversion of language. A war to defend the honor of a king, a minister, an ambassador, or even a kingdom, is no more a defensive war than a war to defend the honor of a courtier’s mistress, or a lady’s lap-dog. The diplomatic science is easily capable of changing right into wrong and wrong into right, on the most extensive scale. The presence of invading enemies or armies, is the true and only cause of defensive war. The nation that wages offensive war — that first throws down the gauntlet — that first falls upon its neighbor with fire and sword, ought to weigh well the causes in the balance of the sanctuary. For there is not a life taken in war that is not as truly chargeable to some one as the premeditated murder. Men, alas lose themselves in the splendor of vain and pompous theories, and forget that the value of human life cannot be thus done away by the momentary and artificial structure of civil government, to be dissolved by the stroke of death, when every soul is handed over to the immutable retributions of eternity. God no further approves of human governments, than as they exert their influence for the security of life and the promotion of sound morality and true happiness.

Admit that one nation injures another. Perhaps the injury is trifling, and had better be endured than resort to war for redress. It is also altogether uncertain whether redress can be obtained by war, the events of which cannot be foreseen. In the history of most, if not all the wars ever undertaken for redress of injuries, it will be found that few terminated with complete success. They have sometimes terminated in the ruin of one, and sometimes of both belligerents. When the injured nation was the weakest, she has generally fought to redress injuries, and then made peace to avoid greater. Generally speaking, the nation which makes war to obtain the redress of injuries, is infallibly certain of sustaining more injury in the progress of the war, than she would by the injury continued. She will lose more than she will gain, and perhaps fail of redress at last. As to the nation who is the aggressor, the war made by her will plunge thousands in misery, who are no more accountable for the aggression than the people of another world; — it may chiefly fall on those who are most innocent and most deserving. The aggression, too, may be of a very doubtful nature. The charge may be abated by the plea of right on the part of the supposed offender ; and it may be a case about which the ablest civilians and jurists may differ in opinion. And in most, if not in all cases, the whole controversy may be adjusted by amicable negotiation or arbitration, without recourse to the shedding of blood.

"Who can reflect on the evils of war itself, and on the motives and causes which, with very few exceptions, produce it, and not be filled with horror at the immense weight of guilt which must attach to the authors of it? Is the divine government so feeble, short-sighted, partial, and absurd, as to justify the destruction of cities, the death of millions, the exterminating of nations, on account of some supposed or real indignity offered to some crowned and sceptred wretch, perhaps a greater villain than any one of the millions over whom he reigns? Is this Christianity? How will the righteous and almighty Judge one day determine these questions ?

What is war? To many this may seem an unnecessary question. War, as understood by the mass of mankind, is a state of conflict between two nations, in which battles are won, towns taken, men wounded and slain; bringing glory and profit to the victor, and dishonor and loss to the vanquished. This however is but an imperfect definition of war. The favored land where a kind providence has determined our residence, has, with the single exception of the short conflict with Great Britain, and the recent and more bloody war with Mexico, for so long time enjoyed the blessings of peace, that there are a few now living among us who know anything of the stern realities of a state of warfare. Europe, also, exhausted by the wars of the French Revolution, the consulate and the empire, has, until her recent internal agitation, for a period of thirty years, rested on her arms. It has been our allotment to live in a most wonderful period of the world, a period of rapid improvement in arts and sciences, of growing population, enterprise and wealth; of almost undisturbed tranquility and joy. Few generations of men have been born to such a period, or under such radiant skies. The great mass of our citizens have never witnessed the scenes of havoc. We glean our knowledge of this scourge of the world from the glowing pages of history, where its fairest and boldest lineaments are depicted ; and where, fascinated by the brilliant qualities of its heroes, we are borne along upon the swelling tide of the narrative, and do not note the dire details of its devastation. The fire and eloquence of the historian inspire us with emotions kindred to those which move the combatants themselves. The chances of battle, — the shock, the retreat, the rally, the rout, are delineated before our eyes; but the clash of arms, the roar of cannon, the shout of victory, drown the cry for mercy, the groan, the death-struggle. Eager to follow the current of victory, we do not pause upon the field of battle after its terrible splendor has passed away. Nor do we linger in the ruined town or desolate hamlet; nor walk the feverish hospital, crowded with the wounded and dying. It is but the mask, the outside show, that we contemplate; its deformities escape us.

Let us draw near to yonder field, canopied with smoke, as if, conscious of its horrors, it would fain hide itself from the light of day. Let us enter the veil where at every step the foot stumbles against a corpse — heaps upon heaps they lie, son and sire, horse and rider, the dead and the dying. These are War’s victims — all prostrate, broken, and shivered to pieces under the stroke. Here, still breathing, is the youth giving his last thoughts to his mother and his home. Yonder is the gray-haired veteran, murmuring the names of wife and children. Groans here; curses there; there supplications; everywhere agony and desolation. The living have marched on; the dead and the dying are left where " the eagles are gathered together," and the hungry beasts of prey are roaming. No kind hand is there to staunch the flowing blood, to bathe the hot brow. They are far from home; their burying-place is the plain where they have fallen.

Look at the field of Borodino after the dreadful battle fought there by the French and Russians; a surface of nine square miles covered with killed and wounded; eighty thousand men lying dead on the field. Fifty thousand cumbered the ground after the battle of Eylau; at Fontenoy, a hundred thousand. The " Thirty Years’ War," it is computed, reduced the population of Germany from sixteen millions to four millions, thus taking twelve out of every sixteen of the inhabitants. Thirty thousand villages and hamlets were destroyed during the same war, without numbering cities and larger towns. At the close of the war of 1756, commonly called "The War of the Succession," twenty neighboring villages were found utterly destitute of man or beast. But to count those who fell in battle is to number but a trifling portion of the victims. Hardship, disease, and famine, destroy more than the engines of battle. " War has means of destruction," says Dr. Johnson, " more formidable than the cannon or the sword. Of the thousands and tens of thousands who perish, a very small part ever feel the stroke of the enemy." It has been computed by Edmund Burke, that thirty-five thousand millions of the human family have fallen by war and its attendant evils — more than one-fifth part of the entire race. And this computation was made almost a century ago. The collected ruins of all the victims which, in different lands, and climes, and ages, have fallen before this dreadful scourge, would form a pile raised to the heavens.

" Each valley tells that thousands cease to breathe;

Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, Red battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock." This scourge wears new horrors, when she draws nigh the abodes of men. The bursting shell is hurled amid the dwellings of peace; the devouring fires run from roof to roof. Night and day pour unceasingly the " iron shower" startling the babe, the mother, the aged. Famine stares those in the face, who till now never knew want. The hungry roam about the streets, crying for food. The ties of nature and of love are rent asunder; hunger knows no mercy. The infuriate foe, maddened by resistance, and drunk with victory, forces his way into the devoted city, plundering and murdering its inhabitants, and changing it into one vast theater of lust and carnage. Crimes, dreadful to think of, too horrible to name, are perpetrated where, a few weeks before, citizen walked peacefully with citizen, husband with wife, youth with maiden. The bonds of military discipline are then unloosed. The very officers then dare not put their authority to the test. Often, inspired with the basest passions themselves, they do not care to do it. " Come again in an hour," replied Count Tilly, the Bavarian general, to some officers who endeavored to persuade him to check the cruelties of his soldiers, after the storming of Magdeberg, "come again in an hour, and I will see what I can do. The soldier must have some reward for his danger and his toil." In less than twelve hours, this populous, strong, great city, one of the finest in Germany, lay in ashes, with the exception of two churches and a few hovels. More than six thousand corpses were thrown into the Elbe, merely to clear the streets for the general’s entrance. The whole number of slain was computed at thirty thousand. Napoleon, speaking of himself, says, "Pavia is the only place I ever gave up to pillage. I had promised it to the soldiers for twenty-four hours ; but after three hours, I could bear it no longer, and put an end to it." The waste of property in war is not easily estimated. The swords of soldiers reap the harvests; their horses hoofs leave not an ear of corn nor a blade of grass for those who sowed and planted, and who might have reaped in peace. The physical strength of a nation — its young men and men in the vigor of life — is "abstracted from useful and profitable employment, and devoted only to augment the amount of human suffering. The direct expenses of war would civilize, evangelize, and enrich the world. An able writer in the eastern states remarks, that ’’ the wars of the American Revolution cost England six hundred millions of dollars; that in the wars occasioned by the French Revolution, she spent more than five thousand millions;’’ and that ’’ the wars of Christendom, during only twenty-two years, cost, merely for their support, not much less than fifteen thousand millions of dollars.’’ But this is not all. The immoral tendency, and demoralizing effects of war, more than all things else, show that it is one of the great engines of ruin employed by that subtle and revengeful Fiend who goes about to deceive and destroy the nations. What multitudes, during a single campaign, surrender themselves to a state of license which is destructive of virtue and morality, and baneful to the souls of men! The sacred stillness of God’s day of holy rest is disturbed, churches are broken up, families scattered, schools dispersed, and courts of justice not unfrequently dissolved. Conquered nations are not wont to receive their religion from their conquerors; rather do they imitate their vices. Falsehood, rapacity, cruelty, sexual pollution, and every form of irreligion and immorality, are the acknowledged characteristics of an army of soldiers. " We cannot," says Lord Clarendon, " make a more lively representation and (emblem to ourselves of hell than by the view of a kingdom in war." " I abominate war," says Lord Faulkland, "as unchristian. I hold it to be the greatest of human crimes. I deem it to include all others — everything which can deform the character, alter the nature, and debase the name of man." " War," says Robert Hall, "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 virtues are excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are included. Whatever renders human nature amiable, or respectable, whatever engages love, or confidence, is sacrificed at its shrine." Nor are these enormities limited to the camp, or the field of battle ; they survive actual warfare and desolate the abodes of returning peace." War makes villains, and peace brings them to the gallows." War introduces, in a single year, a series of evils, and those habits and customs of wickedness, which the gospel cannot rectify and remove in half a century. Nor should it be forgotten, that while war is the greatest, it is the most unblushing scourge inflicted upon humanity. Other crimes shun the light, and creep into holes and corners. This, almost alone, walks proudly abroad at noonday, parades its "pomp and circumstance" before the eyes of the world, blazons its deeds, and boasts of its victims. It invites the gaze, as if it were the benefactor of the human race, and with a front of brass and a tongue red with blood, claims the honors due to virtue alone: as if to ruin were better than to save; to destroy, than to build up; to lay waste the earth, than to people it, and to till and clothe it with verdure! If war has its glories, they are fearful glories. To one who does not look beyond the surface, it may be a thrilling and inspiring spectacle, to behold a band of warriors advancing, in compact and serried column, against the foe, closing up their ranks as comrade falls, marching fearlessly through the storm of musketry and cannon, and amid flowing blood and the crashing of human bones, looking death in the face with indifference. We see here a semblance of heroism: the calmness of a resolved devotedness and self sacrifice meets the eye. We do not see their fury, their thirst for slaughter. Just as the refinement of polished intercourse covers many a crime with the veil of grace, hides bitter hatred behind a smile, and scorn with the form of courtesy and compliment, so the discipline of warfare has measured the soldier’s step, regulates his every motion, and restrains that impetuous fury which is the natural expression of his cruel trade. A smile glances from eye to eye, a jest is upon the lip; but the purpose of their heart is butchery. Their bright arms and decorations flash in the sun; their plumes wave to the wind; but they are about to bathe them in human blood. Strip them of these masks, clothe them in a garb suited to their fearful mission; and the eye is turned from the scene in disgust. We have but removed the outside show, which covers the reality, and behold them in their true deformity. War is not the beating drum, the clashing cymbal, the plume, the scarf, the embroidered garment. "War is the blow", the wound, the agonizing cry, the butchery.

Modern warfare has the art to cast a garb of grandeur, and beauty, and science, over those who perpetrate her cruel deeds. The foulest deeds are varnished by the fairest names. " One murder makes a villain ; millions a hero.’" The skill that winds the huge arms of war around a negligent foe is baptized by the scientific name of strategy; the effective energy that strangles him in their grasp, and that falls crushing like a ponderous hammer upon a band of human beings, is military tactics; the butchery of thousands is an exploit. But from every reeking battle-field a voice comes to heaven protesting against the glories of war. When the blood there shed is demanded at man’s hand, it is in vain for him to answer, " Am I my brother’s keeper ?" And sad and sole benefit of war? The grass grows more luxuriantly over the mouldering victims. As the peasant ploughs up the bones of the slain, he smiles and thinks of his harvest — the richer for the blood of battle. With strong propriety also the question forces itself upon us, Where will it end? A child may unchain a wild beast; but the strength of many men will not bind him again. It is easy to commence war, but it is beyond the power of man to guide its course, restrain its outrage, or bring it to a successful issue. The voice of reason makes but a faint impression on minds infatuated by a war spirit. Ambition is easily ripened into anger, anger easily becomes malevolence, and is executed in revenge. No mind can calculate the next blow, no forethought predict the extent, the progress of the carnage, when the dark deed is perpetrated that first sheds human blood. We cannot say, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further." Once loose this demon of desolation, and his ravages are beyond control. We may weep rivers of sorrow for conjuring up the destroyer, but our regrets will not banish him.

It has been said by one of the most distinguished men in Great Britain, that in the event of a war between that country and the United States, " it will be a short war;" meaning that the whole strength of that mighty nation would be exerted to crush us in the outset. He who uttered these words is the most renowned and indomitable warrior of the age, and one whose opinion, in matters which concern the military art, is entitled to great weight. Yet he must have strangely forgotten the teachings of history, or he never would have expressed a sentiment so presumptuous. Others before him have thought as arrogantly as he, and have dreamed of easy victories and short wars, when they were doomed to experience defeat and disaster from an enemy they despised. Thus thought the Emperor Leopold; thus thought Charles of Burgundy, when with their numerous hosts they advanced to attack the ill-armed Swiss. But the battles of Sempach, Granson, and Marat, laid the pride of their chivalry in the dust. When Prussia and Austria united to force revolutionary France to replace her king upon his throne, they imagined that the war would be a short one. But the flame then kindled ravaged Europe a quarter of a century. England, Russia, Spain, Italy, Holland — nay, every country in Europe became involved in the conflict. Egypt and America felt the shock of battle. No man may presume to say, that any war will be of short duration. The delusion is extreme. The error lies in miscalculating the power of the war spirit. Men will make every sacrifice and run every hazard, when once the hearts of a whole people are in the conflict. It is not for the paltry interests of ambition or gain, that they contend. What motives of national advancement, or individual profit would have induced Holland to open her dykes, and submerge her fields with the waters of the ocean? Yet, to resist the haughty Lewis, she called in the raging sea to stay the progress of the invader, and freely gave up her harvests and the homes of her peasantry to be pillaged by the waves; while her metropolis stood an island in the midst of the surrounding desolation. Once arouse the war spirit, and there is no sacrifice that is not made readily, cheerfully; no danger that is not braved with joy. Private convenience and profit, life itself, are cast freely into the scale in which hangs trembling the questions of victory or defeat. If overthrown, like Antaeus, the combatants fall upon their mother earth, and rise invigorated from the contact; if defeated, they retire to the fortresses of the hills, and rocks, and forests; there they weep awhile, and then descend affain to the strife. The march of war is not to be confined to the wishes and plans of men. Nations may be convulsed, thrones and republics overturned, institutions long dear and cherished may be leveled with the dust, ere peace return, by her tardy process to undo what war has done. " The beginning of strife is like the letting out of water." Universal desolation may cover the fairest land, crush its growing energies, unhinge the whole frame-work of society, and cast it centuries backward in the path of civilization, before what many a sanguine temperament deemed would be a short war, is terminated.

It may be the peculiar province of the politician and the statesman to instruct his fellowmen in matters of political moment, and so far as it concerns their expediency and equity according to the code of nations ; but to weigh them in the balance of Christian justice, to test them by principles of expediency which concern the relations of man to his Maker, cannot be considered as lying out of the sphere of Christianity itself. They belong to Christianity, and to Christianity alone. And what is Christianity? It is the system of doctrines and precepts taught by Christ, and recorded in the Sacred Writings. What is a Christian, but a true disciple of this divine Teacher; one who believes these truths, obeys these precepts, imbibes the spirit, and studies to follow the example of his divine Master? Is war consistent with these teachings, this spirit, this example? Can it be that we have mistaken the nature of Christianity, when we say that its mission is a pacific mission, universally pacific; so that just in the proportion in which its spirit is imbibed, and its principles acted out, will wars ’’ cease unto the ends of the earth ?" The appropriate influence of Christianity, upon all the great questions of peace and war, is a subject in which even monarchical and despotic governments have an interest; still more is it one in which those lands ought to feel an interest, whose government is of a popular character. Government is the ordinance of heaven; but the way and form in which it is administered, is of man’s selection. The right of the strongest is a right only when it is that of the best, and belongs but to one Being in the universe. The American people are not only a free, but a Christian people. They are not Pagan, nor Mohammedan, nor Jewish, nor Infidel. Our laws, and the common consent of our citizens, recognize Christianity as the religion of the land. Our Sabbaths, our Bibles, our churches, the course of public instruction, the form of our judicial oath, all proclaim, that as a nation, we reverence the dictates of Christianity, and acknowledge their excellence and sanctity. Our national prosperity, and the influence we exert on other lands, depend on our maintaining a Christian character. It emphatically becomes us, in consulting the interests of our common country, and the higher interests of the great family of nations, to take counsel concerning them as a Christian people. With the broad teachings of Christianity before me, I do not see how a belligerent nation can be a Christian nation. It is a foul blot upon the otherwise fair escutcheon of some professedly Christian lands, that they are distinguished for their martial spirit, and their love of conquest. God forbid that the American people should ever be ambitious of such supremacy!

Christianity is the law of nations, because it is the law of God for the government of the nations, because it is the law of individual man. Never was there a greater delusion, than that what is wrong for men, is right for nations. No collective numbers of men may disclaim their dependence on God, or their responsibility to him, any more than a single individual; nor have they a right to consult their own influence and aggrandizement, any more than a single individual has to do the same thing. Yet the individual who allows this to be his ruling passion, is universally despised and condemned; while there is something so great and imposing in the spectacle of a nation thus exalting itself, and at any hazard, that it is too apt to be commended even for its most grasping ambition. In the sight of God, "all nations are as a drop of a bucket," and he " taketh up the islands as a very little thing." The many may not do wrong, where the few may not do it. God is the Governor of the nations; he holds them in his hands, as clay is in the potter’s hand; and just as they make his laws the rule of their policy, or tread them under their feet, shall they become the spectacles of his goodness and care, or read to the world the lessons of his just vengeance.

We cannot implicitly subscribe to the views of many excellent and philanthropic men, who are persuaded that no emergencies may arise, when it is right for Christians to make the solemn appeal to arms. It may not be forgotten, that we cannot have a particular and explicit declaration in the Bible for every kind or degree of national intercourse, any more than for the regulation of every circumstance of life. It is the property of every rational proposition to lead to deductions, and to be answerable for them. The Holy Scriptures become bound for every inference fairly drawn from them; because it is an essential part of truth, that what is deduced from truth, is really so. Purely aggressive war is murder, and subjects the perpetrators to the penalty, " Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed." I need not say, that Christianity will be slow to perform this work of death. She will kneel long at the mercy seat, before she dashes the last tear from her eye, puts her helmet on, and makes bare her arm for war. Her appeal to the God of battles will be made with fear and trembling; while the arm that trembles before heaven, will not be the weaker in sight of the foe. But this is not the law of Christianity; it is the exception which the Author of Christianity has made to his own law. The spirit and tendencies of Christianity are all on the other side of the question. "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of Che earth" Born and nurtured they may be in different climes, governed by different laws, speaking different languages, possessing different religions, and occupying different ranks among the nations of the earth; yet are they the children of the same common parent, brethren of the same common family. The great God has given to them all, the endowments, the character, the susceptibilities, wants, and responsibilities of men. He has made them mortal, and clothed them with immortality. He has constituted their social relations, and is himself the Author of their mutual dependencies. He has given them this wide and beautiful earth, as the place of their common habitation; and the law by which he requires their intercourse to be regulated is, that they shall love and treat one another as brethren. Not more certainly are the members of the same individual family under obligations to express this fraternal spirit, than the great family of nations. The bond is the same under all the varieties of their existence, and in all the outward circumstances of their history, in prosperity and adversity, in peace and in war. "A brother is born for adversity." The more afflictive and trying the condition in which our fellow-men are placed by a wise Providence, the more emphatic is the appeal they make to the sympathy and affection of kindred spirits, and the more authoritative their claims upon kind offices and kindly intercourse.

Events often occur in the history of nations and of individuals, in which one is the injuring and the other the injured party. And Christianity makes an intelligible and well-defined provision for this exigency. Her mandate is, "Forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you." The spirit of this mandate is widely extended; it is extended to man, as man — even to the worst of men, and those who bitterly persecute us. It is not limited to trivial offenses; nor to those that are inadvertently committed: nor to those that are few. "Seventy times seven" if our brother offend us, " and turn again, and say, I repent;" so far from retaliating the injury, we are to suppress every malevolent emotion, desire his welfare, and treat him with kindness. Circumstances often occur in which individuals and communities become avowed enemies; and Christianity makes an expressed provision for such an exigency when she says, "Love your enemies ; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you." This is the great characteristic of Christianity; and where it is possessed and acted out, is a most edifying and beautiful exemplification of its power. "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and their contentions are like the bars of a castle." But bad as the world is, the man, or the nation that conducts itself thus benevolently, meekly, generously, disarms the opposition of its fiercest foe. Nor is it simply by such implications as these, that Christianity reveals itself as the religion of peace. Does it speak of the great God; he is " the God of peace :" of the gracious Redeemer; he is " the Prince of peace :" of the holy Sanctifier; he is "the Spirit of peace:" of its own great ends and objects; they are "glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will to men." Its doctrines are doctrines of peace ; its precepts are precepts of peace; its promises are to the peacemakers, its penalties for the proud, the malicious, and the revengeful. It does not form men of contention; the essential elements of contention must be sought for elsewhere. It is not the febrile, agitating, angry spirit of war; this spirit comes from another quarter. It is not an overweening jealousy of our own rights, nor the wrangling and violence which maintains them. It is not a rigid exaction for every wrong. It is the spirit of amity, conciliation, and mutual forbearance. War has but a narrow space in such a code; its lessons are lessons of peace. And the glory of them all is their universal adaptation to man; to man in his social, as well as his individual relations; to man all over the world. What a remedy for all the malevolence, envy, love of conquest, pride, contention, sullenness, revenge, and all the arts, and subtleties, and sophistry of warlike diplomacy, is the pure, honest, affectionate, and forbearing spirit of Christianity!

War is a subject on which Christianity has thoughts which she cannot conceal, and words which she may not suppress. She has tears which she sheds in secret places for the pride of man, and for the honor of God. She had fondly hoped that the barbarous and iron age of the world had gone by, and that his reign under whom "the mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness" would effectually hold in check the warlike passions of men. Nor is this a hope she will easily relinquish. The aspect of the world has changed during the present century. Civilization has advanced with rapid strides, and almost every relic of barbarism is disappearing from the face of the earth. The Bible is dispersed over the nations; the glorious gospel of the ever blessed God is being proclaimed to every creature; science and the arts are uniting with Christian philanthropy in the noblest and most successful efforts to meliorate the condition of mankind, and everything seems pointing forward to the true ’’golden age." Christian men, with exceptions that rarely occur, have nothing to do with war. Why should they have? Has its nature changed? Is it less terrible? Is it no longer the monster whose path lies across ruin and desolation, whose breath is pestilence, and whose glance is death? Is it no longer merciless, iron-hearted? Is it no longer a lapper of blood? Would to God that it were so! Even in our age, of every acquisition in science, war appropriates some part to herself. She has become cunning and curious in the art of destruction. Deadly engines are framed, clothed with terrors hitherto unknown, vieing with each other in their aptness for extermination. Furnished with these, warlike nations will contend with new fury, the victims will be more numerous, the work more thorough and sure.

I look upon the Christian church as a divinely organized society for the promotion of peace. She is, or rather she ought to be, the most effective Peace Society in the world. Let her cultivate the spirit of peace, and show by her own spirit, and prayers, and deportment, and influence, that she has no sympathy with that love of conquest and false honor which have filled the world with carnage. If it must be so, let her rather consent to be dishonored, than cease to be humane. Let her be callous rather to disgrace, than to human suffering. "Them that honor me, I will honor." The church of God has nothing to fear by her firm and invincible attachment to peace. Even a conquered nation may be the most honored, while her conqueror is most despised. "After much occasion to consider," says Benjamin Franklin, "the folly and mischiefs of a state of warfare, and the little or no advantage obtained even by those nations who have conducted it with the most success, I am apt to think there never has been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace."

It may be arrogance in the writer of a religious Book to address himself to those whom the providence of God has elevated to power. "Be wise, O ye kings ; be instructed, ye judges of the earth!" Be admonished of the vast interest which the God of heaven has trusted to your hands. Trifle not with the sacred pledge your country has committed to your care ; nor peril its prosperity from motives that will not bear the scrutiny of impartial justice. The fearful reckoning must be paid to the utmost farthing. You "must die like men, and fall like one of the princes." Nor will it be any grief of heart to you to be able to say on your bed of death, " I have made few orphans in my reign; I have made few widows; my object has been peace! This has been the Christianity of my throne, and this the gospel of my sceptre." "Blessed are the peacemakers ; for they shall be called the children of God." To men of ambition and blood, the Lord’s Prayer must be a senseless service. These humble pages will not fall in the way of such men. Eternity alone can make a full disclosure of their guilt and baseness who do not hesitate to advance their own political, or private ends by war. Men who would raise the sluice through which a torrent of blood may flow, that upon the deluge of gore the paltry bark that bears their interests and ambition may settle upon the high places, deserve to be the execrated of their race. Let them renounce the name of men. Let them wander out with the Savage, who owns no common law of humanity, to whom cruelty is a virtue, and the scalps of their fellow-beings badges of distinction! Let them go with the first murderer, ’’ fugitives and vagabonds in the earth !" On no subject does the tone of public sentiment need to be changed, more than on the subject of war. I verily believe, that on this matter, the minds of men have for ages been under the power of the Prince of Darkness. His throne is on the battle-field : glory and dishonor, victories and defeats, are alike the conquests of his empire. There his power is felt, and his authority acknowledged; and they are no other than the power and authority of " that old serpent, the devil, and Satan, who deceiveth the whole worlds The maxims of war are his maxims; the laws of war are his laws. War has become the custom of the nations, because he is " the god of this world."

It were difficult to account for the inveterate force of such a custom, upon principles of mere unincited and undirected wickedness. Man is not naturally cruel. This arch Enemy well knows, that the habits of a nation are its laws, and how hopeless is the task of attacking them.

Yet shall this antiquated custom pass away. Supreme dominion is with the " God of peace;? and therefore this hideous custom of war, with the superstitions and corruptions of all false religions, shall pass away. His Gospel aims a blow at the root of all those passions and lusts of men, whence ’’ wars and fightings" come. It is not less true that it has mitigated the horrors of war, than that it is destined to exterminate this prolific and bitter root of evil from among men. Let the men of peace, then, take courage. The proclamation is gone forth, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." "Of the increase of his government, and peace, there shall be no end." " The righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth."