THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER, 1859. THE PULPIT ON PEACE: WILT IT PLEAD THE CAUSE OF PEACE IN EARNEST? We surely might expect the Christian pulpit to enforce the claims of peace as one of its most favorite themes; and, if it would do this with the same spontaneous, habitual, persistent fidelity and zeal that it shows in pressing the obligations of repentance and faith, we should ere long see the pacific principles and spirit of the gospel leavening the mass of every Christian community, all war and all fear of war banished from Christendom, and her whole war-system, with its enormous evils for time and eternity, brought to a perpetual end. To this high service we have long been earnestly calling ministers of every Christian denomination; and had they heeded our oft-repeated appeals, by applying the gospel aright to the custom of war, we should doubtless have been spared the sight of so many hundred thousand lives sacrificed, and so many myriads on myriads of treasure wasted, all to so little purpose, in the Crimean and Italian wars. We speak not at random, and beg preachers of the gospel to ponder well what we say. The power of the pulpit is proverbial, and able, under God, to undermine and sweep away in time the worst evils. Only open its moral batteries against war; and neither this nor any other custom can permanently stand before it. Are we not right in deeming it the special duty of Christian ministers to make such an application of the gospel to this crying sin and Scourge of Christendom? Would they all unite in earnest for |