THE

ADVOCATE OF PEACE

JULY AND AUGUST, 1860.

ADDRESS

Delivered before the American Peace Society, at Boston, May 28, 1860,

Mr. President, Ladies, Gentlemen, Members of the American Peace Society,―These and other questions respecting the terrible custom of war, need still to be pressed with all the earnestness of true philanthropy; yes, with shame be it said, in this latter half of the nineteenth century, need to be pressed upon the so called Christian nations not less than upon others! Not less do I say? nay more han upon others! The nations called Christian are the most powerful upon earth. They profess the religion which alone prohibits war. With them therefore rests the responsibility for the continuance of this most savage custom. Never, until they have abandoned it, will other nations be persuaded that it can be laid aside.

And with what propriety, with what justice to the name and spirit of Jesus, can a nation call itself Christian, so long as it rejects or

refuses to obey the peculiar, the distinctive principles of the Great Teacher? When we have pleaded for the abolition of slavery, we have been often rebuffed by the confident assertion, not wholly unwarranted, that neither our Saviour nor his apostles explicitly prohibited that gigantic wrong. But no one will venture a like assertion respecting war. If any thing was spoken of as sinful by Christ and the first preachers of his Gospel,-if any thing was forbidden by them-it was the indulgence of those lusts and passions which impel men to fight, and which are called into fiercest exercise in war. Need I quote any

all malice.

of their well known words to this effect? Here are a few of them. "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God. Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Avenge not yourselves. See that none render evil for evil to any man. Lay aside Have peace one with another. If thine enemy hunger feed him. Overcome evil with good." Thus, in language the most unqualified and comprehensive, is prohibited the whole spirit of waranger, revenge, retaliation, violence. That Jesus Christ meant to teach, and introduce among men, a new method of treating the injuri ous and inimical-a new method by which to overthrow the empire of wrong, and establish the kingdom of righteousness on earth-is evident from his own conduct.. He did not organize his followers for the protection of his person, or the maintenance of his cause. In the day of his utmost peril, he made no appeal to the common people, who had heard him gladly, and were at times eager to make him their king. He took no advantage of the hatred of their Roman conquerors, which was hardly suppressed in the bosom of the Jewish nation, but was ready at any moment for revolt. At no time did he show any confidence in "the arm of flesh." He came to inculcate far higher principles than had been taught by the vulgar heroes, who had overthrown tyrants before his advent-or by those who, since then, have followed their example rather than his. If the life, the preaching, the death of Christ has taught us any thing, it is, that no cause however righteous, that no life however valuable, may wisely, safely, effectually be maintained or defended by violence, by bloodshed, by doing any harm to the erring, injurious party. It is love only that can conquer hate. Good only can overcome evil. Right alone can suppress and supplant the wrong. Only so far as this great lesson is learnt and practised is there, can there be, any true Christianity on earth. The apostles of our Lord so understood it. They inculcated the same pacific principles; and manifested the same pacific spirit. Their disciples, and those who were instructed by them-the members of the primitive church-were sons

and daughters of peace. It is true the early Christians often resisted unto blood, "but it was the resistance of unyielding faith, and the blood of the unconquered martyr." Those who were baptized into the spirit of the new religion, the Gospel of Christ, would die rather than violate its distinctive principle. They would not become soldiers. They would submit to scourging, imprisonment, death rather than fight. After Christianity had spread over almost the whole Roman Empire, which then embraced the greater part of the known world, Tertullian says, of a larger part of the armies, that "not a Christian could be found amongst them."

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And was not this to be expected from what is almost universally believed to have been the song of the angelic choir at the birth of Jesus" Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace; good will amongst men?" Was it not too in accordance with what the teachers and professors of Christianity, at the present day, with rare exceptions, revere as the sure word of the Hebrew prophecy," that the long promised one would inaugurate a reign of Peace, a kingdom of righteousness and love upon earth? the fulfilment of the glowing predictions of the ancient seer, which closed with the assurance, that "swords should be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks, and the nations learn war no more?" With these prophecies, which we hold sacred not less than the Jews, can we wonder that they refuse to accept our Christ-and point to the wars and warlike attitude of all Christian nations, as proof that the true Messiah cannot have come?

Of all the corruptions that since the third century have so deformed Christianity, that it can now hardly be identified with the religion taught by Jesus and his apostles, no one has so disfigured it, as the doctrine that men may avenge themselves; may and should return evil for evil; that it is praiseworthy, glorious to hate, destroy, exterminate our enemies. No infidelity is so disastrous as that, which has led men to doubt the power of love, the crowning attribute of God. No denial of Christ is so complete as that, which refuses to accept the peculiar, the distinctive precepts that he gave. It would be as consistent with his religion to lie, to steal, to blaspheme, to worship idole, as it is to fight.

Will any one answer me that men are so made, that they must and will fight; that there is a law of their nature, a law inscribed upon the very constitution of man prior to any revelation that has been given to him, which impels him to fight? that there is really no other way for us to preserve our natural, political or religious rights? To say this, say that God is the author of this direst evil, this "most fruitful

is to

parent of all crimes," this most dreadful scourge of the human race,the mother of slavery and human degradation. If our Creator has indeed made us so, that war is necessary, or expedient, the suffering may be ours, but the discredit, the shame reverts back to him.

Oh no, cry the apologists for war, frightened at the thought of charg ing God with such folly and wickedness, oh no-we mean that war is one of the bitter fruits of the apostacy; not in accordance with the original intention of the heavenly Father, but brought upon our fallen race by the transgression of our first parents. Well, then, if this be so, I demand, why do those who have risen with Christ, who are redeemed by him from the curse of the Fall, why do they give any countenance to this work of the Devil? Why do not they renounce war as peremptorily, as promptly as they renounce adultery, blasphemy, idolatry? Why do not they regard war, always speak of it, always treat it as a work of the Great Enemy of our race; and hold those who prosecute it as the children of the Evil One, unregenerate, reprobate, enemies of God as well as man? If war be indeed one of the evils brought upon the world by the wiles of Satan, the Power of Darkness, how can men and women, who have been brought into the " marvellous light of the sun of righteousness-the love of Christ," how can they treat with any honor the men, who have distinguished themselves in this service of the Father of lies, and of all mischief? How soon will the purpose for which the Beloved Son of God lived and died be accomplished, if those who claim before the world to have been regenerated by his spirit, to have experienced the power of his grace, continue still to do the very things, indulge the passions, perpetuate the wrongs, which he so emphatically prohibited? What progress can the Gospel make in the world, if those who acknowledge Christ to be their Master, continue to disobey his most peculiar commandments, and give themselves up to the guidance of his especial antagonist and enemybaptizing with their prayers, celebrating with their Te Deums the cruel deeds, from which his most loving heart would recoil with horror-yes, bearing his cross, the emblem of the great self-sacrifice, before them as they go, maddened with revenge and hate to slaughter thousands, for whose spiritual redemption, as well as for theirs, he died—aye, filling the churches dedicated to his religion with costliest monuments, (as you may see all over Europe and throughout Great Britain,) in admiring commemoration of those, who have distinguished themselves on the field of battle. What evidence then have we, can we have, of the progress of Christianity on earth, so long as we see those nations, that profess to have embraced it, keeping themselves always prepared for

war; expending immense sums of money in the manufacture of deadly weapons; the erection of frowning fortresses on land, and ships of war to traverse the seas; compelling most of their male subjects or citizens to do military service; training them from early manhood in the arts of human destruction; and crowning with peculiar honors those, who distinguished themselves in the conflicts or artifices of war? evidence is there that such nations are Christianized-that they have any true faith in Jesus-any correct knowledge of his Gospel, any just respect for his authority? Why ought we not as soon to acknowledge the Christian claims of daring, unprincipled speculators, reckless gamblers, if the only ery Lord, Lord, and profess a zeal for Christ? Nay, with what face can we stand aghast at the worship of Juggernaut, so long as we countenance the worship of this more savage and bloody idol? And how can we presume to send our missionaries to convert the Heathen to our religion, so long as we allow that it gives its sanction to a custom, which "makes man a demon, and turns earth into hell."

You would remind me, perhaps, that the moralists of no Christian nations sanction offensive, aggressive wars-that it is only for the sake of self protection they would have their several nations keep themselves armed; and only defensive wars, that any of them would justify. Ah! this is one of the chief delusions, which have cheated the so called Christian world of the truth as it is in Jesus, on this paramount subject. So long as nations keep prepared for war, and the people are trained and disciplined for it, so long will they be in perpetual danger of getting involved in it. The injuries or offences, that they may receive, will be exaggerated. The dogs of war are always impatient for a fight and those, who hold them in leash, are too easily persuaded to let them slip. No-this pretence of the Christian statesmen, and moralists, that they mean to sanction only defensive war, is too transparent not to be easily seen through. Napoleon the First, solemnly averred that he had never waged any but a defensive war-i.e. a war that was necessary to enable him to maintain his assumptions and accomplish his purposes. And Archdeacon Paley, who until lately, has been the favorite teacher of morality in Great Britain, so defined justifiable wars, as well nigh to cover from condemnation all those of the French Emperor.

Strictly speaking a defensive war is hardly practicable. It matters not how nearly a national conflict may have been, or may have seemed to be in the commencement, strictly defensive; it must soon become offensive, aggressive," be carried into Africa," as was said of old,—