FOUR ASPECTS OF WAR.

I. DOES WAR FORGIVE?-A friend of peace once asked a general on a muster-field, 'What do you mean by this array of swords, muskets and cannon?'-"We mean to be avenged on our enemies, should they insult or invade us." But we are bound to forgive our enemies, should they injure us.'-"So we will," said the general. But, if you really forgive them, what do you want of swords, rifles and cannon?" To stab and shoot them." But, if you forgive them, how could you at the same time shoot and stab them?'-"I think," said the general, "I can feel forgiveness in my heart towards my enemy, while I am shooting and stabbing him. Can I not ?" If you can, you take a queer way of showing it. How can you show your forgiveness by swords and guns?"I am sure," he replied, "it's more than I can tell."-Perhaps,' said the peace-man, 'you have the art of shooting and stabbing your forgiveness into the hearts of your enemies; and it may be the object of your review to perfect yourselves in this art. Is it so ?'- I think," replied he very honestly and truly, "we are more likely to perfect ourselves in the art of killing them.”

"Could you,' inquired a peace-man of a military officer, 'could you, after a battle in which you had stained your hands with the blood of your brethren, ask God to forgive you as you had forgiven your enemies?'-"I am not a Christian," said he, "nor do I profess to forgive the wrongs done to me and my country; but I know I should be a hypocrite and a blasphemer, if I should ask God to forgive me as I had forgiven my enemies, after I had been killing them. When I ask Him to forgive me as I have my enemies, I will cease to kill them, or to encourage others in doing 80."

II. CAN WE RECONCILE WAR WITH CHRISTIANITY?-Let us put the main aspects of the two side by side, and see how far they agree. Christianity saves men; war destroys them. Christianity elevates men; war debases and degrades them. Christianity purifies men; war corrupts and defiles them. Christianity blesses men; war curses them. God says, thou shalt not kill; war says, thou shalt kill. God says, blessed are the peace-makers; war says, blessed are the war-makers. God says, love your enemies; war says, hate them. God says, forgive men their trespasses; war says, forgive them not. God enjoins forgiveness, and forbids revenge; while war scorns the former, and commands the latter. God says, resist not evil; war says, you may and must resist evil. God says, if any man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also; war says, turn not the other cheek, but knock the

P. T. NO. VI.

smiter down. God says, bless those who curse you; bless, and curse not: war says, curse those who curse you; curse, and bless not. God says, pray for those who despitefully use you; war says, pray against them, and seek their destruction. God says, see that none render evil for evil unto any man; war says, be sure to render evil for evil unto all that injure you. God says, overcome evil with good; war says, overcome evil with evil. God says, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink war says, if you do supply your enemies with food and clothing, you shall be shot as a traitor. God says, do good unto all men; war says, do as much evil as you can to your enemies. God says to all men, love one another; war says, hate and kill one another. God says, they that take the sword, shall perish by the sword; war says, they that take the sword, shall be saved by the sword. God says, blessed is he that trusteth in the Lord; war says, cursed is such a man, and blessed is he who trusteth in swords and guns. God says, beat your swords into ploughshares, your spears into pruning-hooks, and learn war no more; war says, make swords and spears still, and continue to learn war-until all mankind have ceased from learning it, i. e., fight, all of you, until all of you stop fighting!!

III. THE SOLDIER AND THE LORD'S PRAYER.-Let us, said the celebrated Erasmus more than three centuries ago, let us imagine we hear a soldier among these fighting Christians saying the Lord's Prayer just before battle. OUR FATHER! says he. O,. hardened wretch! can you call God Father, when you are just going to cut your brother's throat?-Hallowed be thy name. How can the name of God be more impiously unhallowed than by mutual bloody murder among his sons?-Thy kingdom come. Do you pray for the coming of his kingdom, while you are endeavoring to establish an earthly despotism by spilling the blood of God's sons and subjects?-Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. His will in heaven is for PEACE; but you are now meditating WAR.-Give us this day our daily bread. How dare you say this to your Father in heaven at the moment you are going to burn your brother's corn-fields, and would rather lose the benefit of them yourself than suffer him to enjoy them unmolested ?-Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. With what face can you pray thus when, so far from forgiving your brother, you are going with all the haste you can, to murder him in cold blood for an alleged trespass which, after all, is but imaginary ?-Lead us not into temptation. And do you presume to deprecate temptation or danger-you who are not only rushing into it yourself, but doing all you can to force your brother into it?-Deliver us from evil. You pray to be delivered from evil, that is, from the evil being, Satan, to whose impulses you are now submitting yourself, and by whose spirit you are guided in contriving the greatest possible evil to your brother?

IV. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PROFESSED SOLDIER AND A HIRED ASSASSIN?-Let us state the case. Every

reader in America remembers the "Salem Tragedy." Joseph and Francis Knapp, distant relatives of a rich old gentleman in Salem by the name of White, instigated Richard Crowninshield, by the offer of a thousand dollars of the plunder, to kill the old man, and seize his treasures. Crowninshield, entering the house of his victim at midnight, and creeping softly up stairs to the room where he was sleeping, struck him over the head with a bludgeon, and then turning down the clothes, stabbed him several times in the heart with a dagger. Every body called him a hired assassin; and he would have been hung as an atrocious murderer, if he had not in his prison hung himself. The two Knapps were tried, convicted and hung for hiring Crowninshield to assassinate Mr.White.

Here is a clear case of hired assassination; and wherein does it differ from the profession of a soldier? Doubtless there is some difference; but in what does it consist, and to what does it amount? How far are the two professions or acts alike?

Let us look at the facts. Here is a nation of ten, twenty or fifty millions, that hire you as one of their soldiers to kill whomsoever they may wish to have killed, and promise to give you, besides your food and clothing, some ten or twenty cents a day. The nation, indignant that the Chinese spurn their opium, or that the Afghans reject their favorite ruler, or that the Seminoles will not give up their lands, the inheritance of fifty generations, to some avaricious white men, order you to go and kill them, burn their dwellings, and butcher, without distinction or mercy, thousands of unoffending men, women and children.

We see now the facts in the two cases; and what is the difference? The deed is the same, except that in one case a single man was killed, and in the other thousands, or scores of thousands. The motive, too, is essentially the same--with the employers, selfaggrandizement; with the hired agents, pay. The difference, for there is some, will not redound much to the soldier's credit over the assassin. The soldier hires himself to millions of men called a nation; Crowninshield hired himself to only two men. The soldier hires himself out to kill whomsoever the nation may wish to have killed at any time; the assassin engaged to do a specified act, to kill a single man at a given time, and that man named beforehand. The soldier is hired to kill by the month or year; the assassin was hired by the job. The soldier is a day-laborer in the work of blood; the assassin is a jobber at the same trade. The assassin is better paid than the soldier; for the former was promised a thousand dollars for killing one man, while the latter might kill a hundred in a day without getting half a dollar for the whole. The soldier agrees to kill any and all whom the nation may bid; and, if required to shoot his own father or mother, brother or sister, wife or child, he must shoot them, or be shot himself; whereas the assassin, had he refused to kill the old man according to agreement, would not himself have been liable to be hung, The soldier makes a fearful bargain; for, though aware that, if he refuse to kill any whom the nation may bid him kill, he must

himself be put to death, he nevertheless enters into the bloody compact, not knowing but he may be ordered to shoot or stab his own parents, wife or children. Not so bad the assassin's bargain. Had Crowninshield engaged to kill at any time any body whom the Knapps might wish to have killed, with the understanding that he should himself be put to death if he ever refused to kill any one they should bid, there would be a pretty close analogy between his case and that of the professed soldier. But the assassin's position was not so terrible. The soldier must kill whomsoever his employers may bid him kill, or the terms of his contract make him liable to be shot or hung himself.

Now, let every reader judge between the two, and tell us, if he can, why a hired assassin, like Crowninshield, should be hung as a monster of wickedness, while the soldier, hired by twenty millions to do the same deed by wholesale, is admired and eulogized as a hero? To kill multitudes at the bidding of millions, is deemed patriotic, glorious, Christian, worthy of songs, and eulogies, and monuments; but to kill one man at the bidding of another one, is denounced as base, infamous, diabolical, deserving of the gallows, of eternal infamy. Well did Bishop Porteus say,

"One murder makes a villain; Millions, a hero."

Will the professed soldier never be classed with the hired assassin? How much longer will men of any principle, conscience or self-respect, hire themselves out to the work of robbery and murder? How long will professed Christians, or any Christian community, respect or even tolerate the military profession, the trade of human butchery?

JESUS CHRIST.-My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.

IRENEUS, A. D. 180.-Christians have changed their swords into instruments of peace; and they know not how to fight.

TERTULLIAN, A. D. 197.-Can one who professes the peaceable doctrine of the gospel, be a soldier? Jesus Christ, by disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier afterwards; for custom can never sanction a wrong act.

JEREMY TAYLOR.-As contrary as cruelty is to mercy, tyranny to charity, so is war to the meekness and gentleness of the Christian religion.

ROBERT HALL.-War reverses all the rules of morality. It is nothing less than A TEMPORARY REPEAL OF THE PRINCIPLES OF

VIRTUE.

LORD BROUGHAM.-I abominate war as unchristian. I hold it to be the greatest of human crimes. I deem it to include all others-violence, blood, rapine, fraud, every thing which can deform the character, and debase the name of man.

AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS.

No. VII.

UNIVERSAL PEACE.

BY REV. DAVID BOGUE, D. D., LONDON."

"In the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it."

Here is a prophetic sketch of the millennium. During that period, "nation shall not lift up sword against nation." Universal harmony will prevail. No desire of conquest will then be found. Contented with their own territory, none will seek to encroach on their neighbors' lands. Over the face of the whole earth, peace shall reign, and the nations shall form a holy brotherhood, emulous to promote each other's prosperity and happiness. The art of murdering will then cease; "they shall learn war no more." No naval nor military colleges shall then exist; no time, no labor, no skill be employed to teach the stripling and the recruit how to fight, and how to wound and slay. The study then among Christ's disciples will be after the example of their Master, "who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

So discordant is this description with the general sentiments, and feelings, and practice of mankind in the present day, that some may still be inclined to disbelieve the existence of such a state, and be ready to exclaim with the voice of incredulity, “it is impossible." The spirit of God, foreseeing this obduracy of heart, in order to remove every doubt, inspired the prophet Micah to add these omnipotent words, "For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken

This tract is taken from one of a series of DISCOURSES ON THE MILLENNIUM, delivered in 1813 when Napoleon was at the acme of his career. Dr. Bogue, born in Scotland 1750, settled in London 1774, and removed in 1777 to the superintendence of the Missionary Seminary at Gosport, died in 1825, one of the best men of his age, and a master-spirit in starting and sustaining the great enterprises now at work for the world's conversion.-AM. ED.

f Micah iv. 1-4.