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 enforced by the precepts, and more especially by the final example of Christ, of Apostles and 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 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.

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 any other than defensive war, it is scarcely worth while to entertain a question; since no one with whom we are concerned 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 check." All this supposes previous offence, or injury, or violence; and it is then that forbearance is enjoined.

It is common with those who justify defensive war, to identify the question with that of individual self-defence. This is one of the strongholds of the defender of war, the almost final fastness to which he retires. The instinct of self-preservation, it is said, is an instinct of nature; and since this instinct is implanted by God, whatever is necessary to self-preservation is accordant with his will. The fallacy of the whole argument appears to consist in this, that it assumes an instinct of nature to be a law of paramount authority. God has implanted in the human system various propensities or instincts, of which the purposes are wise. These propensities tend in their own nature to abuse; and, when gratified or followed to excess, they become subversive of the purposes of the wisdom which implanted them, and destructive of the welfare of mankind. He has therefore instituted a superior law, sanctioned by his immediate authority; and by this law, we are required to regulate these propensities. The question therefore is, not whether the instinct of self-preservation is implanted by nature, but whether Christianity has restricted its operation. By this, and by this only, the question is to be determined. Now, he who will be at the trouble of mak

ing the inquiry, will find that a regulation of the instincts of nature, a restriction of their exercise, is a prominent object of the Christian morality; and I think it plain that this regulation and restriction apply to the instinct before us. That some of these propensities are to be restrained, is certain. One of the most powerful instincts of our nature, is an affection to which the regulating precepts of Christianity are peculiarly directed. I do not maintain that any natural instinct is to be eradicated, but that all of them are to be regulated and restrained; aud I maintain this of the instinct of self-preservation.

We say, however, that the questions of self-defence and of war, 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 in assertion of technical rights; and some, undoubtedly, to repel invasion. The last are perhaps the fewest; and of these only it can be said that they bear any analogy whatever 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 happened to a people than to kill or be killed. And let it be remembered, that unless this alternative alone remains, the case of individual self-defence is irrelevant; 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. Suppose the Christian Scriptures had said, An army may fight in its own defence, but not for any other purpose. Whoever will attempt to apply this rule in practice, will find he has a very wide range of justifiable warfare, a range that will embrace many more wars than moralists, laxer than we shall suppose him 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 in the 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 glory and crime. Let any honest man look over the gradations by which we arrive at this climax, and I believe he will find that, in practice, no curb can be 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 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 out idle chains into the tempestuous ocean of slaughter.

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 business 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 begun, it is vain to think of distinctions of aggression and defence. Moralists may talk of distinctions, but soldiers will make none; none can be made; it is beyond the limits of possibility. Indeed, some of the definitions of defensive or just war which are proposed by moralists, indicate how impossible 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 temptation to transgress it is before him, is almost sure to reason himself into error."

Violence, and Rapine, and Ambition are not to be restrained by morality like this. It may serve for the speculations 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? This morality allows too much latitude to the passions, to retain any practical restraint upon them. And a morality that will not be practised, I had almost said, that cannot be practised, is an 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, of a thousand that he fears. What answer can the philosopher make?

If these are the proper standards of just war, there will be little difficulty in proving any war to be just, except 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 he had previous fear of us, and that his fear prompted the hos tile 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 forbidden, 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 Christianity, in any case, or for any purpose, allow armies to meet and 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 eradicating war, but by a total abandonment of it.

The positions, then, which we endeavor to establish are these: 1. That those considerations which operate as General Causes of War, are commonly such as Christianity condemns.-2. 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.-3. That the General Character of Christianity is wholly incongruous with war, and that its General Duties are incompatible with it.-4. That some of the express Precepts and Declarations of the Christian Scriptures virtually forbid it.—5. That the Primitive Christians believed that Christ had forbidden war; and that some of them suffered death in affirmance of this belief.-6. That God has declared in Prophecy, that war shall eventually be eradicated from the earth; and that this eradication will be effected by Christianity, by the influence of its present Principles.-7. That, as we shall next prove, those who have refused to engage in war, in consequence of believing it inconsistent with Christianity, have found that Providence has protected them. Now, the establishment of any considerable number of these positions is sufficient for our argument. The establishment of the whole forms a body of evidence, to which I am not able to believe that an inquirer, to whom the subject was new, would be able to withhold his assent. But whatever may be the determination upon this question, surely it is reasonable to try the experiment, whether security cannot be maintained without slaughter. Whatever the reasons for war, it certainly produces enormous mischief. Even waiving the obligations of Christianity, we have to chosse 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 that the present system is bad, it were reasonable and wise to try whether the other is not better. 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 that they would experience any evils such as we now endure, or that they would not find that the surest, and the only rule of wisdom, of safety, and of expediency, is to maintain the spirit of Christianity in every circumstance of life.

AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS.

EFFICACY OF PACIFIC PRINCIPLES.

BY JONATHAN DYMOND.

THE duties of Christianity require irresistance; and surely it is reasonable to believe, even without a reference to experience, that God will make our irresistance subservient to our interests; that, if he requires us not to be concerned in war, he will preserve us in peace, nor desert those who have abandoned all protection but his. If we refer to experience, we shall find that the reasonableness of this confidence is confirmed. Thousands have confided in Heaven in opposition to all their apparent interests; but of these thousands has one eventually repented his confidence, or reposed in vain? "He that will lose his life for my sake, and the gospel's, the same shall find it." If it be said we take futurity into the calculation in our estimate of interest, I answer, so we ought. Who is the man that would exclude futurity, or what are his principles? I do not comprehend the foundation of these objections against a reference to futurity which are thus flippantly made. Are we not immortal beings? Have we not interests beyond the present life? It is a deplorable temper of mind, which would diminish the frequency or the influence of our references to futurity. Yet, even in reference only to the present state of existence, I believe we shall find that the testimony of experience is, that forbearance is most conducive to our interests. "If a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

The reader of American history will recollect, that in the be ginning of the last century, a desultory and most dreadful warfare was carried on by the natives against the European settlers, a warfare that was provoked, as such warfare has almost always originally been, by the injuries and violence of the Christians. The mode of destruction was secret and sudden. The barbarians sometimes lay in wait for those who might come within 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 abandoning their homes, and retiring to fortified places, or to the neighborhood 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 proportion 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."

P. T. NO. LX.