They still pursued their occupations in the fields or at their homes, without a weapon either for annoyance or defence. And what was their fate? They lived in security and quiet. The habitation which, to his armed neighbor, was the scene of murder and the scalping knife, was to the unarmed Quaker a place of safety and of peace.

Three of the Society, however, were killed. And who were they? They were three who abandoned their principles. Two of these victims were men who, in the simple language of the narrator, "used to go to their labor without any weapons, and trusted to the Almighty, and depended on his providence to protect them (it being their principle not to use weapons of war to offend others, or to defend themselves); but the spirit of distrust taking place in their minds, they took weapons of war to defend themselves, and the Indians who had seen them several times without them, and left them alone, saying they were peaceable men, and hurt nobody, therefore they would not hurt them, now seeing them have guns, and supposing they designed to kill the Indians, they therefore shot the men dead." The third whose life was sacrificed, was a woman who "had remained in her habitation," not thinking herself warranted in going “to a fortified place for preservation, neither she, her son, nor daughter, nor to take thither the little ones; but the poor woman after some time began to let in a slavish fear, and advised her children to go with her to a fort not far from their dwelling." She went; and shortly afterwards the Indians lay by the way, and killed her. Barclay, the celebrated Apologist, from whose Anecdotes these extracts are obtained, was attacked by a highwayman. He made no other resistance than a calm expostulation. The felon dropped his presented pistol, and offered no farther violence. A Leonard Fell was assaulted by a highway robber, who plundered him of his money and his horse, and afterwards threatened to blow out his brains. Fell solemnly spoke to the robber on the wickedness of his life. The man was astonished; he declared he would take neither his money nor horse, and returned both.

The fate of the Quakers during the rebellion in Ireland was nearly similar. It is well known that the rebellion was a time not only of open war, but of cold-blooded murder of the utmost fury of bigotry, and the utmost exasperation of revenge. Yet the Quakers were preserved even to a proverb; and when strangers passed through the streets of ruin, and observed a house standing uninjured and alone, they would sometimes point, and say, "That doubtless is the house of a Quaker."

It were to no purpose to say, that these facts form an exception to a general rule. The exception consists in the trial of the experiment of irresistance, not in its success. Neither were it to any purpose to say, that the savages of America, or the desperadoes of Ireland spared the Quakers because they were previously known to be an unoffending people, or because the Quakers had previously gained their love by forbearance or good offices. We concede all this; it is the very argument which we maintain.

We say that a uniform, undeviating regard to the peaceable obligations of Christianity becomes the safeguard of those who practise it. We venture to maintain that no reason whatever can be assigned why the fate of the Quakers would not be the fate of all who should adopt their conduct. If there be such a reason, let us hear it. The American and Irish Quakers were, to the rest of the community, what one nation is to a continent. We do not say, that if a people should be assailed, and should on a sudden choose to declare that they would try whether Providence would protect them-of such a people, we do not say that they would experience protection, and none of them be killed. But we say the evidence of experience is, that a people who habitually regard the obligations of Christianity in their conduct towards other men, and steadfastly refuse, to engage in acts of hostility, will experience protection in their peacefulness, and it matters nothing to the argument, whether we refer that protection to the immediate agency of Providence, or to the influence of such conduct upon the minds of men.

Such has been the experience of the unoffending and unresisting in individual life. A national example of a refusal to bear arms has been exhibited only once to the world; but that one example has proved, all that humanity could desire, and all that skepticism could demand, in favor of our argument. Pennsylvania was colonized by men who believed that war is absolutely incompatible with Christianity, and therefore resolved not to practise it. Having determined not to fight, they maintained no soldiers, and possessed no arms. They planted themselves in a country surrounded by savages who knew they were unarmed. Plunderers might have robbed them without retaliation, and armies might have slaughtered them without resistance. If they did not give a temptation to outrage, no temptation could be given. But these were the people who possessed their country in security, whilst those around them were trembling for their existenee. This was a land of peace, whilst every other was a land of war. The conclusion is inevitable, although it is extraordinary-they were in no need of arms because they would not use them.

These Indians were sufficiently ready to commit outrages upon other states, and often visited them with that sort of desolation and slaughter, which might be expected from men whom civilization had not reclaimed from cruelty, and whom religion had not awed into forbearance. "But," says Clarkson, “whatever the quarrels of the Indians were with others, they uniformly respected, and held as it were sacred, the territories of William Penn." "The Pennsylvanians," says Oldmixon, “never lost man, woman or child by them, which neither the colony of Maryland, nor that of Virginia could say, no more than the great colony of New England."

The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not a transient freedom from war, such as might accidentally happen to any nation. She continued to enjoy it "for more than seventy years,”

says Proud, "and subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations without so much as a militia for her defence." "The Pennsylvanians," observes Clarkson, "became safe without the ordinary means of safety. The constable's staff was the only instrument of authority amongst them for the greater part of a century; and never, during the administration of Penn, or that of his proper successors, was there a quarrel or a war."

And when was the security of Pennsylvania molested, and its peace destroyed? When the men who had directed its counsels, and who would not engage in war, were outvoted in its legislature; when they who supposed that there was greater security in the sword than in Christianity, became the predominating body. From that hour, the Pennsylvanians transferred their confidence in Christian principles to a confidence in their arms; and from that hour to this, they have been subject to war.

Such is the evidence derived from a national example of the consequences of a pursuit of the Christian policy in relation to war. Here are a people who absolutely refused to fight, and incapacitated themselves for resistance by refusing to possess arms; yet this was the people whose land amidst surrounding broils and slaughter, was selected as a land of security and peace. The only national opportunity which the virtue of the Christian world has afforded us of ascertaining the safety of relying upon God for defence, has determined that it is safe.

If such evidence do not satisfy us of the expediency of confiding in God, what evidence do we ask, or what can we receive? We have his promise that he will protect those who abandon their seeming interests in the performance of his will, and we have the testimony of those who have confided in him, that he has protected them. Can the advocate of war produce one single instance in all history of a person who had given an unconditional obedience to the will of heaven, and who did not find that his conduct was wise as well as virtuous, that it accorded with his interests as well as with his duty? We ask the same question respecting the obligations to irresistance. Where is the man who regrets, that in observance of the forbearing duties of Christianity, he consigned his preservation to the superintendence of God? And the solitary national example that is* before us, confirms the testimony of private life; for there is sufficient reason for believing, that no nation in modern ages has possessed so large a portion of virtue or happiness as Pennsylvania, before it had seen human blood.

What, then, is the duty of one who believes all war upchristian; but whose governors engage in war, and demand his service? He should mildly and temperately, yet firmly refuse to serve. If you believe Christ has prohibited slaughter, let nothing induce you to join in it; and the time will come when even the world will honor you as contributors to the work of Human Reformation.

AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, BOSTON, MASS.

RIGHTS OF SELF-DEFENCE.

BY JONATHAN DYMOND.

THE right of defending ourselves against violence is easily deducible from the law of nature. There is, however, little need to deduce it, because mankind are at least sufficiently persuaded of its lawfulness. The question now most needful to discuss, is, whether every action whatever is lawful, provided it is necessary to the preservation of life? They who maintain the affirmative, maintain a great deal; for they maintain that, whenever life is endangered, all rules of morality are, as it respects the individual, suspended, annihilated, every moral obligation is taken away by the single fact, that life is threatened.

Yet the language ordinarily held upon the subject, implies the supposition of all this. "If our lives," says Grotius, "are threatened with assassination or open violence from the hands of robbers or enemies, any means of defence would be allowed and laudable." "There is," says Paley, "one case in which all extremities are justifiable, namely, when our life is assaulted, and it becomes necessary for our preservation to kill the assailant." If any means of defence are laudable, if all extremities are justifiable, then they are not confined to acts of resistance against the assailing party. There may be other conditions upon which life may be preserved, than that of violence towards him. Some ruffians seize a man in the highway, and will kill him unless he will conduct them to his neighbor's property, and assist them in carrying it off. May this man unite with them in the robbery, in order to save his life, or may he not? If he may, what becomes of the law, Thou shalt not steal? If he may not, then not every means by which a man may preserve his life, is laudable or allowed. We have found an exception to the rule. There are twenty other wicked things which violent men may make the sole condition of not taking our lives. Do all wicked things become lawful because life is at stake? If not, such propositions as those of Grotius and Paley are untrue. A pagan has unalterably resolved to offer me up in sacrifice on the morrow, unless I will acknowledge the deity of his gods, and worship them. The Christian must regard these acts as being, under every possible circumstance, unlawful. The night offers me an opportunity of assassinating him. Now I am placed in precisely the same situation, with respect to this man, as a traveller is with respect to a ruffian with a pistol. Life in both cases depends on killing the offender. Both are acts of self-defence. Am I at liberty to assassinate this man? Surely not. Here then is a case in which I may not take life in order to save my own. If any one doubts whether the assassination would be unlawful, let him consider whether an Apostle would have committed it in such a case.

P. T. NO. LXI.

Here, at any rate, the heart of every man answers, No. And mark the reason-because every man perceives that the act would have been palpably inconsistent with the Apostolic character, or, which is the same thing, with a Christian character.

Or put such a case in a somewhat different form. A furious Turk holds a scimetar over my head, and declares he will instantly despatch me, unless I adjure Christianity, and acknowledge the divine legation of "the prophet." Now, there are two supposable ways in which I may save my life; one by contriving to stab the Turk, and one "by denying Christ before men." You say I am not at liberty to deny Christ, but I am at liberty to stab the man. Why am I not at liberty to deny him? Because Christianity forbids it. Then we require you to show that Christianity does not forbid you to take his life. Our religion pronounces both actions to be wrong. You say that under these circumstances the killing is right. Where is your proof? What is the ground of your distinction? But, whether it can be adduced, or not, our immediate argument is established,-that there are some things which it is not lawful to do in order to preserve our lives. This conclusion has indeed been practically acted upon. A company of inquisitors and their agents are about to conduct a good man to the stake. If he could by any means destroy these men, he might save his life. It is a question, therefore, of self-defence. Supposing these means to be within his power; supposing he could contrive a mine, and, by suddenly firing it, blow his persecutors into the air, would it be lawful and Christian thus to act? No. The common judgments of mankind respecting the right temper and conduct of the martyr, pronounce it to be wrong. The conclusion, therefore, again is, that all extremities are not allowable in order to preserve life; that there is a limit to the right of selfdefence.

It would be to no purpose to say, that in some of these instances religious duties interfere with and limit the right of self-defence. Religious duties and moral duties are identical in point of obligation, for they are imposed by one authority. Religious duties are not obligatory for any other reason than that which attaches to moral duties also, namely, the will of God. He who violates the moral law, is as truly unfaithful in his allegiance to God, as he who denies Christ before men. So that we come at last to one single and simple question, whether taking the life of a person who threatens ours, is or is not compatible with the moral law. We refer for an answer to the broad principles of Christian piety and Christian benevolence; that piety which reposes habitual confidence in the Divine Providence, and an habitual preference of futurity to the present time; and that benevolence which not only loves our neighbors as ourselves, but feels that the Samaritan or the enemy is a neighbor. There is no conjuncture in which the exercise of this benevolence may be suspended; none in which we are not required to maintain and practise it. Whether want implores our compassion, or ingratitude returns ills for our kindness; whether a