An Inquiry Into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity

it. Will you sacrifice your life at home? If the loss of your life in London or at York, would procure just so much benefit to your country, as the loss of one soldier in the field, would you be willing to lay your head upon the block? Are you willing to die without notice and without remembrance; and for the sake of this little undiscoverable contribution to your country’s good. You would, perhaps, die to save your country; but this is not the question. A soldier’s death does not save his country. The question is, whether, without any of the circumstances of war, without any of its glory or its pomp, you are willing to resign yourself to the executioner. If you are not, you are not willing to die for your country. And there is not an individual amongst the thousands who declaim upon patriotism, who is willing to do it. He will lay down his life, indeed⁠—but it must be in war; he is willing to die⁠—but it is not for patriotism, but for glory.

The argument we think is clear⁠—that patriotism is not the motive; and that in no rational use of language can it be said that the soldier “dies for his country.” Men will not sacrifice their lives at all, unless it be in war, and they do not sacrifice them in war from motives of patriotism.11

What, then, is the foundation of military fame? Is it bravery? Bravery has little connection with reason, and less with religion. Intellect may despise, and Christianity condemns it. Is it patriotism? Do we refer to the soldier’s motives and purposes? If we do, he is not, necessarily or often, a patriot. It was a common expression amongst sailors, and, perhaps, may be so still⁠—“I hate the French, because they are slaves, and wear wooden shoes.” This was the sum of their reasonings and their patriotism; and I do not think the mass of those who fight on land, possess a greater.

Crimes should be traced to their causes; and guilt should be fixed upon those who occasion, although they may not perpetrate them. And to whom are the frequency and the crimes of war to be principally attributed? To the directors of public opinion, to the declaimers upon glory⁠—to men who sit quietly at home in their studies and at their desks; to the historian, and the biographer, and the poet, and the moral philosopher; to the pamphleteer; to the editor of the newspaper; to the teacher of religion. One example of declamation from the pulpit I would offer to the reader:⁠—“Go then, ye defenders of your country; advance, with alacrity, into the field, where God himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success, not to lend you her aid. She will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence. I cannot but imagine, the virtuous heroes, legislators and patriots, of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favorable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended, and thousands, inflamed with spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth forever and ever, they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labors, and cemented with your blood. And thou, sole Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong. Gird on thy sword, thou most Mighty. Go forth with our hosts in the day of battle! Impart, in addition to their hereditary valor, that confidence of success which springs from thy presence! Pour into their hearts the spirit of departed heroes! Inspire them with thine own; and while led by thine hand, and fighting under thy banners, open thou their eyes to behold in every valley, and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by the same illumination⁠—chariots of fire and horses of fire. Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them!”12 Of such irreverence of language, employed to convey such violence of sentiment, the world, I hope, has had few examples. Oh! how unlike another exhortation⁠—“Put on mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any.”13

“As long as mankind,” says Gibbon, “shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”14 “ ’Tis strange to imagine,” says the Earl of Shaftesbury, “that war, which of all things appears the most savage, should be the passion of the most heroic spirits.”⁠—But he gives us the reason.⁠—“By a small misguidance of the affection, a lover of mankind becomes a ravager; a hero and deliverer becomes an oppressor and destroyer.”15 This is the “vice,” and this is the “misguidance,” which we say, that a large proportion of the writers of every civilized country are continually occasioning and promoting; and thus, without, perhaps any purpose of mischief, they contribute more to the destruction of mankind than rapine or ambition. A writer thinks, perhaps, that it is not much harm to applaud bravery. The divergency from virtue may, indeed, be small in its beginning, but the effect of his applauses proceeds in the line of obliquity, until it conducts at last, to every excess of outrage, to every variety of crime, to every mode of human destruction.

There is one species of declamation on the glories of those who die in battle, to which I would beg the notice of the reader. We are told that when the last breath of