their lives; and that it was not till Christianity became corrupted, that its followers became soldiers. This is a most awful fact for those, who profess the Christian religion, but who sanction war at the present day. The consideration of it ought to make them tremble as to the ground of their opinions on this subject. It ought to make them fly to the Divine Writings, and inquire with an anxiety proportioned to the magnitude of the case, what scope the latter afforded them for a construction of the precepts therein contained, so injurious both to the morals and to the happiness of mankind." We have now endeavoured to trace the pacific principles of Jesus, as first unfolded to the view of man by his great Teacher, and then gradually developed in the conduct of his followers for three centuries. And here the history of peace, as far as it regards the great mass of Christians, ceases. Since that period, the whole earth has been deluged in human blood. Man has uplifted his impious hand against man, brother against brother, but, alas! what is still more wonderful, Christian against Christian! The Angel of Peace visited this world with Jesus; but shortly after his departure, she, like the dove from the ark, not finding a place of rest on earth, now an ocean of blood, ascended once more to her dwelling in the heavens! 152 CHAPTER X. SECTION 1.-Summary and Review. LET us take a brief review of the important subject we have been discussing : First, no argument in opposition to peace can be deduced from the Jewish dispensation, as the cases cannot be rendered parallel, and as the laws of the Israelites in this respect have been totally and expressly changed by a more perfect system. Secondly, the prophecies relating to Jesus foretell universal and permanent peace as an essential attribute to his religion; the same notion prevailed in the heathen world; the same intelligence was given by the angels immediately preceding his appearance. Thirdly, our Lord came, and taught, and lived, and died, as the Prince of Peace. Precept and example were equally directed to the establishment of principles, which invite us to love God and to love mankind; to promote an universal brotherhood; to endure and forgive injuries; to bless our enemies, and to return good for evil. Fourthly, in this pacific and enduring sense was the Gospel understood, obeyed, and preached by the disciples in this sense was the example of Jesus followed by the primitive Christians, while the religion itself was pure and inviolate. When Christianity became corrupted, Idolatry and war were together practised by its professors. Idolatry has in a great measure ceased; war alone continues in undiminished strength and fury. The whole professing Christian world, with the admirable exception of the Quakers and the Moravians, and some individuals of other sects, still nourish this most pernicious and horrible of corruptions. SECTION 2.-Effect of the conduct of professing Christians on their religion. We have examined the doctrines of Christianity with reference to our subject, and let the reader contrast with them the misery, and destruction caused, the passions and the vices nourished, by war: let him do this in his own mind, and in a moment he must allow that there is not a more dangerous foe to our religion than this devastating monster. Of this we may be certain, that true Christianity and war cannot exist together. "As contrary as cruelty is to mercy, tyranny to charity," says Jeremy Taylor, "so is war and bloodshed to the meekness and gentleness of the Christian religion." What extraordinary delusion oppresses the human race? Even before the appearance of Christianity there was some mark of compunction in the destruction of human life, some feeling of sorrow and offence, that does not exist, and is not displayed at the present day. "If," observes Grotius, "by the Jewish laws an involuntary murderer was obliged to flee to a place of refuge; if God prohibited David from building a temple to him because his hands were defiled with blood, though his wars might be called religious contests; if among the ancient Greeks, persons who had defiled themselves with slaughter without any fault of theirs, required expiation, who does not see, especially a Christian man, how wretched and ill fated a thing war is, and how earnestly even a just war should be avoided? Among the Greeks professing Christianity," he adds, "the rule had been long observed, that those who had slain an enemy in war, were for a time debarred from all sacred rites." By our actions we disgrace the name of Christians, and bring our holy faith into contempt and disrepute. The Mahometan scoffs at our assertions, when we declare that our pacific religion is superior to his cruel and sanguinary doctrines.* The pagan, who probably himself has suffered violence at the hands of Christians, either altogether rejects the labours of the missionary, or, adopting the offered faith, beholds it in a purer light than those who style themselves the civilised and the enlightened. * See Note H. "If we had all walked in love and purity," a converted Hindoo was accustomed to say, "what multitudes ere this, we might have hoped, would have embraced the gospel !"* The infidel taunts us with our inconsistency, and though generally blind to truth, yet can see the manifest inducements to peace, which are scattered throughout the lessons of Christ. This charge against us is perceptible in many works, and particularly in those of Voltaire. "It would seem," he says, "that the law of loving our neighbour as ourselves was made only for the Quakers; and, in truth, how can any one pretend that he loves his neighbour as himself, when, for reward, he will shoot or stab him, and, at the same time he exposes himself to be killed; might it not rather be truly said, that he hates his neighbour as himself?" He then reproaches the preachers of the time when he wrote, who made so many sermons against impurity and other smaller evils, while they were silent against those various kinds of murder, those robberies, those violences, and that universal rage, by which, under pretence of necessary war, the world is laid waste. "Put together," he adds, "all the vices of all ages and all places, and they will not come up to the mischiefs or enormities of one campaign.”† * See Memoir of Pitambura Singhu―a converted Hindoo. † In another part of his works he observes: "The primitive Christians without exception, held the same sentiments with rela |