War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ. Dodge David Low
improper here to digress a little and remark that this appears to have been the original bounds of man’s authority, – that of having dominion only over the animal world and not over his fellow-man. It appears that God reserved to himself the government of man, whom he originally created in his own image; from which it may be inferred that man has no lawful authority for governing his fellow-man except as the special executor of divine command, and that no government can be morally right except that which acknowledges and looks up to God as the supreme head and governor.
But to return: although the animal world is put under the dominion of man for his use, yet he has no authority to exercise cruelty towards it. “For the merciful man regardeth the life of his beast.” God is very merciful to his creatures; he not only hears the young ravens when they cry but he opens his hand and supplies the wants of the cattle upon a thousand hills.
Though God has decorated the earth with beauty and richly clothed it with food for man and beast, yet where an all-devouring army passes, notwithstanding the earth before them is like the garden of Eden, it is behind them a desolate wilderness; the lowing ox and bleating sheep may cry for food, but, alas! the destroyer hath destroyed it.
The noble horse, which God has made for the use and pleasure of man, shares largely in this desolating evil. He is often taken, without his customary food, to run with an express, until, exhausted by fatigue, he falls lifeless beneath his rider. Multitudes of them are chained to the harness with scanty food, and goaded forward to drag the baggage of an army and the thundering engines of death, until their strength has failed, their breath exhausted, and the kindness they then receive is the lash of the whip or the point of a spear. In such scenes the comfort of beasts is not thought of, except by a selfish owner who fears the loss of his property.
But all this is trifling compared with what these noble animals, who tamely bow to the yoke of man, suffer in the charge of the battle; the horse rushes into the combat not knowing that torture and death are before him. His sides are often perforated with the spur of his rider, notwithstanding he exerts all his strength to rush into the heat of the battle, while the strokes of the sabers and the wounds of the bullets lacerate his body, and instead of having God’s pure air to breathe to alleviate his pains, he can only snuff up the dust of his feet and the sulphurous smoke of the cannon, emblem of the infernal abode. Thus he has no ease for his pains unless God commissions the bayonet or the bullet to take away his life.
But if such is the cruelty to beasts in prosecuting war, what is the cruelty to man, born for immortality?
No wonder that those who feel so little for their fellow-men should feel less for beasts.
If war is an inhuman and cruel employment, it must be wrong for Christians to engage in it.
To oppress the poor is everywhere in the Scriptures considered as a great sin: “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord”; “Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself and not be heard”; “What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.”
The threatenings against those who oppress the poor, and the blessings pronounced upon those who plead their cause, are very numerous in the Scriptures. The threatenings are so tremendous and awful that all men ought to consider well before they are active in any step which has a natural tendency to oppress the poor and needy.
That war actually does oppress the poor may be heard from ten thousand wretched tongues who have felt its woe. Very few, comparatively, who are instigators of war actually take the field of battle, and are seldom seen in the front of the fire. It is usually those who are rioting on the labors of the poor that fan up the flame of war. The great mass of soldiers are generally from the poor of a country. They must gird on the harness and for a few cents per day endure all the hardships of a camp and be led forward like sheep to the slaughter. Though multitudes are fascinated to enlist by the intoxicating cup, the glitter of arms, the vainglory of heroes, and the empty sound of patriotism, yet many more are called away contrary to their wishes by the iron hand of despotic laws. Perhaps a parent is enrolled whose daily labor was hardly sufficient to supply a scanty pittance for a numerous offspring, who are in his absence crying for bread. And why all this sorrow in this poor and needy family? Because the husband and father is gone, and probably gone forever, most likely to gratify the wishes of some ambitious men who care as little as they think of his anxious family. Perhaps an only son is taken from old, decrepit parents, the only earthly prop of their declining years; and with cold poverty and sorrow their gray hairs are brought down to the dust.
War cannot be prosecuted without enormous expenses. The money that has been expended the last twenty years in war would doubtless have been sufficient not only to have rendered every poor person on earth comfortable – so far as money could do it – during the same period, but, if the residue had been applied to cultivate the earth, it would have literally turned the desert into a fruitful field. Only the interest of the money that has been expended in a few years by the European nations in prosecuting war would have been sufficient, under proper direction, to educate every poor child on earth in the common rudiments of learning, and to support missionaries in abundance to convey the gospel of peace to every creature. What a noble employment if those nations had exerted their powers for these objects as much as they have for injuring each other! And what a difference would have appeared in the world! Blessings would have fallen on millions ready to perish, instead of desolation, terror, and death.
The vast expenses of war must be met by corresponding taxes, whether by duties on merchandise or direct taxes on real estate; yet they fall most heavily on the poor. Whatever duty the merchant pays to the customhouse, he adds the amount to the price of his goods, so that the consumer actually pays the tax. If a tax is levied on real estate, the product of that estate is raised to meet it, and whoever consumes the product pays the tax. In times of war the prices of the necessaries of life are generally very much increased, but the prices of the labor of the poor do not usually rise in the same proportion, therefore it falls very heavily on them. When the honest laborers are suddenly called from the plow to take the sword and leave the tilling of the ground, either its seed is but sparingly sown or its fruit but partially gathered, scarcity ensues, high prices are the consequence, and the difficulty greatly increased for the poor to obtain the necessaries of life, especially if they were dependent on the product of a scanty farm which they are now deprived of cultivating. Many a poor widow, who has been able in times of peace to support her fatherless children, has been obliged in times of war in a great measure to depend on the cold hand of charity to supply their wants.
The calamities of war necessarily fall more on the poor than on the rich, because the poor of a country are generally a large majority of its inhabitants.
These are some of the evils of war at a distance, but when it comes to their doors, if they are favored personally to escape the ferocity of the soldiers, they fly from their habitations, leaving their little all to the fire and pillage, glad to escape with their lives, though destitute and dependent; and when they cast round their eyes for relief, they only meet a fellow-sufferer, who can sympathize with them but not supply their wants. Thus does war not only oppress the poor but adds multitudes to their number who before were comfortable.
If war actually does oppress the poor, then we may infer that in its nature and tendency it is very unlike the genius of the gospel, and not right for Christians to engage in it.
In the benign reign of Messiah the earth will be filled with the abundance of peace; there will be nothing to hurt or destroy; every one will sit quietly under his own vine and fig tree, having nothing to molest or make him afraid. But in times of war, mankind are usually full of anxiety, their hearts failing them for fear, looking for those things which are coming upon our wicked world.
One of the most delightful scenes on earth is a happy family where all the members dwell together in love, being influenced by the blessed precepts of the gospel of peace. But how soon does the sound of war disturb and distress the happy circle! If it is only the distant thunder of the cannon that salutes the ear, the mother starts from her repose, and all the children gather round her with looks full of anxiety to know the cause. Few women