War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ. Dodge David Low
multiply widows and orphans in a land is the height of inhumanity as well as daring impiety.
I will venture to say that no one circumstance in our world has so greatly multiplied widows and fatherless children as that of war. What has humanity ever gained by war to counterbalance simply the afflictions of the widow and fatherless? I verily believe nothing comparatively. I am well aware that a very popular plea for war is to defend, as it is styled, “our firesides, our wives and children”; but this generally is only a specious address to the feelings, to rouse up a martial spirit which makes thousands of women and children wretched where one is made happy. I am sensible that those will sneer at my opinion who regard more the honor that comes from men than they do the consolation of the widow and the fatherless.
In times of war thousands of virtuous women are deprived of their husbands and ten thousands of helpless children of their fathers. The little tender children may now gather round their disconsolate mothers, anxiously inquiring about their fathers, remembering their kind visages, recollecting how they used fondly to dandle them on their knees and affectionately instruct them; but now they are torn from their embraces by the cruelty of war, and they have no fathers left them but their Father in heaven.
It is probably no exaggeration to suppose that in Europe there are now two hundred thousand widows and a million fatherless children occasioned by war. What a mass of affliction! humanity bleeds at the thought! These children must now roam about without a father to provide for, protect, or instruct them. They now become an easy prey to all kinds of vice; many probably will be trained up for ignominious death, and most of them fit only for a soldier’s life, to slaughter and to be slaughtered, unless some humane hand kindly takes them under its protection.
And here I cannot help admiring the spirit of Christianity. It is owing to the blessed spirit and temper of the gospel of peace that many of the evils of war are so much ameliorated at the present day as well as the inhuman slavery of men.
The numerous asylums that now exist for the relief of the needy, the widow, and the fatherless are some of the precious fruits of Christianity; and if this spirit were universal the bow would soon be broken to pieces, the spear cut asunder, and the chariots of war burnt with fire, and wars would cease to the ends of the earth.
And is it not the duty of all who name the name of Christ to do all in their power to counteract this destroying evil?
War not only multiplies widows and orphans but clothes the land in mourning. In times of war multitudes of people are clothed with ensigns of mourning. Here are gray-headed parents shrouded in blackness, weeping for the loss of darling sons; there are widows covered with veils mourning the loss of husbands, and refusing to be comforted; children crying because their fathers are no more. Cities and villages are covered in darkness and desolation; weeping and mourning arise from almost every abode.
And it may be asked, What inhuman hand is the cause of all this sorrow? Perhaps some rash man, in the impetuosity of his spirit, has taken some unjust, high ground, and is too proud to retrace a step, and had rather see millions wretched than to nobly confess that he had been in the wrong.
Surely Christians cannot be active in such measures without incurring the displeasure of God, who styles himself the father of the fatherless and the judge and avenger of the widow.
Thus I have shown that war is inhuman and therefore wholly inconsistent with Christianity, by proving that it tends to destroy humane dispositions; that it hardens the hearts and blunts the tender feelings of men; that it involves the abuse of God’s animal creation; that it oppresses the poor; that it spreads terror and distress among mankind; that it subjects soldiers to cruel privations and sufferings; that it destroys the youth and cuts off the hope of the aged; and that it multiplies widows and orphans and occasions mourning and sorrow.
The fact that war is inhuman is indeed one of those obvious truths which it is difficult to render more plain by argument; those who know in what war consists cannot help knowing that it is inhuman.
What Mr. Windham said with reference to the inhumanity of slavery may be said of the inhumanity of war. In one of his speeches in the House of Commons against the slave trade he stated his difficulty in arguing against such a trade to be of that kind which is felt in arguing in favor of a self-evident proposition. “If it were denied that two and two made four, it would not be a very easy task,” he said, “to find arguments to support the affirmative side of the question. Precisely similar was his embarrassment in having to prove that the slave trade was unjust and inhuman.”
Whoever admits that the slave trade is inhuman must admit that war is inhuman in a greater variety of ways and on a much larger scale.
The inhumanity of the slave trade was the great and, finally, triumphant argument by which it was proved to be inconsistent with Christianity.
The advocates of slavery, like the advocates of war, resorted to the Old Testament for support; but it appeared that slavery, as it appears that war, was permitted and approved of for reasons and on principles peculiar to the ancient economy. This is apparent as well from the difference between the general design of the old and new dispensations as from the whole genius and spirit of the gospel. Hence those who opposed the slave trade argued from the general nature and spirit of Christianity as the strongest ground which could be taken. If slavery was inconsistent with this, it ought not to be tolerated; but slavery is inhuman and is therefore inconsistent with Christianity. Exactly the same is true of war, nor can anything short of an express revelation from God, commanding war or slavery, render either of them justifiable.
It deserves to be distinctly considered that the gospel contains little or nothing directly by way of precept against slavery; but slavery is inconsistent with its general requirements and inculcations and is therefore wrong. But war, besides being inconsistent with the genius and spirit of the gospel, is prohibited by those precepts which forbid retaliation and revenge and those which require forgiveness and good will.
It is plain, then, that he who does not advocate and defend the slave trade, to be consistent, must grant that war is incompatible with Christianity, and that it is a violation of the gospel to countenance it.
WAR IS UNWISE
That the principles and practice of war are unwise I argue:
The maxim, that in order to preserve peace, mankind must be prepared for war, has become so common, and sanctioned by such high authority, that few question its wisdom or policy; but if stripped of its specious garb, it may appear to proceed not from that wisdom which came down from above, which is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy”; and if it is not the wisdom from above, then it must be the wisdom from beneath.
Are not pride, avarice, and revenge the seeds of all kinds of carnal warfare? From these grow all the quarreling among children, the discord among families, the bickerings, law suits, and broils among neighbors, the boxing among bullies, the dueling among modern gentlemen, and wars among nations. They all originate from one and the same spirit.
Now, is the mild, meek, and peaceable man, unarmed, more liable to inspire jealousy in others that he is about to insult and abuse them than the high-toned duelist who constantly carries with him deathly weapons? Does he, in fact, so often get into difficulty, quarreling and fighting? The respectable Society of Friends stands a living monument to answer the question.
On the principles of self-defense, as they are styled, if one man suspects an injury from another, unless he is naturally a more powerful man, he must take a cane, as the principles of self-defense require a superior power in your own hand, either by art or muscular strength. When the other learns the suspicions and sees the preparation, he in his turn must take a bludgeon to preserve the balance of power and proclaim a threatening to awe his antagonist, who must now take a sword and return a threatening in order to maintain his dignity; for it will not do for men of honor to retract, however much they may be in the wrong. The other, again, must take a deathly weapon for his defense, and nothing is now wanting but an unhappy meeting to set each other’s blood a flowing.
Much in the same way do nations often get into desperate warfare. One nation is busily increasing