I. BECAUSE IT HARDENS THE HEART AND BLUNTS THE TENDER FEELINGS OF
MANKIND
That it is the duty of mankind to be tender-hearted, feeling for the
distress of others, and to do all in their power to prevent and
alleviate their misery, is evident not only from the example of the Son
of God but the precepts of the gospel.
When the Saviour of sinners visited this dark and cruel world he became
a man of sorrow and was acquainted with grief, so that he was touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. He went about continually healing
the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the
deaf, raising the dead, as well as preaching the gospel of peace to the
poor. He visited the houses of affliction and poured the balm of
consolation into the wounded heart. He mourned with those who mourned,
and wept with those that wept. Love to God and man flowed from his soul
pure as the river of life, refreshing the thirsty desert around him. He
was not only affectionate to his friends but kind to his enemies. He
returned love for their hatred, and blessing for their cursing. When he
was surrounded by all the powers of darkness and resigned himself into
the hands of sinners to expiate their guilt, and they smote him on the
cheek and plucked off the hair, he "was dumb and opened not his mouth."
While suffering all the contempt and torture which men and devils could
invent, instead of returning evil for evil he prayed for his murderers
and apologized for his persecutors, saying, "Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do."
The apostle exhorts Christians, saying, "Be ye kind and tender-hearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
Authority in abundance might be quoted to show that the spirit of the
gospel absolutely requires the exercise of love, pity, and forgiveness,
even to enemies.
But who will undertake to prove that soldiers are usually kind and
tender-hearted, and that their employment has a natural tendency to
promote active benevolence, while it requires all their study of mind
and strength of body to injure their enemies to the greatest extent?
Though we often hear of the generosity and attention of soldiers to
prisoners, and notwithstanding I am willing to allow that feelings of
humanity are not altogether obliterated from every soldier, yet much of
this apparent kindness may flow from a desire of better treatment
themselves should circumstances be reversed, or from a hope of the
applause of mankind. My object, however, is not to prove that all
soldiers are destitute of humanity, but that their occupation has a
natural tendency and actually does weaken their kind and tender
feelings, and harden their hearts.
Is it not a fact that those who are engaged in the spirit of war, either
in the council or in the field, are not usually so meek, lowly, kind,
and tender-hearted as other men? Does the soldier usually become kind
and tender-hearted while trained to the art of killing his fellow-man,
or more so when engaged in the heat of the battle, stepping forward over
the wounded and hearing the groans of the expiring? Does he actually put
on bowels of tenderness, mercy, and forgiveness, while he bathes his
sword in the blood of his brother? Do these scenes generally change the
lion into the lamb? On the contrary, do not the history of ages and the
voice of millions bear testimony that the whole trade of war has a
natural tendency to blunt the tender edge of mercy and chill all the
sympathizing feelings of the human heart? Who that is a parent, having
an uncommonly hard-hearted and unfeeling son, would send him into the
camp to subdue his inhumanity and to stamp upon him kind and tender
feelings? If war has not a natural tendency to harden the heart, permit
me to inquire why mankind do not usually feel as much at the distress
occasioned by war as by other calamities?
It would be truly astonishing, were it not so common, to see with what
composure the generality of mankind hear the account of barbarous and
destructive battles. They may have some little excitement when they hear
of savages--whose religion teaches them revenge--using the tomahawk and
scalping knife; but when thousands are torn to pieces with shot and
shells and butchered with polished steels, then it becomes a very polite
and civil business, and those who perish are contemplated as only
reclining on a bed of honor. If an individual in common life breaks a
bone or fractures a limb, all around him not only sympathize but are
ready to aid in alleviating his distress; but when thousands are slain
and ten thousand wounded in the field of battle, the shock is but
trifling, and the feelings are soon lost in admiring the gallantry of
this hero and the prowess of that veteran. And why all this sensibility
at the pains of an individual, and all this indifference at the
sufferings of thousands, if war has not a natural tendency to harden the
heart and destroy the tender feelings of mankind?
It is a fact, however, so notorious that the spirit and practice of war
do actually harden the heart and chill the kind and tender feelings of
mankind, that I think few will be found to deny it, and none who have
ever known or felt the spirit of Christ.
The spirit of war must be very unlike the spirit of the gospel, for the
gospel enforces no duty the practice of which has a natural tendency to
harden men's hearts, but in proportion as they are influenced by its
spirit and actuated by its principles they will be humane; therefore, if
war hardens men's hearts it is not a Christian duty, and of course it
cannot be right for Christians to engage in it.
II. WAR IS INHUMAN, AS IN ITS NATURE AND TENDENCY IT ABUSES GOD'S ANIMAL
CREATION
When God at first created man, he gave him authority over the beasts of
the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the deep. After he
had swept away the old ungodly world of mankind for their violence with
all the animal creation, except those in the ark, he was pleased to
renew to Noah the same privilege of being lord over the animal world.
It may not perhaps be 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.