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.