spirit of frankness. It is the influence which War, though condemned
by Christ, has derived from the _Christian Church_. When Constantine,
on one of his marches, at the head of his army, beheld the luminous
trophy of the cross in the sky, right above the meridian sun, inscribed
with the words, _By this conquer_, had his soul been penetrated by the
true spirit of Him whose precious symbol it was, he would have found
no inspiration to the spear and the sword. He would have received the
lesson of self-sacrifice as from the lips of the Saviour, and learned
that by no earthly weapon of battle can true victory be won. The pride
of conquest would have been rebuked, and the bawble sceptre have fallen
from his hands. _By this conquer_: by patience, suffering, forgiveness
of evil, by all those virtues of which the cross is the affecting
token, _conquer_, and the victory shall be greater than any in the
annals of Roman conquest; it may not yet find a place in the records of
man, but it will appear in the register of everlasting life.
The Christian Church, after the early centuries, failed to discern the
peculiar spiritual beauty of the faith it professed. Like Constantine,
it found new incentive to War in the religion of Peace; and such is its
character, even in our own day. The Pope of Rome, the asserted head of
the Church, Vicegerent of Christ upon earth, whose seal is a fisherman,
on whose banner is a Lamb before the Holy Cross, assumed the command
of armies, mingling the thunders of Battle with the thunders of the
Vatican. The dagger projecting from the sacred vestments of De Retz,
while still an archbishop, was justly derided by the Parisian crowd as
"the Archbishop's breviary." We read of mitred prelates in armor of
proof, and seem still to catch the clink of the golden spurs of bishops
in the streets of Cologne. The sword of knighthood was consecrated by
the Church, and priests were expert masters in military exercises. I
have seen at the gates of the Papal Palace in Rome a constant guard
of Swiss soldiers; I have seen, too, in our own streets, a show as
incongruous and inconsistent,--the pastor of a Christian church
swelling the pomp of a military parade. And some have heard, within a
few short weeks, in a Christian pulpit, from the lips of an eminent
Christian divine, a sermon, where we are encouraged to _serve the God
of Battles, and, as citizen soldiers, fight for Peace_:[56] a sentiment
in unhappy harmony with the profane language of the British peer, who,
in addressing the House of Lords, said, "_The best road to Peace,
my Lords, is War_, and that in the manner we are taught to worship
our Creator, namely, by carrying it on with all our souls, with all
our minds, with all our hearts, and with all our strength,"[57]--but
finding small support in a religion that expressly enjoins, when one
cheek is smitten, to turn the other, and which we hear with pain from
a minister of Christian truth,--alas! thus made inferior to that of the
heathen who _preferred the unjustest peace to the justest war_.[58]
[56] Discourse before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, by
A.H. Vinton.
[57] Earl of Abingdon, May 30, 1794: Hansard, Parl. Hist., XXXI. 680.
[58] "_Vel iniquissimam pacem justissimo bello anteferrem_" are the
words of Cicero. (Epist. A. Cæcinæ: Epp. ad Diversos, VI. 6.) Only
eight days after Franklin had placed his name to the treaty of peace
which acknowledged the independence of his country, he wrote to a
friend, "May we never see another war! for, in my opinion, there never
was a good war or a bad peace." (Letter to Josiah Quincy: Works, ed.
Sparks, Vol. X. p. 11.) It is with sincere regret that I seem, by a
particular allusion, to depart for a moment from so great a theme; but
the person and the theme here become united. I cannot refrain from
the effort to tear this iron branch of War from the golden tree of
Christian Truth, even though a voice come forth from the breaking bough.
Well may we marvel that now, in an age of civilization, the God of
Battles should be invoked. "_Deo imperante_, QUEM ADESSE BELLANTIBUS
CREDUNT," are the appropriate words of surprise in which Tacitus
describes a similar delusion of the ancient Germans.[59] The polite
Roman did not think God present with fighting men. This ancient
superstition must have lost something of its hold even in Germany;
for, at a recent period, her most renowned captain,--whose false glory
procured for him the title of Great,--Frederick of Prussia, declared,
with commendable frankness, that he always found the God of Battles on
the side of the strongest regiments; and when it was proposed to place
on his banner, soon to flout the sky of Silesia, the inscription, _For_
GOD _and Country_, he rejected the first word, declaring it not proper
to introduce the name of the Deity in the quarrels of men. By this
elevated sentiment the warrior monarch may be remembered, when his fame
of battle has passed away.
[59] De Moribus German., Cap. 7.
The French priest of Mars, who proclaimed the "divinity" of War,
rivals the ancient Germans in faith that God is the tutelary guardian
of battle, and he finds a new title, which he says "shines" on all the
pages of Scripture, being none other than _God of Armies_.[60] Never
was greater mistake. No theology, no theodicy, has ever attributed
to God this title. God is God of Heaven, God of Hosts, the Living
God, and he is God of Peace,--so called by St. Paul, saying, "Now
the God of Peace be with you all,"[61] and again, "The God of Peace
shall bruise Satan shortly,"[62]--but God of Armies he is not, as he
is not God of Battles.[63] The title, whether of Armies or of Hosts,
thus invoked for War, has an opposite import, even angelic,--the
armies named being simply, according to authorities Ecclesiastical
and Rabbinical, the hosts of angels standing about the throne. Who,
then, is God of Battles? It is Mars,--man-slaying, blood-polluted,
city-smiting Mars![64] It is not He who binds the sweet influences of
the Pleiades and looses the bands of Orion, who causes the sun to shine
on the evil and the good, who distils the oil of gladness upon every
upright heart, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,--the Fountain of
Mercy and Goodness, the God of Justice and Love. Mars is not the God
of Christians; he is not Our Father in Heaven; to him can ascend no
prayers of Christian thanksgiving, no words of Christian worship, no
pealing anthem to swell the note of praise.
[60] Joseph de Maistre, Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Tom. II. p. 27.
[61] Romans, xv. 33.
[62] Ibid., xvi. 20.
[63] A volume so common as Cruden's Concordance shows the audacity of
the martial claim.
[64] Iliad, V. 31.
And yet Christ and Mars are still brought into fellowship, even
interchanging pulpits. What a picture of contrasts! A national ship of
the line now floats in this harbor. Many of you have pressed its deck,
and observed with admiration the completeness which prevails in all
its parts,--its lithe masts and complex network of ropes,--its thick
wooden walls, within which are more than the soldiers of Ulysses,--its
strong defences, and its numerous dread and rude-throated engines of
War. There, each Sabbath, amidst this armament of blood, while the
wave comes gently plashing against the frowning sides, from a pulpit
supported by a cannon, in repose now, but ready to awake its dormant
thunder charged with death, a Christian preacher addresses officers and
crew. May his instructions carry strength and succor to their souls!
But, in such a place, those highest words of the Master he professes,
"Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "Resist not evil,"
must, like Macbeth's "Amen," stick in the throat.
It will not be doubted that this strange and unblessed conjunction of
the Church with War has no little influence in blinding the world to
the truth, too slowly recognized, that the whole custom of war _is
contrary to Christianity_.
Individual interests mingle with prevailing errors, and are so far
concerned in maintaining them that military men yield reluctantly
to this truth. Like lawyers, as described by Voltaire, they are
"conservators of ancient barbarous usages." But that these usages
should obtain countenance in the Church is one of those anomalies
which make us feel the weakness of our nature, if not the elevation
of Christian truth. To uphold the Arbitrament of War requires no more
than to uphold the Trial by Battle; for the two are identical, except
in proportion. One is a giant, the other a pygmy. Long ago the Church
condemned the pygmy, and this Christian judgment now awaits extension
to the giant. Meanwhile it is perpetual testimony; nor should it be
forgotten, that, for some time after the Apostles, when the message
of peace and good-will was first received, many yielded to it so
completely as to reject arms of all kinds. Such was the voice of
Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Tertullian, and Origen, while Augustine pleads
always for Peace. Gibbon coldly recounts, how Maximilian, a youthful
recruit from Africa, refused to serve, insisting that his conscience
would not permit him to embrace the profession of soldier, and then
how Marcellus the Centurion, on the day of a public festival, threw
away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of command, exclaiming with
a loud voice, that he would obey none but Jesus Christ, the Eternal
King.[65] Martyrdom ensued, and the Church has inscribed their names
on its everlasting rolls, thus forever commemorating their testimony.
These are early examples, not without successors. But Mars, so potent,
especially in Rome, was not easily dislodged, and down to this day
holds his place at Christian altars.
"Thee to defend the Moloch priest prefers
The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd,
That Deity, accomplice Deity,
In the fierce jealousy of wakened wrath,
Will go forth with our armies and our fleets
To scatter the red ruin on their foes!
O, blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds
With blessedness!"[66]
[65] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. XVI. Vol. I.
p. 680.
[66] Coleridge, Religious Musings, written Christmas Eve, 1794.
One of the beautiful pictures adorning the dome of a church in Home,
by that master of Art, whose immortal colors speak as with the voice
of a poet, the Divine Raphael, represents Mars in the attitude of War,
with a drawn sword uplifted and ready to strike, while an unarmed angel
from behind, with gentle, but irresistible force, arrests and holds the
descending hand. Such is the true image of Christian duty; nor can I
readily perceive any difference in principle between those ministers of
the Gospel who themselves gird on the sword, as in the olden time, and
those others, unarmed, and in customary suit of solemn black, who lend
the sanction of their presence to the martial array, or to any form of
preparation for War. The drummer, who pleaded that he did not fight,
was held more responsible for the battle than the soldier,--as it was
the sound of his drum that inflamed the flagging courage of the troops.
* * * * *
4. From prejudices engendered by the Church I pass to prejudices
engendered by the army itself, having their immediate origin in
military life, but unfortunately diffusing themselves throughout the
community, in widening, though less apparent circles. I allude directly
to what is called _the Point of Honor_, early child of Chivalry, living
representative of its barbarism.[67] It is difficult to define what
is so evanescent, so impalpable, so chimerical, so unreal, and yet
which exercises such fiendish power over many men, and controls the
intercourse of nations. As a little water, fallen into the crevice
of a rock, under the congelation of winter, swells till it bursts
the thick and stony fibres, so a word or slender act, dropping into
the heart of man, under the hardening influence of this pernicious
sentiment, dilates till it rends in pieces the sacred depository of
human affection, and the demons Hate and Strife are left to rage. The
musing Hamlet saw this sentiment in its strange and unnatural potency,
when his soul pictured to his contemplations an
"army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,...
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
_Even for an egg-shell_";
and when, again, giving to the sentiment its strongest and most popular
expression, he exclaims,--
"Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
_But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honor's at the stake_."
[67] The _Point of Honor_ has a literature of its own, illustrated by
many volumes, some idea of which may be obtained in Brunet, "Manuel du
Libraire," Tom. VI. col. 1636-1638, under the head of _Chevalerie au
Moyen Age, comprenant les Tournois, les Combats Singuliers_, etc. One
of these has a title much in advance of the age in which it appeared:
"Chrestienne Confutation du Point d'Honneur sur lequel la Noblesse
fonde aujourd'hui ses Querelles et Monomachies," par Christ. de
Chiffontaine, Paris, 1579.
And when is honor at stake? This inquiry opens again the argument with
which I commenced, and with which I hope to close. Honor can be at
stake only where justice and beneficence are at stake; it can never
depend on egg-shell or straw; it can never depend on any hasty word of
anger or folly, not even if followed by vulgar violence. True honor
appears in the dignity of the human soul, in that highest moral and
intellectual excellence which is the nearest approach to qualities we
reverence as attributes of God. Our community frowns with indignation
upon the profaneness of the duel, having its rise in this irrational
_point of_ _honor_. Are you aware that you indulge the same sentiment
on a gigantic scale, when you recognize this very point of honor as
a proper apology for War? We have already seen that justice is in no
respect promoted by War. Is True Honor promoted where justice is not?
The very word Honor, as used by the world, fails to express any
elevated sentiment. How immeasurably below the sentiment of Duty!
It is a word of easy virtue, that has been prostituted to the most
opposite characters and transactions. From the field of Pavia, where
France suffered one of the worst reverses in her annals, the defeated
king writes to his mother, "All is lost, except _honor_." At a later
day, the renowned French cook, Vatel, in a paroxysm of grief and
mortification at the failure of two dishes for the table, exclaims, "I
have lost my _honor_!" and stabs himself to the heart.[68] Montesquieu,
whose writings are constellations of epigrams, calls honor a prejudice
only, which he places in direct contrast with virtue,--the former being
the animating principle of monarchy, and the latter the animating
principle of a republic; but he reveals the inferiority of honor, as
a principle, when he adds, that, in a well-governed monarchy, almost
everybody is a good citizen, while it is rare to meet a really good
man.[69] The man of honor is not the man of virtue. By an instinct
pointing to the truth, we do not apply this term to the high columnar
qualities which sustain and decorate life,--parental affection,
justice, benevolence, the attributes of God. He would seem to borrow
a feebler phrase, showing a slight appreciation of the distinctive
character to whom reverence is accorded, who should speak of father,
mother, judge, angel, or finally of God, as _persons of honor_. In such
sacred connections, we feel, beyond the force of any argument, the
mundane character of the sentiment which plays such a part in history
and even in common life.
[68] The death of the culinary martyr is described by Madame de Sévigné
with the accustomed coldness and brilliancy of her fashionable pen
(Lettres L. and LI., Tom. I. pp. 164, 165). It was attributed, she
says, _to the high sense of honor he had after his own way_. Tributes
multiply. A French vaudeville associates his name with that of this
brilliant writer, saying, "Madame de Sévigné and Vatel are the people
who _honored_ the age of Louis XIV." The _Almanach des Gourmands_,
in the Epistle Dedicatory of its concluding volume, addresses the
venerable shade of the heroic cook: "You have proved that the
_fanaticism of honor_ can exist in the kitchen as well as the camp."
Berchoux commemorates the dying exclamation in _La Gastronomie_, Chant
III.:--
"_Je suis perdu d'honneur_, deux rôtis ont manqué."
[69] Esprit des Lois, Liv. III. ch. 3-7.
The rule of honor is founded in the imagined necessity of resenting by
force a supposed injury, whether of word or act.[70] Admit the injury
received, seeming to sully the character; is it wiped away by any
force, and descent to the brutal level of its author? "Could I wipe
your blood from my conscience as easily as this insult from my face,"
said a Marshal of France, greater on this occasion than on any field of
fame, "I would lay you dead at my feet." Plato, reporting the angelic
wisdom of Socrates, declares, in one of those beautiful dialogues
shining with stellar light across the ages, that _to do a wrong is
more shameful than to receive a wrong_.[71] And this benign sentiment
commends itself alike to the Christian, who is bid to render good for
evil, and to the enlightened soul of man. But who confessing its truth
will resort to force on any point of _honor_?
[70] This is well exposed in a comedy of Molière.
"_Don Pedre._ Souhaitez-vous quelque chose de moi?
"_Hali._ Oui, un conseil sur _un fait d'honneur_. Je sais qu'en ces
matières il est mal-aisé de trouver un cavalier plus consommé que
vous....
"Seigneur, _j'ai reçu un soufflet_. Vous savez ce qu'est un soufflet,
lorsqu'il se donne à main ouverte sur le beau milieu de la joue. _J'ai
ce soufflet fort sur le coeur; et je suis dans l'incertitude, si,
pour me venger de l'affront, je dois me battre avec mon homme, ou bien
le faire assassiner._
"_Don Pedre._ Assassiner, c'est le plus sûr et le plus court chemin."
_Le Sicilien_, Sc. XIII.
[71] This proposition is enforced by Socrates, with unanswerable
reasoning and illustration, throughout the _Gorgias_, which Cicero read
diligently while studying at Athens (De Oratore, I. 11).
In ancient Athens, as in unchristianized Christian lands, there were
sophists who urged that _to suffer_ was unbecoming a man, and would
draw down incalculable evil. The following passage, which I translate
with scrupulous literalness, will show the manner in which the moral
cowardice of these persons of little faith was rebuked by him whom the
gods of Greece pronounced Wisest of Men.
"These things being so, let us inquire what it is you reproach me
with: whether it is well said, or not, that I, forsooth, am not able
to assist either myself or any of my friends or my relations, or to
save myself from the greatest dangers, but that, like the infamous, I
am at the mercy of any one who may choose to smite me on the face (for
this was your juvenile expression), or take away my property, or drive
me out of the city, or (the extreme case) kill me, and that to be so
situated is, as you say, the most shameful of all things. But my view
is,--a view many times expressed already, but there is no objection
to its being stated again,--_my view, I say, is, O Callicles, that to
be struck on the face unjustly is not most shameful, nor to have my
body mutilated, nor my purse cut; but that to strike and cut me and
mine unjustly is more shameful and worse--and stealing, too,_ _and
enslaving, and housebreaking, and, in general, doing any wrong whatever
to me and mine, is more shameful and worse--for him who does the wrong
than for me who suffer it_. These things, which thus appeared to us in
the former part of this discussion, are secured and bound (even if the
expression be somewhat rustical) with iron and adamantine arguments, as
indeed they would seem to be; and unless you, or some one stronger than
you, can break them, it is impossible for any one, saying otherwise
than as I now say, to speak correctly: since, for my part, _I always
have the same thing to say,--that I know not how these things are, but
that, of all whom I have ever discoursed with as now, no one is able to
say otherwise without being ridiculous_."[72]
[72] Gorgias, Cap. LXIV.
Such is the wisdom of Socrates, as reported by Plato; and it has
found beautiful expression in the verse of an English poet, who
says,--
"Dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above
all price, _I had much rather be myself the slave And wear the
bonds than fasten them on him_."[73]
[73] Cowper, The Task, Book II. vv. 33-36.
The modern _point of honor_ did not obtain a place in warlike
antiquity. Themistocles at Salamis, when threatened with a blow, did
not send a cartel to the Spartan commander. "Strike, but hear," was the
response of that firm nature, which felt that true honor is gained only
in the performance of duty. It was in the depths of modern barbarism,
in the age of chivalry, that this sentiment shot up into wildest and
rankest fancies. Not a step was taken without it. No act without
reference to the "bewitching duel." And every stage in the combat, from
the ceremonial at its beginning to its deadly close, was measured
by this fantastic law. Nobody forgets _As You Like It_, with its
humorous picture of a quarrel in progress to a duel, through the seven
degrees of Touchstone. Nothing more ridiculous, as nothing can be more
disgusting, than the degradation in which this whole fantasy of honor
had its origin, as fully appears from an authentic incident in the life
of its most brilliant representative. The Chevalier Bayard, cynosure
of chivalry, the good knight without fear and without reproach,
battling with the Spaniard Señor Don Alonso de Soto Mayor, succeeded
by a feint in striking him such a blow, that the weapon, despite the
gorget, penetrated the throat four fingers deep. The wounded Spaniard
grappled with his antagonist until they both rolled on the ground, when
Bayard, drawing his dagger, and thrusting the point directly into the
nostrils of his foe, exclaimed, "Señor Don Alonso, surrender, or you
are a dead man!"--a speech which appeared superfluous, as the second
of the Spaniard cried out, "Señor Bayard, he is dead already; you
have conquered." The French knight "would gladly have given a hundred
thousand crowns, if he had had them, to have vanquished him alive,"
says the Chronicle; but now falling upon his knees, he kissed the
earth three times, then rose and drew his dead enemy from the field,
saying to the second, "Señor Don Diego, have I done enough?" To which
the other piteously replied, "Too much, Señor Bayard, for the _honor_
of Spain!" when the latter very generously presented him with the
corpse, it being his right, by the Law of Honor, to dispose of it as
he thought proper: an act highly commended by the chivalrous Brantôme,
who thinks it difficult to say which did most _honor_ to the faultless
knight,--not dragging the dead body by a leg ignominiously from the
field, like the carcass of a dog, or condescending to fight while
suffering under an ague![74]
[74] La Tresjoyeuse, Plaisante et Recreative Hystoire, composée par
le Loyal Serviteur, des Faiz, Gestes, Triumphes et Prouesses du Bon
Chevalier sans Paour et sans Reprouche, le Gentil Seigneur de Bayart,
Chap. XXII.: Petitot, Collection Complète des Mémoires relatifs à
l'Histoire de France, Tom. XV. pp. 238-244. Brantôme, Discours sur les
Duels: OEuvres, Tom. VIII. pp. 34, 35.
In such a transaction, conferring honor upon the brightest son of
chivalry, we learn the real character of an age whose departure has
been lamented with such touching, but inappropriate eloquence. Thank
God! the age of chivalry is gone; but it cannot be allowed to prolong
its fanaticism of honor into our day. This must remain with the lances,
swords, and daggers by which it was guarded, or appear, if it insists,
only with its inseparable American companions, bowie-knife, pistol, and
rifle.