There are other hypocrites than those of the pulpit Dr. Gatling, the
ingenious scoundrel who invented the gun that bears his name with
commendable fortitude, says he has given much thought to the task of
bringing the forces of war to such perfection that war will be no more.
Commonly the man who talks of war becoming so destructive as to be
impossible is only a harmless lunatic, but this fellow utters his cant
to conceal his cupidity. If he thought there was any danger of the
nations beating their swords into plowshares we should see him "take the
stump" against agriculture forthwith. The same is true of all military
inventors. They are lions' parasites; themselves, of cold blood they
fatten upon hot. The sheep-tick's paler fare is not at all to their
taste.
I sometimes wish I were a preacher: preachers do so blindly ignore their
shining opportunities. I am indifferently versed in theology--whereof,
so help me Heaven, I do not believe one word--but know something of
religion. I know, for example, that Jesus Christ was no soldier; that
war has two essential features which did not command His approval:
aggression and defence. No man can either attack or defend and remain
Christian; and if no man, no nation. I could quote texts by the hour
proving that Christ taught not only absolute abstention from violence
but absolute non-resistance. Now what do we see? Nearly all the
so-called Christian nations of the world sweating and groaning under
their burdens of debt contracted in violation of these injunctions which
they believe divine--contracted in perfecting their means of offense
and defense. "We must have the best," they cry; and if armor plates
for ships were better when alloyed with silver, and guns if banded with
gold, such armor plates would be put upon the ships, such guns would be
freely made. No sooner does one nation adopt some rascal's costly device
for taking life or protecting it from the taker (and these soulless
inventors will as readily sell the product of their malign ingenuity to
one nation as to another) than all the rest either possess themselves
of it or adopt something superior and more expensive; and so all pay the
penalty for the sins of each. A hundred million dollars is a moderate
estimate of what it has cost the world to abstain from strangling the
infant Gatling in his cradle.
You may say, if you will, that primitive Christianity--the Christianity
of Christ--is not adapted to these rough-and-tumble times; that it is
not a practical scheme of conduct. As you please; I have not undertaken
to say what it is not, but what it partly is. I am no Christian, though
I think that Christ probably knew what was good for man about as well
as Dr. Gatling or the United States Ordnance Office. It is not for me to
defend Christianity; Christ did not. Nevertheless, I can not forbear the
wish that I were a preacher, in order sincerely to affirm that the awful
burdens borne by modern nations are obvious judgments of Heaven for
disobedience to the Prince of Peace. What a striking theme to kindle
fires upon the heights of imagination--to fill the secret sources of
eloquence--to stir the very stones in the temple of truth! What a
noble subject for the pious gentlemen who serve (with rank, pay and
allowances) as chaplains in the Army and the Navy, or the civilian
divines who offer prayer at the launching of an ironclad!