If men will shoot and kill each other, or if they will hack and hew one another to pieces, they cannot be christians, nor can their employers be christians. Christianity inculcates the very reverse. What custom of the most barbarous nations is more repugnant to the feelings of piety, humanity, and justice, than that of deciding controversies between nations by the edge of the sword, by powder and ball, or the point of the bayonet? What other savage custom has occasioned half the desolation and misery to the human race? And what but the grossest infatuation, could render such a custom popular among rational beings?
A war between two nations is generally produced by a small number of ambitious, unthinking, or unprincipled individuals; while the great majority of the nation have no voice in the measure. The more people are enlightened, the greater is their aversion to war.
Duelling is a horrible custom, but war is much more horrible, as it is more desolating and ruinous. War is a species of national duelling, attended by this dishonourable circumstance, that those who give and accept the challenge, call together a multitude of seconds, to whom they pay money to do their business, having not the magnanimity to risk their own lives, bnt involve their seconds in a bloody contest, while they stand remote from danger, as spectators, or directors of the awful combat; or, probably, after issuing their bloody mandate, they indulge in their accustomed pleasures, totally regardless of the sufferings of others.
War does not decide the justice of any question. It only determines which party is the most ferocious and savage. Virtuous but weak nations, have been
