3. There is a topic which I approach with diffidence, but in the 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]
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.
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.
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,