The injunction, "In time of Peace prepare for War," is of Heathen origin.[316] As a rule of international conduct, it is very questionable in a Christian age, being vindicated on two grounds only: first, by assuming that the Arbitrament of War is the proper tribunal for international controversies, and therefore the War System is to be maintained and strengthened, as the essential means of international justice; or, secondly, by assuming the rejected dogma of an Atheist philosopher, Hobbes, that War is the natural state of man. Whatever may be the infirmities of our passions, it is plain that the natural state of man, assuring the highest happiness, and to which he tends by an irresistible heavenly attraction, is Peace. This is true of communities and nations, as of individuals. The proper rule is, In time of Peace cultivate the arts of Peace. So doing, you will render the country truly strong and truly great; not by arousing the passions of War, not by nursing men to the business of blood, not by converting the land into a flaming arsenal, a magazine of gunpowder, or an "infernal machine," just ready to explode, but by dedicating its whole energies to productive and beneficent works.
The incongruity of this system may be illustrated by an example. Look into the life of that illustrious philosopher, John Locke, and you will find, that, in the journal of his tour through France, describing the arches of the amphitheatre at Nismes, he says, "In all those arches, to support the walls over the passage where you go round, there is a stone laid, about twenty inches or two feet square, and about six times the length of my sword, which was near about a philosophical yard long."[317] Who is not struck with the unseemly incongruity of the exhibition, as he sees the author of the "Essay concerning Human Understanding" travelling with a sword by his side? But here the philosopher only followed the barbarous custom of his time. Individuals then lived in the same relations towards each other which now characterize nations. The War System had not yet entirely retreated from Municipal Law and Custom, to find its last citadel and temple in the Law and Custom of Nations. Do not forget, that, at the present moment, our own country, the great author, among the nations, of a new Essay concerning Human Understanding, not only travels with a sword by the side, like John Locke, but lives encased in complete armor, burdensome to limbs and costly to treasury.
Condemning the War System as barbarous and most wasteful, the token and relic of a society alien to Christian civilization, we except the Navy, so far as necessary in arrest of pirates, of traffickers in human flesh, and generally in preserving the police of the sea. But it is difficult for the unprejudiced mind to regard the array of fortifications and of standing armies otherwise than obnoxious to the condemnation aroused by the War System. Fortifications are instruments, and standing armies are hired champions, in the great Duel of Nations.
Here I quit this part of the subject. Sufficient has been said to expose the War System of the Commonwealth of Nations. It stands before us, a colossal image of International Justice, with the sword, but without the scales,—like a hideous Mexican idol, besmeared with human blood, and surrounded by the sickening stench of human sacrifice. But this image, which seems to span the continents, while it rears aloft its flashing form of brass and gold, hiding far in the clouds "the round and top of sovereignty," can be laid low; for its feet are clay.
II.
I come now to the means by which the War System can be overthrown. Here I shall unfold the tendencies and examples of nations, and the sacred efforts of individuals, constituting the Peace Movement, now ready to triumph,—with practical suggestions on our duties to this cause, and a concluding glance at the barbarism of Military Glory. In this review I cannot avoid details incident to a fruitfulness of topics; but I shall try to introduce nothing not bearing directly on the subject.
Civilization now writhes in travail and torment, and asks for liberation from oppressive sway. Like the slave under a weary weight of chains, it raises its exhausted arms, and pleads for the angel Deliverer. And, lo! the beneficent angel comes,—not like the Grecian God of Day, with vengeful arrows to slay the destructive Python,—not like the Archangel Michael, with potent spear to transfix Satan,—but with words of gentleness and cheer, saying to all nations, and to all children of men, "Ye are all brothers, of one flesh, one fold, one shepherd, children of one Father, heirs to one happiness. By your own energies, through united fraternal endeavor, will the tyranny of War be overthrown, and its Juggernaut in turn be crushed to earth."