Confessing the Fatherhood of God, and the consequent Brotherhood of Man, we find a divine standard of unquestionable accuracy. No brother can win "glory" from the death of a brother. Cain won no "glory," when he slew Abel; nor would Abel have won "glory," had he, in strictest self-defence, succeeded in slaying the wicked Cain. The soul recoils from praise or honor, as the meed of any such melancholy triumph. And what is true of a conflict between two brothers is equally true of a conflict between many. How can an army win "glory" by dealing death or defeat to an army of its brothers?
The ancient Romans, not knowing this comprehensive relation, and recognizing only the exclusive fellowship of a common country, accounted civil war fratricidal, whose opposing forces, even under well-loved names of the Republic, were impious; and then, by unerring logic, these masters in War constantly refused "honor," "thanksgiving," or "triumph," to the conquering chief whose sword had been employed against fellow-citizens, though traitors and rebels. As the Brotherhood of Man is practically recognized, it becomes impossible to restrict the feeling within any exclusive circle of country, and to set up an unchristian distinction of honor between civil war and international war. As all men are brothers, so, by irresistible consequence, ALL WAR MUST BE FRATRICIDAL. And can "glory" come from fratricide? None can hesitate in answer, unless fatally imbued with the Heathen rage of nationality, that made the Venetians declare themselves Venetians first and Christians afterwards.
Tell me not of homage yet offered to the military chieftain. Tell me not of "glory" from War. Tell me not of "honor" or "fame" on its murderous fields. All is vanity. It is a blood-red phantom. They who strive after it, Ixion-like, embrace a cloud. Though seeming to fill the heavens, cloaking the stars, it must, like the vapors of earth, pass away. Milton likens the contests of the Heptarchy to "the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air."[365] But God, and the exalted judgment of the Future, must regard all our bloody feuds in the same likeness,—finding Napoleon and Alexander, so far as engaged in War, only monster crows and kites. Thus must it be, as mankind ascend from the thrall of brutish passion. Nobler aims, by nobler means, will fill the soul. There will be a new standard of excellence; and honor, divorced from blood, will become the inseparable attendant of good works alone. Far better, then, even in the judgment of this world, to have been a doorkeeper in the house of Peace than the proudest dweller in the tents of War.
There is a pious legend of the early Church, that the Saviour left his image miraculously impressed upon a napkin which had touched his countenance. The napkin was lost, and men attempted to supply the divine lineaments from the Heathen models of Jupiter and Apollo. But the true image of Christ is not lost. Clearer than in the venerated napkin, better than in color or marble of choicest art, it appears in each virtuous deed, in every act of self-sacrifice, in all magnanimous toil, in any recognition of Human Brotherhood. It will be supremely manifest, in unimagined loveliness and serenity, when the Commonwealth of Nations, confessing the True Grandeur of Peace, renounces the War System, and dedicates to Beneficence the comprehensive energies so fatally absorbed in its support. Then, at last, will it be seen, there can be no Peace that is not honorable, and no War that is not dishonorable.
[1] The classical student will be gratified and surprised by the remains of antiquity described by Dr. Shaw, English chaplain at Algiers in the reign of George the First, in his "Travels, or Observations relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant," published in 1738.
[2] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. LI. Vol. IX. p. 465.
[3] Jefferson, without recognizing the general parallel, alludes to Virginia as fast sinking to be "the Barbary of the Union."—Memoir, Correspondence, etc., ed. T.J. Randolph, Vol. IV. pp. 333, 334.
[4] Sismondi, Literature of the South of Europe, Chap. XXIX. Vol. III. p. 402.
[5] The exact amount in our money is left uncertain both by Smollett and Roscoe, in their lives of Cervantes. It appears that it was five hundred gold crowns of Spain, which, according to his Spanish biographer, Navarrete, is equal to 6,770 reals, in the currency of the present day. (Vida de Cervantes, p. 371). The real is reckoned at ten cents.