Have you ever seriously considered the evil and sorrow of war? how it destroys the lives of multitudes, and makes bitter mourning in families and nations? You are sorry when you see a friend suffering pain, or a lame man with a broken bone, or even a child with a cut finger. But after a battle, what gashes and gaping wounds are seen, while the ground is red with the flowing blood, and the dying in their agony are trampled under the feet of horses, or covered with heaps of dead bodies.
Think too of the poverty and distress that come upon many families, who have lost the friend whose labour provided them with bread, upon the mourning of gray-headed parents from whose feeble limbs the prop is taken away; upon the anguish of wives for their slaughtered husbands; and the weeping of children, because their dear fathers must return to them no more.
All these evils, and many which there is not room to mention, come from a single battle. But in one war there are often many battles. Towns are sometimes burned, and the aged and helpless destroyed. The mother and her innocent babes perish in the flames of their own beloved homes.
It is very sad to think of the cruelty and bad passions which war produces. Men, who have no cause to dislike each other, meet as deadly foes. They raise weapons of destruction, and exult to hear the groans of death. Rulers who make war, should remember the suffering and sin which it occasions, and how much more noble it is to save life than to destroy it.
Howard visited the prisons of Europe, and relieved the miseries of those who had no helper, and died with their blessings on his head. Bonaparte caused multitudes to be slain, and multitudes to mourn, and died like a chained lion upon a desolate island. Is not the fame of Howard better than that of Bonaparte?
The religious sect of Friends, or Quakers, as they are sometimes called, never go to war. The beautiful State of Pennsylvania was originally settled by them. William Penn, its founder, would not permit any discord with the Indians, its original inhabitants. He obtained the land of them by fair purchase, and set the example of treating them with justice and courtesy.
In most of the other colonies there had been fearful wars with the savages. In ambush and massacre, the blood of the new-comers had been shed; and they had retaliated on the sons of the forest with terrible vengeance. Older States looked upon this proffer of peace as a dangerous experiment. They said, "These Quakers have put their heads under the tomahawk." But on the contrary, no drop of their blood was ever shed by the Indians in Pennsylvania. They gathered around William Penn with reverence and love. Rude warriors as they were, they admired his peaceful spirit. He explained his views to them with cordiality, and they listened to his words.
"We will not fight with you," he said, "nor shed your blood. If a quarrel arise, six of our people and six of your own, shall meet together and judge what is right, and settle the matter accordingly."
Subdued by his spirit of kindness and truth, they promised to live in peace with him and his posterity "so long as the sun and moon shall endure."
On his return to England, among the friends who gathered around the ship to bid him farewell, were groups of Indians with mournful brows, the women holding up their little ones, that they might have one more sight of the great and good man, whom they called their Father. Was not this more acceptable to Heaven than the din of strife, and the false glory of the conqueror?