"War is always murder. The coldest, bloodiest, most terrible murder. Murder of the soul as well as the body."
"Oh no, Father, no, that isn't so!" cried out the boy. "Think of the men who have engaged in war! Think of Washington—his soul was not killed by war. This is a thing that must be done. It is a duty. We must fight for the Union—liberty—freedom—for our own homes and firesides."
"This issue need not have been met by war. It would not have been if war-crazy hot-heads had not forced it upon us. There is a better way for countries and nations to settle their difficulties than by war. Sometime men will come to realize its brutality and nations will combine to adjust their controversies by reason, not might."
"I don't believe that such a time will ever come. But if it does it is not here now. This issue is upon us. What are we going to do?—sit passive and let the South secede and break up the Union? Why, even Jesus did not suffer evil passively. He drove the money-changers from the Temple. And He Himself said 'Think not that I come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.'"
"But the 'sword' that the Master speaks of in that passage of Scripture is not the literal sword, the sword used in war, but the sharp sword of conscience. Better that the Union be dissolved than that the hands of men should be stained with the blood of their brethren."
"Oh, Father," cried Joe, "how can you say so! Do you care nothing for the preservation of your country?"
Joshua Peniman flinched, and a hot flush passed over his face.
"God knows that I love my country as well as any man," he answered sadly. "But dearly as I love my country I love my God, my religion and the commands that He has given more."
"But remember what the Lord said to His disciples, in the twenty-second chapter of St. Luke: 'But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.' The time has come, Father, when it is our duty to go to war, when the man who tries to escape that duty is dishonoring his God as well as his country. The time has come, when, as Jesus told His disciples, 'He that hath no sword should sell his very garment and buy one' and go forth to battle for the right."
Joshua Peniman gazed into the face of his son with sorrowful eyes. "Thee knows thy Scripture, Joe," he said in an unsteady voice. "I have striven mightily for thee. I thought I had brought thee up in the faith of our fathers——"