To this last lecture of the present courseit seems to me desirable thatI should briefly notice some assertions or suggestionsnot uncommonly heardin the present daythat the great evils of war might be abated by the adoptionof principles of action not necessarily identical with those which have beendiscussed in previous lecturesI pass over general statements which seemto me to be mere calumniessuch as the charge against influential militarymenthat in every society they do their utmost to encourage the spirit ofbelligerencyThose who have had the privilege of acquaintance with famoussoldiers will bear me out in saying thatwhile there is no class of menmore humanethere is none distinguished by a deeper dislike or hatred ofwarhowever they may believe it to be inevitableBut another assertionfrequently made is much more respectableand contains a larger proportionof truthWarit is saidis irreconcilable with Christian belief and ChristianpracticeIf men acted up to the standards of conduct which great numbersof them theoretically acceptthere would be few wars or noneThis has longbeen the doctrine of a sect whose various services to humanity I have alreadygratefully commemorated -the Quakersand also of an obscurer community,the MennonitesIt will be evidentI thinkto everybody who bestows somecareful thought on the subjectthat there would be great difficulty in adaptinga system which professes to regulate the relations of individual men withone anotherto the relations of groups of menof statesand in point offact the Quakers have not always been quite consistent in the applicationof their principleThe Quakers of the colony of Pennsylvania were in theAmerican War of Independence strong partisans of the colonial causeandBenjamin Franklin has left us some curious stories of the fictions by whichthe Pennsylvanian Quakers reconciled their conscientious objections to warwith their keen desire to assist the colonial troopsBut it is proper toobserve that this opinion of the unlawfulness of war hasin the course ofecclesiastical historyseemed several times likely to become the opinionof the whole Christian Churchor of a large portion of itWe have mostof us been taught to believeon the authority of a well-known passage inTertullianthat the Roman Imperial armies were full of Christian soldiers;but the passage is inconsistent with others in the same writerand I haveseen a long catena of extracts from patristic authoritiesextending fromJustin Martyr to Jerome and Cyrilin which the inconsistency of the militaryprofession with Christian belief is maintainedIn factthis became oneof the main points of contention between Christians and pagansThe contentionof Celsusthat the Christians refuse to bear arms even in cases of necessity,is met by Origen with the admission that the fact is sobut with the argumentthat the Christians do not go on campaigns with the Emperor because theyserve him with their prayersIf these opinions did not become those of thewhole Churchthe cause must probably be sought in the course of historicaleventsfor the invading Teutonic tribes who spread over the Empire couldnot be untaught the art and practice of fightingeven when they acceptedsome form of ChristianityPassing over a long space of time to the beginningof the modern history of Christianityit seemed not improbable that theunlawfulness of war would become a doctrine of all the Protestant sects;among theologians not quite estranged from Catholicitythe great Erasmuswrote as strongly of the wickedness of war as any Quaker of our day coulddoand Sir Thomas More charged Luther and his followers with wishing todeprive sovereigns of their authority by denying to them the power of resistance.
On the other handthe writers dealt with in the foregoing lecturesthefounders of International Lawdid not adopt the opinion of the Lawfulnessof warthough they were nearly all ProtestantsGrotius argues vehementlyagainst itchiefly on Scriptural groundsI take the fact to be that heand his immediate followers conceived the body of rules which they believedthemselves to have rescued from neglect to be more serviceable for the purposeof regulating the concerns of nations in war and peacethan any system whichpretended to a direct descent from Christian records or Christian tradition.
The Law of Nature which they spoke ofand apparently believed inwith aslittle hesitation as if they were thinking of the English Common Lawhasnot stood against the assaults of modern criticismand specially not againstthe inferences suggested by the modern study of primitive mankindBut itdid prove possible to apply the rules associated with it to human societiesin peace and warwhereasthough a general belief that war Divas unrighteouswould assuredly have had important effectsnobody can say confidently whatthose effects would have beenor can assert that they would have includedthe extension and stability of peace.
