Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

No. IX.

JUNE, 183 6.

ARTICLE I.

REMARKS ON OCCASION OF COMMENCING A
SECOND VOLUME.

BY THE EDITOR.

It is now two years since the first number of this work was issued from the press. The eighth, and last number, completed the first volume, and with the present number the second volume begins.

The origin of the work, as well as of others devoted to the same express object, may be attributed to an increasing tendency in the spirit of the age towards a pacific policy. General measures having for their avowed purpose the promotion of peace, are a phenomenon peculiar to modern times. Antiquity knew nothing of the kind. The current of affairs ran strongly adverse to the cultivation of justice and good will between nations.

Amid the elements of violence on which the earliest monarchies were founded, where whole nations were conquered, and transplanted entire, to minister to the pride of the conqueror, and he a despot at whose nod enslaved millions bowed, VOL. II. No. 9.

1

Peace if she could have spoken, would never have been heard. The colossal piles of Egypt, Nineveh, and Babylon, show the desire of physical aggrandizement to have been the reigning passion of the age. In the later, but not less gigantic empire of Macedon, efforts in behalf of peace, would have been a phenomenon more remarkable than the tears of him who wept that the limits of the known world, were the limits of victory and conquest.

And what shall we say of the polished states of Greece; where stranger and enemy were synonymous, and all moral obligation, between nations, regarded as consisting in compact? The Greeks, though unacquainted with the diffusion of knowledge through the press, yet, posessed in the public assemblies of the people, and in the schools of the philosophers, something like a substitute. But in these assemblies, where historians and poets recited and were crowned, where heroes and their achievments were extolled, was there ever a voice heard descanting on the virtues of peace, and inviting the people to cultivate her gentle, yet powerful arts? Where in all Greece, when the genius of her people poured forth its brightest splendours, were topics like these, ever illumined and adorned by their light? Not even in the groves of the Academy, nor in the porticos of Athens, amid all the high discourse of the Grecian sages, were the moral duties of nations to each other, ever made the express theme. If we may mention the public monuments and pictures of a people as any index to the general taste, among the ornaments which adorned the Pacile, one of the chief places of public resort in Athens, was a picture of captive Trojan women, and among them the figure of Cassandra bound, designed it would seem, to perpetuate the memory of military triumph over female helplessness, and purity!

With the Romans, virtue, in its primitive sense, signified heroic qualities, and the terms which denoted man (vir), and physical force (vis), were of kindred origin. Peace (pax)*

* Derived from the verb pango, to make an agreement.

denoted compact, as if the obligation of nations to remain at peace, rested on no higher ground than mere agreement. But the character of the Roman people is not left to be ascertained by doubtful etymologies. History abundantly attests that war was the general business of the state, and peace the interval of leisure; war the general rule, and peace the exception. In a nation like this, which carried its arms wherever its name had been able to penetrate, so that whatever people had heard of their terrour, also felt their power, it was vain to talk of peace.

The Hebrew nation were invested with a divine commission to subdue, or to exterminate the gentile nations, as a necessary means, in the order of Providence, for establishing and preserving themselves; a seed in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. The heathen raged, and the Lord of Hosts himself led on the battle against them, that the things which they imagined against his people, might be rendered vain. There seemed to be nothing in the whole compass of the moral agencies known to antiquity, which could tame the fierce spirit of the nations.

With the Christian religion, as it were a new element descended on the earth, destined, to blend with the other elements of society, and to mould them at its will. Then it began to be proved that moral causes are stronger than material force. The iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, began to be broken in pieces; and the process will continue, until they become as the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and the wind shall carry them away. With the introduction of the Christian religion, the selfish principle,

on

which all social institutions were based, began to yield. The pride of the Jew was humbled with the dust, and his boasting rendered vain. He was distinctly taught that God, who had made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell on the face of the whole earth, was no respecter of persons. In the light of Christianity, the polished Greek, and the rude barbarian, stood on equal ground; and the imperial majesty which seemed inherent in the idea of a Roman citizen, vanished.

Jew or Gentile, Greek or barbarian, citizen or alien, bond or free, it mattered not, all were equally subjects of the divine regard, all equally susceptible of moral obligation, and all equally bound to the duties of Christian love and charity towards each other. The principles of self denial too, and of self sacrifice, were substituted for that of self indulgence, and man taught to look not on his own things only, but also on the things of others. All other rules of action were to be discarded, and Christian love to be the predominating principle of human intercourse. In the light of Christianity, man saw the dignity of his nature, and in learning to respect himself, learned also to respect others. The light of mere knowledge could civilize and elevate, to some extent, a favoured few; with the Christian religion, arose a universal light, shining alike on the high and the low, on the evil and the good.

The effects of Christianity on social institutions, wherever it has operated, have been just what its elementary principles would lead us to anticipate. Christianity has been the great civilizer of the nations. The sun lightens not a spot on the face of the entire globe, where civilization exists without Christianity. Other causes have, indeed operated, but Christianity seems to have been that leading cause, that main agency without which all the others would have been fruitless. It has meliorated the social relations of mankind as members of families and of nations; elevating woman from the slave of man, to be his companion, rendering man a better husband, father, and brother, woman a better wife, sister, and mother, making better neighbours, and better citizens,--and infusing into the laws of states principles of humanity and justice, unknown before. But it has not stopped here. Beginning where all charity begins, it has extended the circle of its influence to the remoter relations which exist between men as members of different nations. This influence has hitherto been, in the main, an indirect and silent influence, but it is no longer so. Within the last twenty-five years, a course of systematic and specific action has arisen, in England, France, Switzerland, and America, having for its express object the

melioration of international relations. A cause of a novel and before unheard of character, has appeared, designated, and beginning to be generally known, as the cause of peace. The very existence of this cause seems to us an omen of its success. We believe it to be not only in conformity with the tendencies of the age, but a natural result of causes which, under the predominating influence of Christianity, have long been in operation. If such be the fact-if the cause of peace be a result of the influence mainly of the Christian religion, and now assuming a distinct shape only to operate with greater power, it will certainly prevail. Encumbered, and embarrassed it may be; it cannot be extinguished. There is within it a celestial vigour which will work it free, impel it onward with a constantly accelerated force, until at length its triumph shall be complete. The position occupied by the advocates of the cause of peace is, therefore, one of confidence.

It is also one of high moral elevation.--If we regard the magnitude of the object to be accomplished, we cannot fail to perceive the grandeur of the enterprize. It has been estimated, that within the last four thousand years, seven times the number of the present population of the globe (900 millions) have been destroyed by war. Add to this destruction of life, the wretchedness occasioned to the survivors, the capital and property of different kinds annihilated; then look at the moral aspects of the subject; and following out each of these particulars into the details, you will be able to form some notion of the magnitude of the object to be accomplished by abolishing We would by no means depreciate other benevolent enterprises, but what enterprise, with reference to the magnitude of the result contemplated, can be compared to this? If the African slave trade be an object to excite the abhorence of the civilized world, what shall we say of a custom by which, not the liberties of a single people, in a single quarter of the globe, and that for the space of a few hundred years, have been invaded, but by which millions of lives, in all nations, in all quarters of the globe, and in all ages of the world, have miserably

war.

« ZurückWeiter »