there may have been left in the community to speak out, send these fanatics back to their native inanity, and let it be known, that, though for a time we have suffered ourselves to be made fools of, after all, we are not quite so stupid, so vain or conceited, as to imagine that nobody understood or practised the moral virtues till our modern associations burst from darkness to teach them; that we really have not sunk so low as to lose all respect for our ancestors, all reverence for the awful past, over which has flowed the tide of human joy and human sorrow, and to be wholly unable to serve our own generation without calumniating those which have placed us in the world and made us what we are. He is a foolish as well as a wicked son who curses the mother that bore him. There has been, from the first, a Providence that has watched over and ruled in the affairs of men; our distant forefathers had eyes, ears, hands, intellects, hearts, as well as we, and knew how to use them, and did use them, not always ineffectually. How, indeed, would the hoary Past, were it not that experience has made it wise and taught it to make allowances for the follies and pranks of youth, laugh at our solemn airs and grave decisions! How should we hang our heads and blush, even to the tips of our ears, could we but for one moment see ourselves as it sees us! "The son," says the proverb, "thinks his father a fool; the father knows his son to be one." The more we study what has been, the less disposed shall we be to exult in what is. Happily, we begin to discover some symptoms that there are those among us, who have, now and then, at least, a suspicion that change is not always progress, and that it is more creditable to be able to revere wisdom than to contemn it.

War, against which nearly all our modern fanatics declaim so much, and which in the new moral code is utterly prohibited, is, of course, not a thing to be sought for its own sake. Its necessity must always be lamented, as we must always lament that there are crimes to be redressed, or criminals to be punished, or diseases to be cured. But because we must always lament that there are offenders to be punished, it does not follow that to punish them is never necessary, or that their punishment is an evil, and morally wrong; or because it is to be regretted that there are diseases, that we must treat the physician and his drugs as a nuisance. The father weeps that he has occasion to chastise his child, but knows that "to spare the rod is to spoil the child"; nor does it necessarily follow, because war involves terrible evils, and is to be avoided when

there may have been left in the community to speak out, send these fanatics back to their native inanity, and let it be known, that, though for a time we have suffered ourselves to be made fools of, after all, we are not quite so stupid, so vain or conceited, as to imagine that nobody understood or practised the moral virtues till our modern associations burst from darkness to teach them; that we really have not sunk so low as to lose all respect for our ancestors, all reverence for the awful past, over which has flowed the tide of human joy and human sorrow, and to be wholly unable to serve our own generation without calumniating those which have placed us in the world and made us what we are. He is a foolish as well as a wicked son who curses the mother that bore him. There has been, from the first, a Providence that has watched over and ruled in the affairs of men; our distant forefathers had eyes, ears, hands, intellects, hearts, as well as we, and knew how to use them, and did use them, not always ineffectually. How, indeed, would the hoary Past, were it not that experience has made it wise and taught it to make allowances for the follies and pranks of youth, laugh at our solemn airs and grave decisions! How should we hang our heads and blush, even to the tips of our ears, could we but for one moment see ourselves as it sees us! "The son," says the proverb, "thinks his father a fool; the father knows his son to be one." The more we study what has been, the less disposed shall we be to exult in what is. Happily, we begin to discover some symptoms that there are those among us, who have, now and then, at least, a suspicion that change is not always progress, and that it is more creditable to be able to revere wisdom than to contemn it.

War, against which nearly all our modern fanatics declaim so much, and which in the new moral code is utterly prohibited, is, of course, not a thing to be sought for its own sake. Its necessity must always be lamented, as we must always lament that there are crimes to be redressed, or criminals to be punished, or diseases to be cured. But because we must always lament that there are offenders to be punished, it does not follow that to punish them is never necessary, or that their punishment is an evil, and morally wrong; or because it is to be regretted that there are diseases, that we must treat the physician and his drugs as a nuisance. The father weeps that he has occasion to chastise his child, but knows that "to spare the rod is to spoil the child"; nor does it necessarily follow, because war involves terrible evils, and is to be avoided when

ever it can be without sacrificing the public weal, that it is in itself wrong, and may never be resorted to without violating the law of God. Its necessity is an evil, but, as a remedy, it may be just and beneficial. Disease is an evil, but not, therefore, the medicine that restores to health. War is a violent remedy for a violent disease, and as such may, when all other remedies prove or must prove ineffectual, be resorted to without sin. We, therefore, venture to maintain, in the very face of our modern fanatics, that war declared by the sovereign authority of the state, for a just cause, and prosecuted with right intentions, is not morally wrong, and may be engaged in with a safe conscience.

That war is not morally wrong, in itself, is evident from the fact, that Almighty God has himself, on several occasions, as in the case of the ancient Israelites, actually commanded or approved it. But God cannot command or approve what is morally wrong, without doing wrong himself; which is absurd. and impious to suppose. It cannot be in itself morally wrong, unless prohibited by some law; but there is no law which prohibits it. It is not prohibited by the law of nature. By the law of nature, the individual has the right to defend and avenge himself. Justice not only forbids wrong to be done, but requires that the wrong done be avenged. In a state of nature, where there is no established government, but each individual is left to his own sovereignty, each one has the right of defending and avenging himself in his own hands. If this be true of a private person, it must also be true of the state or nation; for nations have precisely the same rights in relation to one another that individuals have. They, then, who admit no law but the law of nature, must concede that war is not prohibited.

Nor is war prohibited by the divine law. This all will readily grant to be true, so far as concerns the old law, which nowhere condemns war, and not unfrequently presents us God himself as commanding or approving it. It is also true, so far as concerns the new law, or Christian law. "If Christian discipline," says St. Augustine, "condemned all wars, the Gospel would have given this counsel of salvation to the soldiers who asked what they should do, that they should throw away their arms and withdraw themselves from the military service altogether. But it says to them, 'Do violence to no man, calumniate no one, and be content with your wages.' St. Luke iii. 14. Surely it does not prohibit the military

service to those whom it commands to be contented with its wages.

Our Lord, St. Matt. viii. 10, commends the faith of a centurion who had soldiers under his command, says he had not found so great faith in Israel, and yet does not order him to throw away his arms, or abandon the military service. Cornelius, Acts x. 2, "a centurion of the band which is called Italian," is commended as "a religious man, fearing God"; and the blessed Apostle Paul, Heb. xi. 32-34, praises Gedeon, Barac, Samson, and others, "who through faith subdued kingdoms, became valiant in war, put to flight the armies of foreigners." These considerations show that war is not prohibited by the Christian law. Then it is prohibited by no law, and therefore is not necessarily sinful, but may be just and expedient.

But it is objected, that there are certain passages in the New Testament which, if not expressly, yet by implication, evidently deny the lawfulness of war. 1. "All that take the sword shall perish by the sword." St. Matt. xxvi. 52. But to take the sword is to use the sword without the order or consent of the proper authority. He who only uses the sword by order or consent of the proper authority, that is, of the political sovereign, if he be a private person, or of God, if he be a public person or sovereign prince, does not take the sword, but simply uses the sword committed to him. Nor are we to understand that all who take the sword on incompetent authority will be literally slain, but that they will perish by their own sword, that is, be punished eternally for their sin, if they do not repent.†

وو

2. "I say unto you, not to resist evil; but if any man strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.' St. Matt. v. 39. War is resistance of evil; but this text forbids the resistance of evil; therefore it forbids war. But the precept refers to the interior disposition, and commands that preparation of the heart which does not resist evil by rendering evil for evil, but endures patiently whatever wrongs or injuries are necessary

* "Nam si Christiana disciplina omnia bella culparet, hoc potius militibus consilium salutis petentibus in Evangelio diceretur, ut abjicerent arma, seque omnino militiæ subtraherent. Dictum est autem eis, Neminem concusseritis, nulli calumniam feceritis; sufficiat vobis stipendium vestrum. Quibus proprium stipendium sufficere debere præcepit, militare utique non prohibuit." Epist. V., Ad Marcellinum, c. 2.

See St. Augustine, Contra Faustum, lib. 22, c. 70, and St. Thomas, Summa, 2. 2, Q. 40, a. 1.