Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1845-02-07
e. a CE.
Condensed for the Freeman.
TANCE OF BURRITT's SPEECH AT SPRING
FIELD. ON PEACE N War

SUBSTANCE OF BURRITT's SPEECH AT SPRING
FIELD, ON PEACE AND WAR.
God is love. There is no class legislation for
any part of His moral universe. He has given two
laws of equal force and necessity throughout all
the realms of His empire. To every atom of mi
ter he has said, thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy soul, mind and strength, and thy
neighbor as thyself;' or, what is the same thing
when applied to matter" thou shalt attach thy
selfto his Eternal Throne with all thy capacity of
adhesion, and draw with thee thy fellow atom to
the same centre" This is the law of gravitation,
the physical duplicate of that other law, given a.
like to every angel, man, and moral being in the
universe, I" thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy soul, mind and strength, and thy neighbor
as myself" All his attributes are expressed in
that law, and he can no more change the one than
the other. AS there is no one square inch of
space or matter to which the law of gravity is not
as necessary as to any other square inch in the
vast amplitudes of creation so there is no one
portion of the moral universe to which the law of
love is not as necessary as to any other portion of
it. That law is no more binding in heaven than
earth no more obligatory on Gabriel, than on the
obscurest mortal to whom it has been given I'M
less, indeed, the repeated violations of a law may
exhaust its obligations.
Now war, in the blasphemy of its impreaching
wickedness, demands that God shall suspend this
great law of love, this law of moral gravitation, in
a certain portion of his empire. But this is the
humblest of its arrogant claims, 1t demands that
He, who is love, shall change his attributes, the
terms of admission to his throne of grace and hea-
ven of love. 1t would point its iron cannon a.
gainst the walls of the city of God, and batter a
breach in its everlasting gates for hot-breathing
murderers to climb in at. o war christian war
out-monsters the devil in sin. Contemplate one
of its sacrifices, the great immolation at Waterloo,
for instance, War, with its glaring fiend's eyes,
peering like two smoking iues from the bottom
less pit, through an ocean of sulphurous vapor, is
preying over a thousand acres of dying, dead and
bleeding men. "Thou Creator and Father of all
men," cries the pious and scaly Gorgon, here
are 100 900 human souls that | in behalf of sew
eral christian nations, send to thy bar. TO be
sure, they have not washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb but they are
dyed through and through iu each others blood,
whose crimson is set the deeper in their souls By
the burning malice of their mutual murder
Waive that severe condition which shuts the muir
derer out of heaven, and banishes from thy mercy
seat the hater of his brother. Rank in these
man-butchers with the heavenly hosts, tho clotteC
over with red seals of their profession. Place
them face to face at the marriage-supper of thu
Lamb, at whose table they often communed herr
: on earth, before they were commanded to xii
each other. Every one of them knem-when1 h
stabbed his neighbef to the heart, that he who ha
' teth his brother is a mrderer, debarred from hea
r ven. But we promised them all a hgiStice in tn
name, while they should seethe the earth in hu
Y man blood, and trample on all thy laws. The,
have hated all whom we commanded them to hate
: they have killed as many as we have commando
i them to kill; they took into their bosoms tn
n hearts of tigers at our command; like tigers the
s fought, and like tigers they died. They violate
E all thy laws in obedience to their superior officer
Place all their deeds, with all their vast cons
. quences, and all the malice of their hearts, to OF
account. If the righteousness of Christ be to
!, scant a robe to cover up the stains of unrepente
u murder on their souls, let them fill it out with Il
righteousness of the christian kings and COVER
ments, at whose bidding they murdered, and d
l. all that fends could do. We take the respon'
bility of all their acts. On us, kingly corpor
a tons, that have no souls, be all the blood, al
Se crime, and misery, which they let out upon t
world"