The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-08
WAR AND CHRISTIANITY

From the NJ Y. Tribune.
''Is Christianity bloody relgion?" This
is question which was recently propounded
by one of our correspondents, who, to his
grief and apparent astonishment, had found
doctors of divinity defending war. Our
friend is not the first man who has been
confused by the inevitable paradox, for q
paradox we admit it to be. 1t is impossible
to deny that in the largest sense war is in
compatible with the Christian scheme. Aud
yet how does it happen that only single sect
of any Importance has considered the bear
ing of arms under any circumstances to be
sinful? How has it happened that, ever since
the first preaching of Christianity, great
wars have been waged in behalf of it
not merely proselyting wars, but contests
absolutely conscientious, like that which
resulted in the Commonwealth of Eng
land? That is to say, how has it happened
that thousands of Christians, professed aud
constantly protesting, have thought it
not merely no sin to fight, but an absolute
Christian duty to draw the sword? From one
point OF view, this is not an easy question to
answer. If the teachings of the gospel are to
be literally interpreted, and not according to
their obvious spirit, the things which we may
do or must leave undone would be numerous
enough and various enough to change the
whole civil constitution of society. Take the
if the injunction to swear not at all were to
be obeyed to the letter, there would be an
end of courts of justice. We say this because
affirmation really amounts to about the same
thing as swearing Again, who sells all that
he has, and gives the purchase money to the
/ poor? What Christian doing this would not
have commission of lunacy sued out against
him? We must, in fact, be contented with
the general tendency of any doc
trine, political, philosophical, or re-
ligious, although this requires
cisely the virtue of the present age. Yet the
abolition of slavery has given us precious
illustration of the force which is inherent in
any great moral scheme. We find, indeed
in the whole political status of this republic,
plenary evidence of the vitalizing power of
Christianity, and of the completeness with
which it finally extirpates certain abuses. So
in respect of war. We believe that it has
tended, upon the whole, to the diminuton of
strife and slaughter. religious war, for in
! stance, like those waged by Philip of Spain,
with their frightful butcheries, would now be
simply impossible. The politics of the world
are becoming slowly but surely Christianized,
and when this process has reached a maxi
mum, wars of particular class, and perhaps
all wars, will cease.
Christianity has been received and pro-
fessed as a scheme of moral truth for eighteen
centuries. 1t seems to us, if we are to ask
any such narrow question as that of our cor
respondent ("Is Christianity a bloody re-
ligion?'), that the past is sufficiently dis
couraging; because nominal ''Christianity
thus far has been, while in its theory pacific,
at the same time in its practice fearfully sau-
| gainary. If we take Europe (to go no further
back from A. d. 1900 to A. ID. 1900, we shall
find that probably moiety or more of the
violent deaths to which men were subjected
resulted either from ecclesiastical institu-
tions or from religious wars. Taken by
themselves, these annals of the Church are
discouraging-these wholesale massacres oi
the field, these horrible sacks Of captured