The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-08-03
Wars.

There is war in self-defense; a kind
of war that instantly recommends itself
both to the heart and conscience of
mankind. The burning of Moscow has
not yet ceased to strike the Imagination
OF the world as nations grandest pro-
test against an insolent tyranny: and.
what is still more to the purpose, sue
cessful one. Even here, however, the
rule is not absolute. In the time of
Zedekiah it was Israel's duty not to
draw the sword in defense of Zion, but
to sheathe it. When Titus encamped
on Scopus, and surrounded the CITY
over which Jesus had wept in vain,
God was on the side of the invaders and
against the invaded. Jerusalem was to
be trodden down by the Gentiles until
the times of the Gentiles should be full
filled. There are wars of independ-
ence, when nation strikes quick and
hard and noble blow for her liberties:
wars about which it is usually hard to
know at the moment if they are justi-
liable, since only success can Justify
them; made too soon or with made
quate provision, they provoke a terri
BILE revenge; retard, it may be for a
sometimes set the houses of neighbors
on fire. That great Republic on the
other side of the Atlantic fought out her
freedom; who in England grudges it
her now? There are wars for civil and
religious liberty. All the world knows
of those wars; England has felt the
keen agony of them, to-day enjoys the
happier result of them. They are
grand objects to fight for; if anything
deserves blood, and pain, and life, lib
erty does. Here, too, selfishness some
times filings up the soiled cap of liberty
to get share of the spoils in the gen
eral scramble. If by waiting few
years you can secure liberty in the end
without fighting for it, pause before
you make wives widows and children
orphans before the time. Wars of con-
quest are sometimes utterly unprinci-
pied; sometimes the inevitable result of
circumstances which no one can con-
troll, and which simply prevent greater
evils that would otherwise be sure to
happen. The great wars of Napoleon
were, as most men now admit, the I'M
principled efforts of an indisputable but
perverted genius, blinded by what he
called glory, to take from other nations
what properly belonged to them, sim
ply to make an Empire for himself.
Our own Indian Empire, stained as it
has been in the past by crime, and by
policy SO shamelessly of this world that
few of the natives consent to credit us
with the belief in a God at all, has been
very much forced on us by the power of
circumstances; and were we to resign
India tomorrow, the result might be a
hideous anarchy that would make a
kind of hell. Once more, there are
wars, such as we have seen good deal
of in the last ten years, the object and
end of which is the resettlement and
consolidating of Kingdoms, matters
which it is the interest of society at
large to get settled, though individual
interests for the moment suffer, wars
which, in the felicitous thought of a
great theologian, are the action of a Sc
cret spring in the machinery of nations,
and which, when once over and done
with, leave the stirred elements of strife
slowly to settle down into permanent,
because equitable, repose.-7he Bishop
OF Rochester, in Good Words.