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down his life for those who nailed him upon the cross , —spending his Jast agonized breath in prayers for their benefit , and urging the only plea by which , as far as we are able to jiidge , the Divine compassion was likely to be moved in their favour" Father , forgive them , they know not what they doJ
The thick veil which , during what we justly term the dark ages , covered men ' s eyes , eati , on the subject we are now considering , scarcely be said to be at all removed from those of the vast majority of every denomination of Christians , Quakers only excepted , in the present day ; and I once heard one of these , when a
Peace Society was about to be formed , express an earnest hope that it was not intended to circulate the tracts amongst soldiers ! Sad state of society surely , when Christian truth must
be carefully concealed from a very large and very ignorant body of men whom it peculiarly concerns , because it will be found utterly inconsistent with what are called the duties of
their profession ! Can a clearer proof be imagined , that such a profession never did , never can ewist in a truly Christian community ? " He who hath not the spirit of Christ , is none of his" 1 Fearful denunciation
pronounced by an apostle against not only the perpetrators but the abettors of robbery , murder , and all the dreadful list of crimes consequent on the war system , by whatever name , or under whatever sanction , it is carried on .
The patriots of Spain and Greece , and of South America , and those who have so zealously assisted them in and from our own country , I venerate as men possessed with a noble love of
justice , and of the rights and privileges with which an impartial and infinitely benevolent Creator has endowed every individual of the human race . And when we consider how our
youth in the middle and upper ranks are educated—how early and how assiduously they are initiated into the minutest knowledge of the inhuman and demoralizing doctrines and
practises of Heathenism ; can we wonder that they should be disposed to take the world as it is , and not distinguish between saying , te Lord , Lord / ' to him whom they have been taught to call their Master , and the more diffi-
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cult task of " doing the things" which he commands ?
It is . less easy to excuse or to account for the blindness of a different description of men , and more especially of those who have devoted themselves to the Christian ministry , many of whom speak of a military life with perfect complacency ; some even
consenting to their sons embracing- it ! These persons , we must conclude , have their eyes still sealed up , chiefly , perhaps , by a love of the world , and are unable to perceive the glaring inconsistency , or rather the complete cpntrast between the life of a soldier and that of a real Christian .
May we not be allowed to conjecture that this blindness ( which may be more or less culpable , according to the circumstances and situation of each individual ) is permitted to remain on the mental sight of many ,
even in countries where the Scriptures are open to view and speak on the subject of war in characters as visible as the sun at noon-day , till tyrants , and civil tyranny , shall be banished from the earth ? Ifc is most
consolatory and encouraging to perceive that the government of the United States , which , by all lovers of rational freedom must , I think , be allowed to be the most generally beneficial of any now existing , is decidedly the most favourable to peace ,
and the subjects of it far more , in proportion to their own numbers , than any other people , warmly partake in this truly Christian feeling ; a happy sign this , that the world is indeed becoming wiser , in the true and most enlarged meaning of the word .
I fear , Mr . Editor , that yourself and many of your readers will think this a long , and , perhaps , a desultory paper . But it contains truths of the most momentous kind , oa a subject
deeply interesting to every thinking mind . I have never pretended to any skill in composition ; what I write comes from the heart , and if , in a very few instances , what I now send should
reach the hearts of those to whom it is addressed ., my time will have been well bestowed , and as a sincere wellwisher to the cause , you will be glad to have furnished me with the opportunity . MARY HUGHES .
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Mfj . Hughes ? s Vindication of Peace-Societies . 327
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 327, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/7/
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