from the Essays of Jonathan Dymond. It is from that part of his third essay, headed, "The probable practical effects of adhering to the moral law in respect to war." It is exceedingly pertinent, lucid and convincing. He says:

"It is never to be forgotten that our apparent interests in the present life are sometimes, in the economy of God, made subordinate to our interests in futurity. Yet, even in reference only to the present state of existence, I believe that we shall find that the testimony of experience is, that forbearance is most conducive to our interests. There is practical truth in the position, that, 'When a man's ways please the Lord,' he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.'

“The reader of American history will recollect, that in the beginning of the last century a desultory and most dreadful warfare was carried on by the natives against the European settlers; a warfare that was. provoked as such warfare has almost always originally been-by the injury and violence of the [nominal] Christians. The mode of destruction was secret and sudden. The barbarians sometimes lay in wait for those who might come within their reach, on the highway or in the fields, and shot them without warning, and sometimes they attacked the Europeans in their houses, scalping some, and knocking out the brains of others.' From this horrible warfare the inhabitants sought safety by abandoning their houses, and retiring to fortified places, or to the neighborhood of garrisons; and those whom necessity still compelled to pass beyond the limits of such protection, provided themselves with arms for their defence. But amidst this dreadful desolation and universal terror, the

Society of Friends, who were a considerable portion of the whole population, were steadfast to their principles. They would neither retire to garrisons, nor provide themselves with arms. They remained openly in the country, whilst the rest were flying to the forts. They still pursued their occupations in the fields or at their homes, without a weapon either for annoyance or defence. And what was their fate? They lived in security and quiet. The habitation, which, to his armed neighbor, was the scene of murder and of the scalping knife, was to the unarmed Quaker a place of safety and of peace. Three of the Society were, however, killed. And who were they? They were three who abandoned their principles. Two of these victims were men who, in the simple language of the narrator, 'used to go to their labor without any weapons, and trusted to the Almighty, and depended on his providence to protect them (it being their principle not to use weapons of war to offend others, or to defend themselves), but a spirit of distrust taking place in their minds, they took weapons of war to defend themselves, and the Indians who had seen them several times without them and let them alone, saying they were peaceable men and hurt nobody, therefore they would not hurt them-now seeing them have guns, and supposing they designed to kill the Indians, they therefore shot the men dead. The third whose life was sacrificed was a woman, 'who had remained in her habitation,' not thinking herself warranted in going 'to a fortified place for preservation,' neither she, her son, nor daughter, nor to take thither the little ones: but the poor woman after some time began to let in a slavish fear, and advised her children to go with her to a fort not far from their dwelling. She went; and

shortly afterwards 'the bloody, cruel Indians, lay by the way, and killed her.'

"The fate of the Quakers during the rebellion in Ireland was nearly similar. It is well known the Rebellion was a time not only of open war but of coldblooded murder; of the utmost fury of bigotry, and the utmost exasperation of revenge. Yet the Quakers were preserved even to a proverb; and when strangers passed through streets of ruin, and observed a house standing uninjured and alone, they would sometimes. point, and say, 'That, doubtless, is the house of a Quaker.' So complete indeed was the preservation which these people experienced, that in an official document of the Society they say, 'no member of our Society fell a sacrifice but one young man; and that young man had assumed regimentals and arms.'

"It were to no purpose to say, in opposition to the evidence of these facts, that they form an exception to a general rule. The exception to the rule consists. in the trial of the experiment of non-resistance, not in its success. Neither were it to any purpose to say, that the savages of America, or the desperadoes of Ireland, spared the Quakers because they were previously known to be an unoffending people, or because the Quakers had previously gained the love of these by forbearance or good offices. We concede all this: it is the very argument which we maintain.

We say,

that a uniform, undeviating regard to the peaceable obligations of Christianity becomes the safeguard of those who practice it. We venture to maintain that no reason whatever can be assigned, why the fate of the Quakers would not be the fate of all who should adopt their conduct. No reason can be assigned why, if their numbers had been multiplied ten-fold, or a

hundred-fold, they would not have been preserved. If there be such a reason, let us hear it. The American and Irish Quakers were, to the rest of the community, what one nation is to a continent. And we must require the advocate of war to produce (that which has never yet been produced) a reason for believing, that although individuals exposed to destruction were preserved, a nation exposed to destruction would be destroyed. We do not, however, say that if a people, in the customary state of men's passions, should be assailed by an invader, and should on a sudden choose to declare that they would try whether Providence would protect them-of such a people we do not say that they would experience protection, and that none of them would be killed. But we say that the evidence of experience is, that a people who habitually regard the obligations of Christianity in their conduct towards other men and who steadfastly refuse, through whatever consequences, to engage in acts of hostility, will experience protection in their peacefulness. And it matters nothing to the argument, whether we refer that protection to the immediate agency of Providence, or to the influence of such conduct upon the minds of men.

Such has been the experience of the unoffending and unresisting, in individual life. A National example of a refusal to bear arms, has only once been exhibited to the world; but that one example has proved, so far as its political circumstances enabled it to prove all that humanity could desire and all that skepticism could demand, in favor of our argument.

THE COLONY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

"It has been," says he, "the ordinary practice of

those who have colonized distant countries, to force a footing; or to maintain it with the sword. One of the first objects has been to build a fort, and to provide a military. The adventurers became soldiers, and the colony was a garrison. Pennsylvania was, however, colonized by men who believed that war was absolutely incompatible with Christianity, and who, therefore, resolved not to practice it. Having determined not to fight, they maintained no soldiers and possessed no arms. They planted themselves in a country that was surrounded by savages, and by savages who knew they were unarmed. If easiness of conquest, or incapability of defence, could subject them to outrage, the Pennsylvanians might have been the very sport of violence. Plunderers might have robbed them without retaliation, and armies might have slaughtered them - without resistance. If they did not give a temptation to outrage, no temptation could be given. But these were the people who possessed their country in security, whilst those around them were trembling for their existence. Theirs was a land of peace, whilst every other was a land of war. The conclusion is inevitable, although it is extraordinary; they were in no need of arms, because they would not use them.

"These Indians were sufficiently ready to commit outrages on other states, and often visited them with desolation and slaughter; with that sort of desolation and that sort of slaughter which might be expected from men whom civilization had not reclaimed from cruelty, and whom religion had not awed into forbearance. But whatever the quarrels of the Pennsylvania Indians were with others, they uniformly respected. and held, as it were, sacred, the territories of William Penn.' 'The Pennsylvanians never lost a man, woman