"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, lecomes 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 tenfold, 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 Pennsylvanian 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, or child, by them; which neither the colony of Maryland, nor that of Virginia could say, no more than the great colony of New England.'

"The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not a transient freedom from war, such as might accidentally happen to any nation. She continued to enjoy it for more than seventy years,' and subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations, without so much as a militia for her defence.'

"I cannot wonder that these people were not molested, extraordinary and unexampled as their security was. There is something so noble in this confidence in the Supreme Protector, in this utter exclusion of slavish fear,' in this voluntary relinquishment of the means of injury or of defence, that I do not wonder that even ferocity could be disarmed by such virtue. A people gene

rously living without arms amidst nations of warriors! Who would attack a people such as this? There are few men so abandoned as not to respect such confidence. It were a peculiar and an unusual intensity of wickedness that would not even revere it.

And when was the security of Pennsylvania molested, and its peace destroyed? When the men who had directed its counsels, and who would not engage in war, were outvoted in its legislature; when they who supposed that there was greater security in the sword than in Christianity, became the predominating body From that hour the Pennsylvanians transferred their confidence in Christian principles, to a confidence in arms; and from that hour to the present, they have been subject to war.

Such is the evidence, derived from a national example, of the consequences of a pursuit of the Christian policy in relation to war. Here are a people who absolutely refused to fight, and who incapacitated themselves for resistance by refusing to possess arms; and these were the people whose land, amidst surrounding broils and slaughter, was selected as a land of security and peace. The only national opportunity which the virtue of the Christian world has afforded us of ascertaining the safety of relying upon God for defence, has determined that it is safe."

CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

1. Impracticable till the millennium-Principles of the millennium -Extracts from Professor Upham-2. Extremely difficult if not impossible-Hollowness of the objection-battle at the passage of the Traun in Austria-3. More difficulty in small than large matters—Illustrations: The profane swearer reproved and sub. dued-The Christian slave and his enemy-How to overcome evil-Henry C. Wright and his assailant-The victorious little boy-Colony of Practical Christians-The avenger stayed-Conclusion.

The present chapter will be devoted to the consideration and removal of sundry common objections to the doctrine of Christian non-resistance.

OBJECTION I. IMPRACTICABLE TILL THE MILLENNIUM.

"Your doctrine may be true in its principles, and in its ultimate requirements; but it must be impracticable till the millennium. Then, when the whole human race shall have become regenerate, its sublime morality will be the spontaneous developement of all hearts. Under existing circumstances, while there is so much depravity, and such multitudes of men are restlessly bent on agression, it is obviously impracticable. The wicked would. shortly exterminate the righteous, were the latter to act on non-resistant principles. "

ANSWER.—I affirm the exact contrary; viz. that the