human
Oh, Father, he cried,
gpt
I _had_ to do it! It breaks my heart to go against your will. But I had no choice. I must go. Why, think what a skulker I would be if after all I have done and said I were to—to stay at home!
human
You were already under orders, Joshua Peniman said slowly.
gpt
You are a member of the Quaker Church. By your covenant with that body you have forsworn war. Your church and your God forbid you to fight. God Himself has commanded that ’Thou shalt not kill.’
human
Oh, but, Father, that means a different kind of killing. War is not _murder_!
gpt
War is always murder. The coldest, bloodiest, most terrible murder. Murder of the soul as well as the body.
human
Oh no, Father, no, that isn’t so! cried out the boy.
gpt
Think of the men who have engaged in war! Think of Washington—his soul was not killed by war. This is a thing that must be done. It is a duty. We must fight for the Union—liberty—freedom—for our own homes and firesides.
human
This issue need not have been met by war. It would not have been if war-crazy hot-heads had not forced it upon us. There is a better way for countries and nations to settle their difficulties than by war. Sometime men will come to realize its brutality and nations will combine to adjust their controversies by reason, not might.
gpt
I don’t believe that such a time will ever come. But if it does it is not here _now_. This issue is upon us. What are we going to do?—sit passive and let the South secede and break up the Union? Why, even Jesus did not suffer evil passively. He drove the money-changers from the Temple. And He Himself said ’Think not that I come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.’
human
But the ’sword’ that the Master speaks of in that passage of Scripture is not the literal sword, the sword used in war, but the sharp sword of conscience. Better that the Union be dissolved than that the hands of men should be stained with the blood of their brethren.
gpt
Oh, Father, cried Joe,
human
God knows that I love my country as well as any man, he answered sadly.
gpt
But dearly as I love my country I love my God, my religion and the commands that He has given more.
human
But remember what the Lord said to His disciples, in the twenty-second chapter of St. Luke: ’But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.’ The time has come, Father, when it is our duty to go to war, when the man who tries to escape that duty is dishonoring his God as well as his country. The time has come, when, as Jesus told His disciples, ’He that hath no sword should sell his very garment and buy one’ and go forth to battle for the right.
gpt
Thee knows thy Scripture, Joe, he said in an unsteady voice.
human
I have striven mightily for thee. I thought I had brought thee up in the faith of our fathers——
gpt
You have, you have, Father! As God hears me I would not take up arms against my fellow-man for anything less sacred than the preservation of our nation. I have studied deeply into this question. I have searched the Scriptures. And I feel that it is my sacred duty to go. Remember what the Lord said to Ezekiel, ’Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of that land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then whosoever heareth the trumpet and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood shall I require at the watchman’s hand!’