OUR VISIT TO BRITAIN.

FIRST TOUR CONCLUDED. —RETURN TO LONDON. —WRITE ELPIS ISRAEL. —ATTEND A PEACE MEETING, WHICH PROVES VERY WARLIKE.

            Having completed a tour of nearly five months, I again found myself in London, with health considerably impaired from the fatigue I had undergone. Recuperation was therefore the first thing to be attended to. Rest of mind, and a little medicine (for however professional it may be to prescribe much, I have a very great aversion to the conversion of my own interior into a receptacle for the quantities usually exhibited on the placebo-principle) to restore the cerebro-organic equilibrium of the system, effected this in two or three weeks; so that by the beginning of the new year I was enabled to commence the composition of Elpis Israel. I did not allow the grass to grow; but worked while it was called today, and much of the night also. For six weeks the world without was a mere blank, except through a daily perusal of the London Times; for during that period I had no use for hat, boots, or shoes, oscillating, as it were, like a pendulum between two points—the couch above, and the desk below. In about four months the manuscript was completed; but whether it would ever hold the light of the public countenance, or remain in the obscurity of an old chest, with the blessing of the enemy upon it so long as it mouldered there, depended on the humour I should find the people in on visiting them again. With the exception of two discourses at Camden Town, and two at a small lecture room near my residence, and an opposition speech at a peace society meeting, (See Chapter 36.) I made no effort among the Londoners to gain their ears. I distributed printed bills, indeed; but a few hundreds or thousands of these among upwards of two millions of people were but as the drops of a passing cloud to the ocean. For the truth to create a sensation in London, its advocates must have a large purse, or be introduced to public attention by some influential religious party. The latter alternative is an impossibility; for there is no party in that great city of any weight on the side of truth. The press, secular and ecclesiastical, is dead against it; the former, because it is satisfied with what exists, or has no faith in anything but its own faithlessness; and the latter, because, like Ephraim, it is joined to its idols, and welcomes no truth at variance with them. Could I have hired Exeter Hall for a hundred and twenty-five dollars a night, and have placarded the town in all its thoroughfares, from the India House to St. James’s Palace and Hyde Park; and from Shoreditch Church to the Elephant and Castle, I might have obtained a crowd. But the expense would have been equal to the purchase of a small Virginia farm; and though by charging something for admission, as the custom is, the cost might have been reduced, perhaps covered; still I did not feel justified in encountering the alternative of success, or incarceration in the Bench prison for debt. This would have been too gratifying to the enemy; for he would then have got the advantage over us, indeed; being seized of one’s body, wind and limb.”

            The Peace-Society people seemed to be the only available medium of access to the public on a large scale. They were trying to convert the world to the ‘peace and safety’ cry which precedes the sudden destruction from the Lord; and to bring about a system of arbitration for the settlement of national differences, faith in which would of necessity prevent faith in Moses and the Prophets, who preach peace only to the righteous; and to those generations of humanity which shall be blessed in Abraham and his Seed, when Christ shall have ‘subdued’ them to himself by the energy of God. This Society is treading upon gospel-ground; and by its emissaries hardening the hearts of the people against the kingdom of God, which is to ‘grind to powder and bring to an end’ all the dominions of the world. I felt called upon, therefore, though but one feeble voice in the vast wilderness of the people, to protest against their utopian and unscriptural conceit.

On Thursday evening, Feb. 22^nd, 1849, a public meeting was to be held at the British Institution, Cowper Street, City Road, for the purpose of adopting a petition to Parliament in favour of Mr. Cobden’s motion for special treaties of arbitration instead of war in the settlement of national disputes. I determined to attend the meeting. But as I intended to oppose the adoption of the petition, which would, perhaps, bring down the anathema of all present (for the leaders of public meetings are generally intolerant of every thing that does not glorify their crotchet, and the peculiar ‘wisdom’ that sanctifies it) I deemed it best that my presence should be sanctioned by authority. I therefore addressed the following letter to the Chairman:

Mr. Charles Gilpin,

            Sir: In one of the morning papers I perceive an advertisement of a public meeting at which you are to take the chair. The object of the meeting is stated to be the adoption of ‘a petition to Parliament in favour of Mr. Cobden’s motion for special treaties of arbitration to supersede the cruel and costly war system.’ As one of the public, I write respectfully to inquire, whether the originators of the meeting advertise the public to convene to discuss the principles of peace and war as the basis of a petition expressive of the sentiments of the majority; or, merely to come together to hear speeches in favour of the foregone conclusions of a party, and to vote its petition as a matter of course? In either case would it be considered improper to grant me the liberty of showing cause why such a petition ought not to be adopted? An answer at your earliest convenience will confer a favour on, Sir, very respectfully yours,

JOHN THOMAS.

            In reply to this, I received the following note, enclosing bills headed ‘Arbitration instead of War,’ and with the inquiry ‘What does it cost?’

            ‘Charles Gilpin begs to refer John Thomas to the Secretaries of the Peace Congress Committee, 15 New Broad street, for any information respecting the subject of his note beyond what is conveyed in the enclosed.

            5 Bishopgate Without,

            2 Mo. 21^st, 1849.’

            I next addressed the Rev. Henry Richard, one of the Secretaries referred to, from whom I received the communication annexed:

‘Sir: In reply to your question relative to the public meeting about to be held, I may say that the object certainly is not ‘to discuss the principles of peace and war,’ but to adopt a petition in favour of Mr. Cobden’s motion for treaties of arbitration, the very phraseology of the bill, as it seems to me, very clearly implying, that the parties invited to be present, are supposed to require no discussion on the evils of war or the desirableness of peace. At the same time while replying thus to the question so directly put by you as to the object of the meeting, I do not presume to say, that you will have no right to move an amendment to the resolution proposing a petition should you think fit to do so.

I am, sir, yours respectfully,

HENRY RICHARD.

15 Broad street, February 21, 1849.

Arrived at the place of meeting, I found an audience assembled of about two thousand men, principally of the working class. Two persons from America were expected to address them. These were a Mr. Clapp from Massachusetts, and Elihu Burritt, ‘the learned blacksmith.’ After the chairman had opened the meeting, and the petition had been read, the former delivered his speech, which was chiefly remarkable for its length of wind. Though the meeting was convened for ‘no discussion on the evils of war, and the desirableness of peace,’ Mr. Clapp’s speech was a discussion of the subjects from first to last. But I found afterwards that by ‘no discussion’ was meant discussion in solo, but not in duobus. If a speaker’s arguments were all in favour of Peace Society principles, the utmost liberty of speech was granted; but if the arguments were contrary to these, the clamour became deafening, and speech impossible. Mr. Clapp’s address, like all others on the same subject, resolved itself into three heads; first, the costliness of war; second the cruelty of war; and third, its anti-christian character. It would be very unprofitable to occupy our space with any of his sayings. He talked a good deal about Christianity and its adaptation to all national emergencies; but being entirely ignorant of the ‘mystery of godliness,’ his speculations were all wide of the mark, and by no means worth the trouble of transferring them from the notes before me.”

            “When he had concluded, I rose to speak. On this there was a call for Elihu Burritt. I remarked that I had the floor with the consent of the chair, and was desirous of addressing them before Mr. Burritt. He was the great Peace Society apostle, and consequently, no doubt, a very efficient advocate of its principles. Now, I intended to controvert those principles, and I wished him to attend to what I had to say, that when I had done he might point out to them wherein I had failed in sustaining the anti-peace society principles to be submitted to them in the amendment I was about to propose. But the clamour was still for ‘Elihu Burritt’; and as speech was impossible in the midst of so much tumult, I yielded. Mr. Burritt, however, refused to present himself. He had a cold, or a headache, or something, and therefore begged to be excused. I was then suffered to proceed in quietness for a few moments. I invoked their patience while I made a few remarks introductory to the amendment I held in my hand. The objection deemed to be the strongest against war by the advocates of peace, seemed to be its costliness. This was an appeal to the pocket, as though the public conscience were chiefly, or mainly, accessible through that useful receptacle alone. The cruelty of war, and its anti-christian character, were indeed treated of; and appeals were made to the scriptures to prove the abominableness of its practice; but still the great peace-gun discharged against it, was the suffering inflicted upon acquisitiveness by the expenditure incurred. War in itself is an evil; and so is the amputation of a limb. They are cruel inflictions to those who suffer by them; but often salutary in their results. Institutions are not to be judged of by their immediate workings, but by the remoter purposes they are to establish. War, punishments, and surgery, are three institutions, without which, though evil and painful operations, society would be greatly damaged. Surgery, which is cruel work, and often practised with little or no feeling, has saved the life of many a useful member of society. Men do not petition for its abolition, because it is costly, and cruel to the patient’s feelings, and no where sanctioned in the Bible. On the contrary, notwithstanding these things, they regard it as a blessing, because, though a severe remedy, it saves the lives of men. The punishments of imprisonment, transportation, and death, are costly to the state, excruciating to the feelings of their victims, and often ruinous to their families; but are they not, nevertheless, beneficial to society? Now war is to nations, what punishment and surgery are to society and the subjects of them—a necessary evil and ‘blessing in disguise.’—The world could not progress without it. This day is the anniversary of Washington’s birth. Would Messrs. Clapp and Burritt say that the Republic he is styled ‘the Father’ of, was a too-costly, cruel, and anti-christian thing? Would they say it was no blessing to the world? Would they not say rather it was a blessing in which, sooner or later, all mankind would be blessed? And how, pray, was this inestimable blessing procured? By the extermination of the Indians, the sacrifice of 100,000 combatants, called ‘christians,’ and at a cost of £136,000,000 sterling to this country, to say nothing of what it cost the successful colonists. You see, then, that war in its results is a blessing to the world, notwithstanding its costliness, cruelty, and supposed antichristian character, even peace society advocates themselves being judges!

            But while war ultimates in civilisation and blessedness to the non-combatants of our race, it is the fiery indignation and wrath of God upon nations for their wickedness, and cruelty to his people. Let the nations, if it were possible, forsake the evil of their doings and turn to him, and there would be no war. But this they will not voluntarily consent to do, therefore war is necessary and indispensable. —You profess to be groaning under the cost of former wars. And why should you not? War has generally been popular with this nation. Your forefathers endeavoured to rivet a yoke upon the necks of the Trans-Atlantic colonies which they were unable to bear. This cost you £136,000,000. The French having taken vengeance upon the Power that reeked with the blood of the Huguenots, drew the sword against the destroyers of civil and religious liberty in foreign lands. Instead of rejoicing in so righteous a retribution, in which God was giving them blood to drink, and scorching them with fire—Revelation 16: 6, 8, for their cruelty to his saints and prophets, you expended £1,625,000,000 sterling in sustaining the Continental tyrannies against the Corsican firebrand and Gallic sword of God. And now you cry out about the cost of war! Those who make war in support of Austria and the Papacy, and therefore against civil and religious liberty, ought to suffer. The retribution under which you groan is just.

            The objection to war on the ground of its anti-christian character is fallacious. —The doctrine concerning the Christ and his mission is Jewish; and is taught in Moses and the Prophets. The New Testament writers were all Jews; and they taught no other doctrine than what agrees with the Law and the Testimony. Now these holy writings show that war is in perfect harmony with Christ’s mission. —They also teach, however, that during his absence from our planet his disciples are not to take the sword, nor to avenge themselves. Christ’s mission extends beyond the past. It belongs especially to the near approaching future. He is intitled the Prince of Peace—Isaiah 9: 6; and as a prophet was sent of God to preach peace—Acts 10: 36, not immediate, nor through the schemes of a peace society, but through the restoration of the Kingdom again to the Israelites. Though he came to preach peace, he did not come to bring it.

‘Think not,’ says he, ‘that I am come to send peace upon the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword’—Matthew 10: 34. —

Christ has not yet earned his title of Prince of Peace; for as yet he has given no peace to the world, nor will he give any, until he has purified it with judgment, and rebuked the strong nations of the earth—Micah 4: 3. We have been told tonight, that ‘the time has arrived to establish peace among the nations.’ This is an unscriptural notion. —The Bible rule is ‘first pure, and then peaceable.’ This is the divine principle, applicable to the consciences of men, and to peace on earth. ‘There is no peace for the wicked, saith God;’ they at present possess the nations, which of right belong to Christ—Psalm 2: 8; Daniel 7: 14; —therefore their destruction must precede his speaking peace to them—Zechariah 9: 10;that they may ‘learn war no more’—Isaiah 2: 4. There can be no peace until his Kingdom is established. Nor is it desirable; for such a peace implies the permanent establishment of Satan upon the throne of the world. —I for one protest against peace until he is dethroned, and shut up in the abyss—Revelation 20: 1-3. I long to hear the signal gun of that coming strife, which shall bring down Christ from ‘the right hand of power,’ to mingle in the combat, with Israel for his battle axe—Jeremiah 51: 20; Isaiah 41: 15, and Judah for ‘his goodly horse in the battle’—Zechariah 10: 3; Revelation 19: 11. Had his Kingdom belonged to the kosmos, or constitution of things, contemporary with Pontius Pilate, his servants would have fought that he should not have been delivered to the Jews—John 18: 36. It belongs to the coming crisis looming ahead—to the kosmos, represented by Nebuchadnezzar’s image standing upon its feet ‘in the Latter Days’—Daniel 2: 28. Then his servants, Israel and the Saints, will fight—Psalm 149: 6-9; Daniel 7: 22; Zechariah 10: 5; 12: 6; 14:14; —and ‘break in pieces the oppressor,’ ‘because the Lord is with them,’ in person as well as power. The idea, therefore, of war being of anti-christian character in the abstract, is a mere notion. The righteous dead who have been murdered by the Sin-Power cannot be avenged without it; nor can the Kingdom of Christ, which is to be the medium of peace to the world, be established in the earth, if arbitration be resorted to instead of war. I therefore, beg leave to protest against all Peace-Society contrivances for the abolition of war in the world’s present condition; and to repudiate their cry of ‘Peace and safety, when sudden destruction is at the door’—1 Thessalonians 5: 2-3. —I would therefore also advise you to have nothing to do with their petition, but to adopt the amendment I shall now read to you in its place.

            The reader is not to suppose that while these ideas were being expressed, the peace-meeting was in a very peaceable state. Peace was in the petition, but war in the people’s hearts, and on their lips. —The audience proved to be nothing more than a mob of anti-tax fanatics. They were prepared to applaud any absurdity provided that its key-note was anti-taxation and the costliness of war. The leading sections of the peace-socialists are the ‘financial reformers,’ and the Quakers. —The former are for cutting down the taxes at all hazards. The head of this faction in Parliament is Mr. Cobden, the apostle of Free Trade; and a man who can conceive of no millennium other than unbounded scope for getting rich by commerce and manufactures. This is the one idea of Free Trade policy, which is struggling to establish its ascendancy in the government. With this party, manufactures are the basis of commerce, and must be fabricated at the least possible expense, that the British manufacturer may be able to sell as low, or a little lower, than his foreign rivals in the markets of the world, whose workmen feed on the cheap bread of an unprotected agriculture. To attain this minimum of fabrication-cost, free traders have obtained the repeal of provision laws, so that workmen can get as much food as before for less money, and masters can lower prices for labour to a certain proportionate degree above actual starvation. Still wages are not considered low enough. Hence, free traders have got up a scheme of ‘financial reform,’ to reduce the taxes on tea, coffee, tobacco, &c. But as this cannot be effected without reducing the expenses of the state, they go in for lopping off all institutions that are not productive, or manufacturing, as it were. In this work, they come in contact with the fanatical element of Quakerism. This is a system that combines the worship of Mammon with a species of Spiritualism, characterised by non- resistance and passive obedience; the abrogation of Christ’s institutes, baptism and the supper; and the subjection of the Holy Scriptures to natural reason, which they absurdly style, ‘the light within!’—This was just the system to sanctify financial reformism in the estimation of ‘the pious,’ who are opposed to Church and State. Quakerism and Financialism formed an alliance in the scheme of lowering wages to the minimum of existence for the enriching of capitalists by encompassing the globe with British commerce and manufactures. But, as I have said, this scheme cannot be carried out to the desired extent without materially reducing the expenses of the State. Financialism, therefore, lends itself to the Quaker cry off the cruelty and anti-christianity of war, though it cares for neither its cruelty nor supposed Christlessness; for acquisitiveness being the key-note of financialism, it has the heart of Mammon, which cares only for getting rich. On the other hand, Quakerism chimed in against the costliness of war by which it greatly captivated its ally. Now financial reformers are people of all sects and parties, political and ecclesiastical, that are the partisans of a manufacturing and commercial, rather than an agricultural, England. Hence it consists of Whigs, Radicals, Chartists, and religionists of all sorts, possessed of the demon-principle, ‘with all thy gettings get money at all risks.’ This is the supreme good! And that cotton lords, bankers, and silk marquises, may be more abundantly enriched, they set the unthinking multitude to clamouring against war, and for the abolition of the army and navy, militia and armed constabulary, that the £21,000,000 a year which they cost the state, may find their way into their pockets.

It was Mammon shouting and hissing, and yelling through this unthinking multitude, who made the delivery of my protest almost an impossibility. When I could get a chance, I told them they might just as well hear me peaceably, as I intended to maintain my ground, if I had to stand there till morning. I saw a well-dressed, white-headed man in the centre, gymnasticising with awful energy. Of course I could hear not a word he said; but by the shaking of his head, beating the air, and flourishing, now his cane and then his fist, I interpreted his signs as very ominous to the security of my cranium, were it within his reach. The tumult was terrible, and I doubt not instigated by peace-loving enemies to peace, except according to their own crotchet. I had expected to meet a respectable, religiously-disposed, and sober-minded audience; but it proved the very reverse. It was a mere mob of swine, to whom it was not only useless, but dangerous, to cast the pearls of truth. But I was engaged in the fray, and being single-handed, I had to open for myself a way out as best I could. Having at length got through my remarks by snatches, I promised to conclude if they would agree to hear me read my amendment peaceably. They seemed to assent to this, so I read as follows: -

‘AMENDMENT.’—

‘Resolved, that war being an institution of Divine appointment for the bruising to death of the Serpent-power, though disastrous to the subjects of it, has proved of great benefit to the human race; that civil and religious liberty have been won by the war power in connection with the advocacy of truth, which it has often protected; that the rights of God in the earth, the vengeance due to the blood of His people poured out like water in past ages, the chastisement and overthrow of civil and spiritual tyrants, the defence of liberty, and the establishment of peace based upon the ascendancy of right over wrong, of knowledge and faith over ignorance and superstition, and of a well ordered and enlightened liberty over despotism—are things of infinitely greater value than gold or human life; —that those who rule the nations, being men who have been trained in the school of State superstition, arbitrary power, covetousness, and contempt of the laws of God, and the rights of humanity, are malprincipled, seared in conscience, and amenable only to fear; that natural wars to avenge the injured, and defend liberty, are neither impious nor impolitic; —that while a Bible Christian must not fight in the absence of the captain of his salvation, the Scriptures leave the nations to do as they please, holding them, however, NATIONALLY RESPONSIBLE for the principles and manner in which they make war; —that the nations of Europe, being Papal, Protestant, Infidel, and Mahomedan, and NOT CHRISTIAN, the question of international war as compatible or incompatible with the spirit of Christianity, is extraneous; —that while taxation to maintain an extravagant and luxurious regal establishment; to enrich a pampered and vicious aristocracy; official sinecurists in Church and State; to bribe religious sects with costly endowments; and to build royal and episcopal palaces in the midst of impoverished and almost breadless populations, is odious and abominable—taxation to maintain an efficient military and naval force in the present condition of the world is wise, prudent, and indispensable; —that an army and navy are as necessary to the body politic of nations as at present constituted as the right and left arms to the body natural; —that considering the known traditionary ambitious designs of the Court of Russia, and the threatening attitude of the Autocrat in relation to Schleswig-Holstein, Transylvania, Turkey, and Persia, in which countries its ascendancy would be to bring the Cossacks to the gates of Britain in Europe and India, a reduction in the army and navy of England is loudly to be deprecated by all the real friends of liberty and humanity in the TWO WORLDS: that these things being so, it is the enlightened and sober-minded conviction of this meeting that whatever may be the merit of Mr. Cobden’s financial speculations in other respects, ‘special treaties of arbitration instead of war’ is a visionary, utopian, and impracticable project; and that his ‘motion’ to that effect ought not to be sustained by petitions in its favour.

            This amendment having been seconded, it was put from the chair, whether it should pass as the resolution of that meeting? The show of hands was multitudinous against it. The reader, doubtless, will be curious to know, how many were in favour of it? I do not know exactly, but I do not think there were more than half a dozen. Myself and the seconder, it is probable, would have made eight; which was a large minority in the two thousand, compared with the Noachic minority in a world. One of the reporters asked me for a copy of the amendment, which I gave him, having furnished myself with two. From this, I was encouraged to hope it would appear in one of the London papers; but the expectation was vain. Nothing is admitted there unpaid for that calls in question the cherished crotchets of the day. In its report of the meeting, the Morning Advertiser, simply remarked, that an amendment was moved by Dr. Thomas, which was not adopted. Seeing, however, that it had taken so much notice as this, I faintly hoped it might do more, if personally addressed. But no, I could not stir up a controversy with the enemy in the interest of the Kingdom. As it is here, so there, the leaders of the people are satisfied with what exists; hence their motto is ‘disturb not what is quiet,’ which has been well said to be ‘a capital maxim for a rotten cause.’

            The following is the letter which I forwarded to The Advertiser under the anti-peace caption of

WAR A DIVINE INSTITUTION.

To the Editor of the Morning Advertiser

            Sir: Among the utopian speculations of the day, the introduction of the reign of peace among the nations, by the Exeter Hall-philanthropy of the ‘Peace Society,’ is not the least remarkable. The supporters of the scheme are, no doubt, many of them persons of large ‘benevolence’—high in the medio-superior frontal region—and of feelings, which find much gratification in the contemplation of tranquillity and prosperity at any price among men. Their peculiar organization may be actuated by a pure and disinterested affection for their fellow-creatures, or it may not; for ‘benevolence’ may be actuated by ‘acquisitiveness,’ ‘love of approbation,’ ‘self-esteem,’ or by the nobler and more exalted sentiments of ‘veneration’ and ‘conscientiousness.’ Benevolence actuated by acquisitiveness produces that Commercial Philanthropy which would effect the abolition of war, because it interferes with the money-making business; actuated by ‘love of approbation,’ the benevolence of ostentation is the result; by ‘self-esteem,’ a self-important philanthropy, a self-complacent and self-glorifying benevolence; and actuated by ‘Veneration’ and ‘Conscientiousness,’ and a concern for human happiness and love of man, may be the consequence, having their origin in a conscientious regard for the law of the Almighty controller of human affairs. Now, if all men were of a uniform cerebral organization, we might say, that Peace Society efforts sprang from a common ground of action; but as this is not the case, we are justified in saying, that they result from a combination of various impulses as the basis of their operations. We cannot therefore censure or commend peace-socialists individually; but must speak of them in the aggregate as of a Society of the far-famed utopia.

            This compound benevolence of the society professes to have one common object, namely, the abolition of war. Its orators appeal to their audiences arithmetically, commercially, religiously, and lastly and subordinately, to scripture. The strongest arguments I have heard are addressed to the pocket; as though the system of the world was constituted only with reference to cash! There has doubtless been a great deal of ‘filthy lucre’ wasted in war, and most burdensome debts entailed upon posterity that are certain never to be paid; but money, though it seeks to be omnipotent, both in secular and religious affairs, was never designed by him who laid the foundation of the world, to be the gauge of right and wrong. ‘The love of it is the root of all evil;’ and, I apprehend, that this idolatry of gold has more to do with peace speculations, than either love for man as man, or conscientious regard for the word of God.

            That prismatic affair, current in the world called ‘conscience,’ is one of the greatest eccentricities extant. It is conscientiousness biased by prejudice; hence the phenomena which define the kind of conscientiousness are as varied as there are sects and parties in the several grand divisions of the earth. Men may act conscientiously, and yet be guilty of great impiety and folly. The Bible recognises but two kinds of conscience, a good and an evil conscience. Conscientiousness trained in error is evil and its acts cannot manifest that ‘wisdom which cometh from above, which is first PURE, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without hypocrisy.’ Conscientiousness enlightened by the wisdom and knowledge of God is a good conscience, which it is easily demonstrable is not the conscience of the Peace Society. These following points are the virtual consequences of its proceedings; —

1.      While it appeals to the Scripture, it advocates a doctrine at variance with it;

2.      It perverts the Scripture to establish its speculation;

3.      Its success would militate against the veracity of God, and the best and permanent interests of the human race.

1.      War was instituted as a part of the terrene system by Jehovah himself. Its appointment is thus decreed. Addressing the serpent he says, ‘I will put enmity between thee and the Woman; and between thy Seed and her Seed: He shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.’ Is not that war when two parties at enmity undertake to bruise one another? Or is it peace? Here then Jehovah declares there should be war between the Two Seeds; a war of enmity which he implants between them. In the first place, this passage is exactly literal, and secondarily, allegorical. The literal enmity is seen in the desperate hatred of man towards poisonous serpents; the allegory of this is the uncompromising and deadly enmity of mankind in their wars for ‘religion’ and liberty. Political and Scriptural Truth is the ground of enmity between the Serpent party and its opponent. The opponent party is composed of two classes; the one which ‘contends earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints,’ as commanded of God; and the other which does the fighting. The contention of the faithful brings down upon them the enmity, cruelty, and destructiveness of the Serpent Power, which is often vigorously antagonised by those who fear not to wrestle with it in desperate and bloody fray. To this providential arrangement, we, in England, America, and elsewhere, are indebted for all we have to boast of called civil and religious liberty, as the records of the past abundantly testify. But for the sword on the side of principle, the earth would have been the habitation of demons instead of men; things are bad enough in all conscience; but without war, they would have been reprobate of all good.

Does the Peace Society imagine that the present condition of things is a finality? That the fairest portion of the earth, the most magnificent countries, and the most genial climes, are destined to be forever what they now are, the productive soils of ignorance, superstition, oppression, and cruelty? It vainly imagines that nations can be persuaded into a millennium of peace and righteousness! A more unscriptural conceit never entered the heads of the wildest schemers. Even the Prince of Peace himself, and his Apostles could not persuade the masses into reason and virtue; and does the Peace Society imagine it can compass more than they? Nations never have been persuaded, nor ever will be, voluntarily to submit to ‘the wisdom that is from above which is first pure and then peaceable.’ Jehovah has a controversy with them for past offences yet unsettled; and he has placed it on record that ‘they shall lick the dust like a serpent.’ Can the Irish Priesthood be persuaded to loose the chains that bind the Celt to the papal car; will persuasion induce the continental rulers, even if they knew how, to reign in righteousness, to succour the poor and needy, ‘and him that hath no helper,’ to take care of the orphan and the widow, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God? Will persuasion ‘bruise the Serpent’s Head?’ No; the Serpent Dominion must be broken up by violence, the old heroes of the faith slain in ages past in combat with ‘the Beast’ must be avenged, and oppressors brought to retribution; and this can only be effected by that armed enmity which Jehovah instituted when he laid the foundation of the world.

2.      The Prince of Peace has declared,

‘I am come to send fire upon the earth; think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. I am come to set a man at variance against his nearest relative, so that a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.’—

Here he declares he came to send fire and sword upon the earth; and if the Peace Society would only avail itself of history, it would have before it the illustration of this divine mission faithfully portrayed even to 1848, the annus mirabilis inclusive. This Society, however, seems most complacently blind to facts; and in conformity with its amiable darkness is virtually usurping the rights and honour of the Prince of Peace. The King of Israel has proclaimed war against ignorance, superstition, oppression, and against every high thing that exalts itself above the knowledge which comes from God; and which war he has ordained shall continue until his return. But this Pseudo-Peace Society says ‘No, there shall not be war, if we can help it. We regard human life and commercial prosperity as of more importance than the vindication of the civil and religious rights of mankind by the sword of judgment; blood is more precious than principles; therefore we proclaim, Peace, peace, throughout all the earth.’ How remarkably are the words of scripture fulfilled in this saying,

‘The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.’

Thus this Peace Society sets up for Prince of Peace, and hurls the rightful potentate from the right hand of his Father’s throne.

The Society errs in not understanding, that the Lord Jesus is styled Prince of Peace, not because peace was intended to result from the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom in his absence; but because he would conquer a permanent and lasting peace when he should revisit the world. —Persuasions having failed, He will compel mankind to respect his Father’s laws; for—

‘He shall judge among the Nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’—Isaiah 2: 4.

He assumes his functions of Prince of Peace, when, as King of Israel, he shall sit upon the throne of the Restored Kingdom of David, as it is written,

‘Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his Kingdom, to order it; and to establish it, with judgment, and with justice henceforth (from its restitution) even forever’—Isaiah 9: 7.

3.      If the Peace Society’s speculation were carried into effect, the mercy and goodness of God could not be developed, and his promises would fail. He has promised that peace shall be established on the earth as a fruit of righteousness; good will also among men; and that his will shall be done here as it is in other orbs of his universe. But this cannot be until evil in its various political, civil, and ecclesiastical forms is suppressed. Evil and sin will not regenerate themselves; neither can they be regenerated; they must be subdued and extirpated. ‘The wicked are the Sword of the Lord;’ and ‘there is no peace for the wicked, says God.’—These are revealed truths—anti-Peace Society principles. War is the Almighty acting through human agency and subduing things to himself; by which he will prepare the way for the victorious establishment of a divinely implanted righteousness and peace among mankind.

Let then war prevail until the Serpent’s Head be crushed; until every form of diabolism, secular and sacerdotal, be subjugated throughout the earth, though it might raise taxes to enormity, and destroy the commercial mammoths of every nation of the globe. The world had better far be poor, independent, and justly ruled, than be splendidly victimised by oppression; and be the bond slaves to a bowelless acquisitiveness, a crotchety sentimentalism, and a fallacious spirituality.

In conclusion, the only peace at present desirable is peace among Bible christians; these ask no peace of the world, or for the world, and make no pretensions to greater spirituality or philanthropy than already sanctioned by the great Captain of their salvation. Their affectionate allegiance concentres only in him; and they would lead men to that peace of mind in him which ‘the world can neither give nor take away,’ by considerations derived, not from electrical discoveries, locomotive inventions, or arithmetical calculations—(See Burritt’s speech in Morn. Advert. Jan. 16;) but derived from the absorbing realities, which they only understand, who are acquainted with ‘the things noted in the scriptures of truth.’ That many well-meaning, but manifestly, errant familiars off the Peace Society, may be converted to the divine peace which comes from purity alone, is the sincere wish of yours, respectfully,

JOHN THOMAS.

3 Brudenell Place,

New North Road, London.