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all our citizens of every name, that worship thee this day. those who are in error may more and more see the truth.

Grant that all

Bless this nation. Bless all the states and their governments. Bless the government of the United States. Grant that thy servant, the President, may walk in the spirit of wisdom. May he fear God, and do justly. We pray that thou wilt bless all who are associated with him in counsel. Bless the legislature of the nation. Grant, we pray thee, that fidelity, and equity, and purity may be the stability of our times.

We pray that thou wilt bless the nations of the earth, and gather them, according to thy promises, at last, into a great realm of peace, from which are banished ignorance, and superstition, and all wrong. Grant that at last the birthright of the world may come, and Christ descend to reign for a thousand years.

And to thy name shall be the praise for ever and for ever. Amen.

WAR.

"From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not; ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war, and yet ye have not, because ye ask not."-JAMES IV. 1, 2.

This is a description of the turbulence of man, regarded simply as an animal. There is a latent implication here, also, of man as a spiritual being. As an animal, he is restless, avaricious, dishonest, plundering, murdering, forever desiring, and yet unsatisfied in his desires, because his lower nature never can be at rest, but, like the troubled sea, casts up mire and dirt. "Because ye ask not." Because the spirtual side of man, which derives its being from God, and all the plentitude of its enjoyment from spiritual things, through prayer and faith, does not come into activity, men are unhappy.

This is James' philosophical analysis of the source of war. Violence and physical force in the management of men arise from their excessive animal conditions.

It is true, as a matter of history, that wars have mainly sprung from the passions. Only now and then, and less and less frequently as we go backward on the path of time, have wars represented princi· ples; and even the principles that they have represented are the lowest, and the nearest to that which is carnal, of any.

The necessity of force in this world is in the ratio of the strength of men's lower nature. That part which is animal and physical must, at last, for government, go back to force.

Man is a compound. Reason and moral sense are, as it were, set upon another organization-an animal and physical one. So the apostle Paul, by a figure of speech, represents man as being dual; as being two men in one; as being a carnal man and a spiritual man. spiritual man is superimposed upon the basilar or carnal man.

The

Man is a rational being, and he is also an irrational animal; and it is quite possible for him to act in either of these characters as separated from the other. It is quite possible for a man to act as an animal with almost no guidance from his moral sense, or from his reason. It is also

SUNDAY MORNING, July 17, 1870. LESSON: ROMANS XIII. HYMNS (Plymouth Collection): Nos. 199, 911, 1011.

possible for a man to supercede the instincts of his lower nature, and act entirely from rational and moral considerations.

In the one character, men will govern themselves by reason and the moral sentiments-by the higher motives. If this is not possible, then they must fall down, for government, to that range, or to that. plane, where they can be reached. It is far better to govern men by the voluntary instincts of their moral nature; but if that cannot be, it is far better than that they should go ungoverned, that they should be governed by their intellectual forces; by reasons and persuasions addressed to their higher feelings. But if they are not susceptible in either their moral or their intellectual nature, it is far better then that they should be ungoverned, that they should be governed by appeals to their selfishness. But if they cannot be reached by such appeals, rather than that they should not be governed, it is better that they should be governed by direct appeals to the flesh by pain--by the actual compression of force. That is the lowest and meanest way to

govern men. It is only better than no government at all.

But men must take their choice. For government is of God. Not by decree is it made obligatory, but it is organically necessary. That is, the structure of the globe is such that without government it could not cohere, and order could not exist. Government there must be; but what kind of government it is to be, will depend entirely upon the susceptibility of men in any age and nation to the different motives which may be addressed to them. Those who are so far civilized and Christianized that they are susceptible to higher motives, will be furthest removed from the law of force; but if men are so animal and bestial in their inclinations, and in their whole state, that they are susceptible to no other influence but that of force, then force must be employed. And it is just as rational, just as normal, as it is necessary and indispensable. And all the sentimentality about not using force, where force is the only thing that can be used, is surplusage and waste. I do not believe in using force if you can help it; but I do believe in using it when you cannot help it.

Lately, there is much said against using the rod in the family and in schools; and it is only an extension of that to find fault about the police in cities, and to teach that a higher view of man should lead us to withdraw all force from our cities. A pretty time we should have in New York without our police. A pretty time we have with them; and how much more we should have pretty time without them! And the same thing is extended to the nation. Armies are said to be cruel. Yes, they are cruel. The only crueler thing than an army, is a nation that has no army, and is uncivilized, beastly and savage. The law of force is the bottom necessity, and men can take their choice as to

whether they will come within the reach of it or not. If they do not like it, then let them go up. Or, if they will not go up, let them not complain that there is that omnipotent decree at the bottom which holds men by governing and coercing them.

Force is therefore to be used until you can do better.

But the law of Christian philosophy in regard to the use of force is not the ultimate discipline, but simply a preparatory one. Use it until you can develop instincts higher than that reaches. Then, as soon as possible, dispense with it. But until you can get some other motive-power, force is legitimate and wholesome-most wholesomein this world, to those who least want it and most need it.

Whether that time has come in the history of the world in which force can be laid aside, as some poetic men, some sentimentalists, some philanthropists think, is a simple question of speculation. I do not think that time has come-not by generations yet. The law of force, whether as applied in the household, in the school, in the municipal police, or in the police of nations-which is the army-I do not think can yet be laid aside. I do not think the time has come by some hundred years when we can lay aside the power to use force in the government of individuals, of communities, of nations, or of corelated nations -the globe.

It is true that men have risen as individuals, and in numbers greater, probably, than ever before in the history of the world, into that state in which they are governed wholly by motives addressed to their reason, to their moral sense, to their affections, and to their interests. There are thousands of men living here to whom law has no relevancy. They have gone so far above the law that they do spontaneously the things which it requires. The law says, "Thou shalt not steal." That law does not apply to you, because, seeing the moral beauty of honesty, you are honest. I do not steal, not because there is a law that forbids stealing, but because I have no inclination to steal. The law says, "Thou shalt not murder;" but my neighbors are safe from my hand, not because there is a law against murder, but because I have another law written in myself that protects them. There is a law that men shall support the State; but I support the State by my taxes, not because the law says I must, but because I love my country, and because when I have reasonable ground for believing that one-tenth part of my taxes go to serve the country, I am glad to pay them. I do it of my own volition, and not because the law tells me to. The law simply tells me how much I shall pay; and I am willing to pay it if I know that the country gets one-tenth part, though the other nine parts are lost on scoundrels, for the sake of serving my day and generation-though you are not all of the same opinion.

In many individuals a growth has taken place, so that they are no longer amenable to the law of selfishness, and are wholly free from the law of force, and do the things which they ought to do from considerations, not of necessity, but of choice.

In certain communities, also, far more than in others, this civilization has taken place. There are some nations that are far nearer than others to that time in which they will be able either to sheath the sword, or lay it aside wholly. There are small communities which are situated so that temptations to violence are removed from them, and so that the inducements to peace are numerous and strong. And so, there are limited classes in all nations, I suppose, that are prepared to be governed by moral suasion. In France, in Russia, in Spain, in Italy, yea, even in Turkey, I suppose there are classes of men who already are so civilized, and so developed morally, that it is possible to govern them by the moral law, and not by the law of force. But when men are regarded in a mass; when the world's population is considered; or when the population of Christendom is looked upon comprehensively, we are not to determine what is proper and what is possible by the consideration of the condition of individual instances, or of single classes, but we must take into consideration the condition of the whole of the populations. What their civilization is, and what the law is to which they are susceptible, must be determined before we can ascertain whether they must be governed by force, or whether they can be governed by moral suasion.

There are isothermal lines, or lines of equal heat, extending across the continent, which show where, in different longitudes, are the points which are of an average temperature through the year. There are also isoborometric lines, which indicate, at any given time, where there is an equality of atmospheric pressure. Now, there is in the moral globe what I might call isodynamic lines, showing where there is an equal moral pressure. And until these isodynamic lines have risen above the selfish instincts and into the sentiments-the affection and the moral sense-it is not possible to have peace, simply because it is not possible to dispossess the law of force. As soon as a nation is so far civilized that it averages in its population a susceptibility to moral motives higher than the line of selfishness in its character, then in that nation the time has come in which you can lay aside force, with exceptional instances, and can hope to govern by reason and conscience and enlightened interest. But in all nations where that line. comes below, and yet rests in the animal region, the law of force is the salutary, the wholesome, as well as the indispensable law.

Men can therefore determine what they will be governed by, by determining what their character shall be; and nations will be governed,

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