will of God, and the exigencies of human society. They must have, as he ordains they shall have, a government; and this not a mere name, but a substantial, effective reality. It must embody or represent the whole physical force of the community for which it acts. It must enact laws, and execute them, prescribe penalties, and inflict them; and if it may not, or cannot, do all this, it is in truth no government at all. No amount of mere argument, persuasion, or moral influence can deserve the name. There must

be authority backed somewhere by a force sufficient to execute its decrees. It must have the right, purpose and power to restrain or punish every class of wrong-doers. Society without all this can have no real, permanent security through laws, courts and magistrates. All government is organized resistance against wrong-doers; and if it be not right thus to restrain and punish, then all government, even that of God himself, must be wrong.

Now, in all this we contradict no principles of peace that we conceive to taught in the Bible. We cannot suppose that Christ or his Apostles ever meant to forbid civil government, or to interfere with any of its legitimate operations. They condemn war as wrong, but uphold government as an ordinance of God. They enjoin submission to rulers, and recognize their right to command, coerce and punish. Without this right there can be no proper, effective government; and if we deny such right, or the power requisite for its enforcement, we reduce all government to a mere name and scarecrow. On this principle, indeed, there never can be any government among men, or in any part of the universe.

We may, however, be told, as we sometimes are, that these are not the principles of peace. Call them what we please, are they not a part of God's revelation, binding on us all? Are peace principles the only truths taught in the Bible? Does it not also enjoin civil government, invest it with the right to punish wrong-doers, and impose upon it the duty of protecting society against their crimes by a due enforcement of its laws? If so, then all this must be as truly a part of the gospel as is the Sermon on the Mount. But can we reconcile these teachings'? Whether we can or not, they are here in the Bible, in the New Testament itself; and we deem it our duty to receive them both as equally the will of God. Such they clearly are; and, whether we can show their consistency or not, they must be consistent, because God cannot contradict himself. When he bids us love our enemies, and do them good, turning the other cheek to the smiter, and overcoming evil with good, we take him at his word; nor less so when he represents civil government as his own ordinance for the benefit of society, armed with power for their protection, a terror to the wicked, but a shield to the good, a minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath (punishment) upon every one that doeth evil.” Are such teachings self-contradictory? Does Paul in his epistle to the Romans allow what Christ had condemned in his Sermon on the Mount? Does the Bible anywhere forbid the punishment of wrong-doers as unchristian? If so, then all government, even that of God himself, must be contrary to the gospel; for it cannot exist without the right

to punish offenders. Now, all punishment is an infliction of suffering or evil of some sort as a penalty for transgression. No matter what the penalty, whether a halter, a prison, or a simple fine, it makes the criminal suffer in some way for the wrong he has done. It must do this, or it is government only in name.

If told that the enforcement of law may lead to war, we reply that such a process could never deserve the name. In all its essential moral elements, it differs entirely from those of war. Government may indeed use force, and even take life, in the discharge of its legitimate functions; but is this necessarily war? If so, then all government is war, nothing but war in principle. It rests, from first to last, on the right to employ all the force requisite for the execution of its decrees against those subject to its authority. Ordinarily it requires no physical force, because resistance is seldom attempted; but should there be, then the whole force of society must, if necessary, be called out to carry even the least important of its decisions into effect. Such operations of government we never, in strict propriety of speech, call war. When a bevy of constables arrest a burglar or incendiary; when a court sentences a murderer to the prison or the scaffold; whem the mayor of a city, or the governor of a state, calls out the military as an armed police to preserve the peace, and put the laws in execution, we do not deem all this war, but a legitimate, peaceful operation of government. But what more than this has been attempted even by the vast efforts made to suppress the rebellion in our country? Is it not all a proper, necessary operation of government, just what our laws prescribe and enjoin? Our rulers have sworn to put these in execution; and have they done a whit more than this? No; all our forces on land and sea, six or seven hundred thousand men in martial array, have been, in theory and in fact, only a police force on a gigantic scale to insure a due enforcement of our laws against a gigantic crime. In principle it is just as truly and properly a process of justice as it would be to quell a mob, or arrest an incendiary, to hang a pirate, or imprison a burglar. If government may not do all this, what can it do, what right has it to exist at all, or what is it in truth but a sheer fiction and mockery? Such, if it is what it claims to be, must be its legitimate operations; but none of these deserve, strictly speaking, to be called war.

OUR TREATMENT OF THE REBELLION.

It is, however, a sad and terrible necessity that demands an enforcement of even the best laws against such a multitude of transgressors. The neces sity ought never to have come; and when it did come, it was the fault, not of those who simply demanded a due enforcement of the laws, but solely of the bold, bad men who trampled them all under their feet, and strangely claimed impunity in their crimes. Foreseeing the storm, we did in season all we could, by remonstrance and entreaty, to avoid it. We said, indeed, that 'it was not ours as peace-men to decide precisely how the controversy ought to be settled; we only asked that it might, in any event, be brought

in some way to a bloodless issue. Have we not the best means for this purpose? Were not our constitution and laws designed expressly to meet such cases as this? Here, then, is the proper remedy; and if all would acquiesce in its application, we see not what occasion there can ever be for war among ourselves on this or any other question. If our laws are wrong or inadequate, change or repeal them. If dissatisfied with the constitution itself, take the steps requisite for its amendment. Wait for legal, peaceful measures to right, if possible, every wrong. If the parties are fully resolved not to remain united under our present or any other government; if there is such a conflict of principles, institutions and interests in different sections, as to forbid all hope of their ever living together in harmony; if on the slave issue neither party will yield its settled convictions or preferences; if the South is irrevocably bent on demanding what the North is equally resolved not to grant, the adoption of slavery as a national institution for all coming time; then let us in peace take the steps requisite for such a change of the constitution as will allow the withdrawal of those who wish to leave. The necessity of such a measure we should deeply deplore; but it would be infinitely preferable to civil war. Civil war! God forbid that it should ever sweep its besom of wrath and vengeance over our land. No arithmetic could compute, no imagination conceive the sum total of its evils; and if money could avert it, better far to bankrupt the entire country for ages. We ought to blush at the thought of such a burning shame. If in this land of Bibles and Sabbaths, of Christian pulpits and Christian presses, with a church for every five hundred souls, and every sixth man among us a professed follower of the Prince of Peace, we cannot, after all, settle our own disputes without drenching the land in fraternal blood, it must surely brand us, in view of the whole world, with everlasting disgrace.'

Such appeals we made before the storm had actually burst upon us ; and these appeals we scattered, while the old facilities of communication remained, as widely as possible in every section of the country. It was all in vain. The die was cast, the demon let loose; and no persuasion could now restrain him. Treason, in its madness, turned a deaf ear to the voice alike of duty and reason, of loyalty and self-interest. On the rebels, not on the government or its loyal supporters, rests the whole guilt. The slave-oligarchy, that had so long ruled under the forms of law, now boldly resolved either to rule against law, or ruin the republic, and erect, if possible, a slave empire on its ruins. A scheme more utterly lawless and atrocious never stained the annals of crime. Yet the rebels, with matchless arrogance and audacity, claimed the right to trample at will upon our constitution and laws with entire impunity; a claim as absurd as that of Satan to the throne of God. Such claims, if yielded, must have put an end to all real, effective government among us. Here was the only alternative left; and thus our rulers were compelled either to enforce the constitution and laws against the rebels, or to abdicate all authority, and confess that we had no government except in name, and even this at the mercy of a few hundred thousand slaveholders.

If our rulers could not punish such crimes, they could do nothing to purpose for the public peace and weal. On the principles underlying every government that ever existed among men, we see not how they could have done essentially otherwise than they did. Duly elected to office, and solemnly sworn to uphold the constitution, and execute the laws, their only choice was either to resign at once, or faithfully discharge their duty by doing all in their power to suppress the rebellion.

In such an emergency, then, what was the Peace Society to do? Was it ours to say that the government ought not to be upheld in its rightful authority, that its laws ought not to be put in execution against the worst, the most comprehensive of all crimes against society, or that our rulers were not to be sustained in doing the very things they were chosen on purpose to do? Is it our province as peace men thus to interfere with the legitimate processes of government, and do what we can by our moral influence to neutralize its power for the protection of society against wrong-doers? Surely not. All our views as peace-men compel us to be loyal; and this loyalty, if it means anything to purpose, must require us to support the government in every way consistent with our principles. Thus Quakers themselves do; and surely we cannot do less. We cannot indeed be expected to endorse everything that the government may do; but in the maintenance of its rightful authority, and in a due enforcement of the laws, we must ever be openly and uncompromisingly on its side.

While thus loyal to our government, however, no language can tell how sorely this war grates, at every step of its progress, on all our feelings. Never, since the rebellion of Satan, has the world seen a more stupendous crime against God and humanity. It is enough to mark an era in human depravity. Its folly, guilt and countless evils defy all utterance, all conception. Its authors deserve to be branded with everlasting infamy as enemies of the human race. No censure can be too severe. Their names ought to be gibbeted before the gaze of the whole world for the abhorrence of all coming ages. Such degeneracy and suicidal madness in the countrymen of Washington would seem incredible; and after a year's bitter experience of the reality, it often rises before us as a strange and horrible dream. To future ages it must seem the very climax of folly and crime, for which scarce a shadow of either excuse or explanation can be found, except in the accursed system of human bondage, that chief sin, shame and scourge of our land. Our government has all along shown a very remarkable degree of leniency in dealing with this rebellion; but the process, after all, has necessarily been accompanied with deeds and results from which patriotism, humanity and our peaceful religion recoil with horror.

OBSTRUCTIONS TO OUR CAUSE FROM THE REBELLION.

It is quite clear that such a rebellion as is now raging in our country, can allow small chance to work in the cause of peace. It fills the whole land, every nook and corner, with obstructions the most serious to the progress

of such a work. It lies directly across our path. It creates prejudices so bitter, kindles passions so fierce, and keeps the public mind so constantly stretched on such tenter-hooks of anxiety, fear or other excitement, that the people will not consider in earnest the general question of peace. They are in no mood for such discussions. Engaged in a death-grapple with the hydra of rebellion, they must crush the monster before attending to any other matter. They have little time, thought or care for anything else. The general facts and arguments in favor of peace, they will not heed, or will heed them only to pervert. The time is surely coming when they must heed them; but they will not do so just now. We must wait till the hurricane is past, and all is calm and orderly once more. Friends of government, we

can do nothing intentionally to weaken its hands; and, while so sure to be misconceived and thwarted, we have deemed it wise not to attempt for the present our usual scale of operations. The cause itself we hold in undiminished regard, even more important than ever; and, when we come forth from this terrible baptism of fire and blood, we think that all must see more clearly than ever its absolute necessity to the general, permanent welfare of our country and the world.

A GLANCE AT OUR OPERATIONS, AND THE PROGRESS OF OUR Cause.

Meanwhile we have not been idle, but have been quietly setting at work a variety of agencies and influences in its behalf. The press, always our chief instrument, we have employed very much as usual. We have not been able to issue new editions of our stereotyped volumes or tracts, but have put not a few of these in circulation, and have continued for the most part our periodical to the leading papers and literary institutions throughout our country, in order to keep the subject in its main aspects before the community. The whirlwind of an excitement so intense and universal, may have blown away or neutralized most of the seeds we have thus attempted to scatter over the land; but we still think that some germs will have found an effective lodgment in the public mind, and will in time yield a harvest of good results. A cause so dear to the God of Peace, and so essential to the welfare of mankind, its friends can never let die; and amid all the discouragements of the year, we have done what we could, and with some slight degree of success, to keep it alive. It does live still, and will continue to live, till it shall yet write the epitaph of war, and see all nations at last basking in the sun-light of universal and permanent peace.

The past year, indeed, has witnessed, after all, some proofs of progress in our cause. It is teaching lessons of wisdom and warning not likely soon to be forgotten. The desperate efforts of our rebels to carry into effect their piratical schemes against our commerce, have nearly all signally failed chiefly through the recoil against them of an improved public opinion that would neither encourage nor tolerate such an outrage on the civilization of the age, and the general interests of humanity. Other nations have looked on, with bated breath, to learn more fully how fatal is war in any form to