184. Alleviations of War

Alleviations of War

Psa_27:3 : ’93Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.’94

The ring of battle-axes, and the clash of shields, and the tramp of armies, are heard all up and down the Old Testament; and you find godly soldiers like Moses, and Joshua, and Caleb, and Gideon, and scoundrelly soldiers like Sennacherib, and Shalmaneser, and Nebuchadnezzar. The High Priest would stand at the head of the army, and say: ’93Hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies, let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them!’94 and then the officers would give command to the troops, saying: ’93What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it? And what man is he that hath planteth a vineyard and hath not eaten of it? Let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’94 Great armies marched and fought. In time of Moses and Joshua all the men were soldiers. When Israel came out of Egypt they were six hundred thousand fighting men. Abijah commanded four hundred thousand, Jeroboam commanded eight hundred thousand men, of whom five hundred thousand were slain in one battle. Some of these wars God approved, for they were for the rescue of oppressed nations, and some of them he denounced, but in all cases it was a judgment upon both victors and vanquished. David knew just what war was when he wrote in the text: ’93Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.’94

David is encouraging himself in stormy times, and before approaching battles administers to himself this consolation. So today my theme is the ’93Alleviations of War.’94 War is organized atrocity. It is the science of assassination. It is the convocation of all horrors. It is butchery wholesale. It is murder glorified. It is Death on a throne of human skeletons. It is the coffin in ascendancy. It is diabolism at a game of skulls. But war is here, and it is time now to preach on its alleviations, and make up our mind what ought to be the style of our behavior while passing through this national ordeal.

First, I find an alleviation in the fact that it has consolidated the North and the South after long-continued strained relations. It is thirty-four years since our Civil War closed, and the violences are all gone and the severities have been hushed. But ever and anon, in oration, in sermon, in newspaper editorial, in magazine article, on political stump, and in congressional hall, the old sectional difference has lifted its head; and for the first time within my memory, or the memory of any one who hears or reads these words, the North and the South are one. By a marvelous providence, the family that led in opposition to our government thirty years ago is represented at the front in this present war. Nothing else could have done the work of unification so suddenly or so completely as this conflict between the United States and Spain. At Tampa, at Chattanooga, at Richmond, and in many other places, the regiments are forming, and it will be side by side, Massachusetts and Alabama, New York and Georgia, Illinois and Louisiana, Maine and South Carolina. Northern and Southern men will together unlimber the guns and rush upon the fortification and charge upon the enemy and shout the triumph. The voices of military officers who were under Sidney Johnson and Joseph Hooker will give the command on the same side. The old sectional grudges forever dead. The name of Grant on the Northern side and of Lee on the Southern side exchanged for the names of Grant and Lee on the same side. The veterans in Northern and Southern homes and asylums are stretching their rheumatic limbs to see whether they can again keep step in a march, and are testing their eyesight to find whether they can again look along the gun-barrel to successfully take aim and fire. The old war cry of ’93On to Richmond!’94 and ’93On to Washington!’94 has become the war-cry of ’93On to Havana!’94 ’93On to Porto Rico!’94 ’93On to the Philippine Islands!’94 The two old rusty swords that in other days clashed at Murfreesboro and South Mountain and Atlanta, are now lifted to strike down Hispanic abominations.

Another alleviation of the war is the fact that it is the most unselfish war of the ages. While the commercial rights of our wronged citizens will be vindicated, that is not the chief idea of this war. It is the rescue of hundreds of thousands of people from starvation and multiform maltreatment. At least two hundred thousand graves are calling to us to come on and remember by what process their occupants died. It is the twentieth century crying out to the nineteenth: ’93Do you mean to pass down to me the curse with which you have been blasted? Or will you let me begin under new auspices and turn the island of desolation into an island Edenic?’94 It is a war inspired by mercy, which is an attribute in man imitative of the same attribute of God. In no other age of the world could such a war have been waged. The Gospel of kindness needed to be recognized throughout Christendom in order to make such a war possible. The chief reason why most of the European nations are not now banded together against us is because they dare not take the part of that behemoth of cruelty, the Spanish government, against the crusade of mercy which our nation has started. Had it been on our part a war of conquest, a war of annexation, a war of aggrandizement, there would have been by this time enough flying squadrons coming to this country across the Atlantic to throw into panic every city on our American seaboard. Most of the wars of the world have been wars of ambition or conquest; but in this Hispanic-American war every drummer-boy or picket or gunner or standard-bearer or skirmisher or sharpshooter or cavalryman or artilleryman or engineer who falls, falls in the cause of mercy, and becomes a martyr for God and his country.

Another alleviation of this war is that it is for the advancement of the sublime principle of liberty, which will yet engirdle the earth. Not only will this war free Cuba, but finally will free Spain. By what right does a dynasty like that stand, and a corrupt court dominate a people for centuries, taxing them to death, riding in gilded chariot over the necks of a beggared population? There are ten thousand boys in Spain growing up with more capacity to govern that nation than the weak boy now in the Madrid palace will ever possess. Before this conflict is over, the Spanish nation will be well on toward the time when a constitutional convention will assemble to establish a free government, instead of the wornout dynasty that now afflicts the people. The liberty of all nations, trans-Atlantic as well as cis-Atlantic, if not already established, is on the way, and it cannot be stopped. Napoleon III thought he had successfully driven the principle out of France, when, on the second day of December, 1851, he rode down the Champs Elysees of Paris, constitutional government seemingly crushed under the hoofs of his steed. But did it stay crushed? Let the batteries on the heights above Sedan answer, and the shout of two hundred and fifty thousand triumphant troops and the letter of surrender to Emperor William tell the story. ’93Sire, my Brother: Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops, it only remains for me to place my sword in your Majesty’92s hands. I am, your Majesty, your good brother, Napoleon. Sedan, 1 September, 1870.’94 That monarchy having fallen, then the French Republic resumed its march.

Another alleviation is that the war opens with a great victory for the United States. It took our government four years to get over the fiasco at Bull Run. A defeat at the start of this present war would have been disheartening to the last degree, and would have invited foreign intervention to stop the war before anything practical for God and humanity had been accomplished, and would have prolonged the strife, for which we are hoping a quick termination. In the most jubilant manner let this victory of our navy be celebrated. With the story of the exploding battleship fresh in the minds of the world, it required no ordinary courage to sail into the harbor of Manila and attack the Spanish ships. That harbor, crowded with sunken weaponry of death; to enter it was running a risk enough to make all nations shiver. But Manila is ours, and the blow has shaken to the foundation the palaces of Madrid, and for policy’92s sake the doubtful nations are on our side. For Commodore Dewey and all who followed him let the whole nation utter its most resounding huzza; and more than that, let us thank the Lord of hosts for his guiding and protecting power. ’93Praise ye the Lord! Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!’94

Another alleviation is the fact that in this war the might is on the side of the right. Again and again have liberty and justice and suffering humanity had the odds against them. It was so when Benhadad’92s Syrian hosts, who were in the wrong, at Aphek, came upon the small regiments of Israel, who were in the right, the Bible putting it in one of those graphic sentences for which the book is remarkable: ’93The children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids, but the Syrians filled the whole country.’94 It was so in the awful defeat of the Lord’92s people at Gilboa and Megiddo. It was so recently when gallant and glorious Greece was in conflict with gigantic Mohammedanism, and the navies of Europe hovering about the Bosphorus were in practical protection of the Turkish government, fresh from the slaughter of one hundred thousand Armenians. It was so when, in 1776, the thirteen colonies, with no war shipping and a few undrilled and poorly-clad soldiers were brought into a contest with the mightiest navy of all the earth, and an army that commanded the admiration of nations. It was so when Poland was crushed. It was so when Hungary went under. It has been so during all the struggles heretofore for Cuban independence. But now it is our powerful navy against a feeble group of incompetent ships, crawling across the Atlantic to meet our flotillas, which have enough guns to send them as completely under as when the Red Sea submerged Pharaoh’92s army. It is so in these times, when only a few thousand Spaniards at most can reach our hemisphere, and we go out to meet them with one hundred and twenty-five thousand armed men, to be backed up speedily with five hundred thousand more if needed. We do not have to ask for any miracle, but only a fair shot at the ships headed this way, and time enough to demolish them. This is one of the cases in the world’92s history where might and right are shoulder to shoulder.

Another alleviation is the fact that such an atrocity as the destruction of two hundred and sixty-six lives in Havana harbor in time of peace cannot with impunity be perpetrated in this age of the world’92s civilization. The question as to who did that infernalism is too well settled to need any further discussion. But what a small crime it was, compared with the systematic putting into their graves of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, or leaving them unburied for the buzzards to take care of! If Spain could destroy two hundred thousand men, women and children, the slaughter of two hundred and sixty-six people was not a very great undertaking. But this one last deed will result in the liberation of Cuba, and the driving of Spain from this hemisphere.

There was danger that the long-continued oppression of our neighbors in Cuba might be continued from generation to generation without sufficient protest on our part and the pronounced execration of people on both sides of the Atlantic, but that bursting volcano of destruction in the harbor of Havana fired the nation and shocked the whole civilized world. All nations will learn that such an act cannot be repeated without the anathema of all Christendom. As individual criminals must be punished for the public good, and we have for them courts of oyer and terminer, and penitentiaries, and electric chairs, and hangman’92s gallows, so governments committing high crimes against God and humanity must be scourged and hung up for the world’92s indignation. When in Spanish waters our battleship, looking after our commercial interests and intending nothing but quietude, was hurled into demolition, and the men on board, without time to utter one word of prayer, were dashed into the eternal world, the final doom of the reigning house of Spain was pronounced in tones louder than the thunder of explosion which that night rolled out over the sea.

Another alleviation is the fact that we have a God to go to in behalf of all those of our countrymen who may be in especial exposure at the front, for we must admit the perils. It is no trifling thing for one hundred thousand young men to be put outside of home restraints and sometimes into evil companionship. Many of the brave of the earth are not the good of the earth. To be in the same tent with those who have no regard for God or home; to hear their holy religion sometimes slurred at; to be placed under influences calculated to make one reckless; to have no Sabbath, or such a Sabbath as in most encampments amounts to no Sabbath at all; to go out from homes where all sanitary laws are observed into surroundings where questions of health are never discussed; to invade climes where pestilence holds possession; to make long marches under blistering skies; to stand on deck and in the fields under fire, at the mercy of shot and shell’97we must admit that those thus exposed need especial care, and to the Omnipresent God we have a right to commend them and will commend them. Postal communication may be interrupted, and letters started from camps or homes may not arrive at the right destination, but however far away our loved ones may be from us, and however wide and deep the seas that separate us, we may hold communication with them via the throne of God.

A shipwrecked sailor was found floating on a raft near the coast of California. While in hospital he told his experience, and said that he had a companion on the same raft for some time. While that companion was dying of thirst he said to him: ’93George, where are you going?’94 and the dying sailor said: ’93I hope I am going to God.’94 ’93If you do,’94 said the rescued sailor, ’93will you ask him to send some water?’94 After the death of his companion, the survivor said, the rain came in torrents, and slaked his thirst and kept him alive until he was taken to safety. The survivor always thought it was in answer to the message he had sent to heaven asking for water. Thank God we may have direct and instantaneous communication with the Lord Almighty through Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, and in that faith we may secure the rescue of our imperiled kindred. Is not that a mighty alleviation?

Until this conflict is ended let us be much in prayer for our beloved country. Do not let us depend upon the friendship of foreign nations. Our hope is in God. Out of every misfortune, he has brought this nation to a better moral and financial condition, and so let us pray that he will lift us out of this valley of trouble into a higher mountain of blessing.

It is a mystery that, just as this country was recovering from a long season of hard times, so many of our industries should now be halted; that business men who thought they could see their way to pay their debts and build up more prosperous enterprises and endow their homes with more advantages should have to halt and wait until the perfidious oppressor of Cuba shall be turned back. But individual and national life is always clothed with mysteries, and we make ourselves miserable by stabbing ourselves with sharp interrogation points, and plying the everlasting questions of ’93Why?’94 and ’93How?’94 and ’93What?’94 and ’93When?’94 While we must, of course, try to be intelligent on all public affairs, it is a glorious thing to do our duty, and then fully and confidently trust all in the hands of God, who has proved himself the friend of our country from the time when the Spanish government fitted out an expedition to discover it, to this time, when Spaniards would like to destroy it.

Morning, noon and night, let us commend this beloved land to the care of a gracious God. That he answers prayer is so certain that your religion is an hallucination if he does not answer it. Pray that in reply to such supplications, the farmers’92 boys may get home again in time to reap the harvest of next July; that our business men may return in time to prepare for a fall trade such as has never yet filled the stores and factories with customers, and that all the homes in this country, now saddened by the departure of father or brother or son, may months before the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays be full of joy at the arrival of those who will for the rest of their lives have stories to tell of double-quick march, and narrow escape, and charges up the parapets, and nights set on fire with bombardment, and our flag hauled up to places from which other flags were hauled down.

Now that we have started on the work, let us make that Spanish government get out of this hemisphere. We do not want her any more, with her injustices and barbarism, and stilettos of cruelty, hanging around the shores of this free land. She must not breathe her foul breath on our winds; she must not again redden our seas with her butcheries. There bids fair to be a scene on the deep as disastrous to the Spanish as that which whelmed their Armada in 1588. Philip the Second, King of Spain, resolved on the conquest of Europe, and already in the compass of his dominions, besides Spain, were Naples and Sicily, and the Netherlands, and the East Indies, and the Canary and Molucca and Sunda and Philippine Islands, and Mexico and Cuba and some of the most splendid parts of America. All the nations of the earth, except England, were to her underlings, and the Spanish king resolved that even England must bow the knee. Although the destructive strength of modern battleships was then unknown, the Spanish Armada started for the subjection of England with about one hundred and forty great ships, with two thousand six hundred guns, four thousand cavalry horses, and thirty-two thousand men. The battleships were provisioned with one hundred and forty-seven thousand casks of wine, and six months of provisions. The commanders and officers of these war vessels were dukes and marquises and noblemen.

A storm such as had never swept the coast of England or aroused the ocean swooped down upon that Spanish Armada. Most of the ships soon went down under the sea, while others were driven helplessly along, to be splintered on the coasts of England, Ireland, Scotland and Norway. Another Spanish Armada is crossing the Atlantic, and we are ready to meet them. The same God who destroyed the Armada in 1588 reigns in 1898. May he, in his might, either through human arm or dumb element, defeat their squadron, and give victory to the old flag of Admiral Farragut and David Porter!

Yet what the world most wants is Christ, who is coming to take possession of all hearts, all homes, all nations; but the world blocks the wheels of his chariot. I would like to see this century, which is now almost wound up, find its peroration in some mighty overthrow of tyrannies and a universal building up of liberty and justice. Almost all the centuries have ended with some stupendous event that transformed nations and changed the map of the world. It was so at the close of the fourteenth century; it was so at the close of the fifteenth century; at the close of the sixteenth, at the close of the seventeenth, at the close of the eighteenth century. May it be more gloriously so at the close of the nineteenth century! ’93Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let the whole earth be filled with his glory.’94 Amen.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage