by seeking influential
offices in the government and binding ourselves to anti-Christian
political compacts. It is to be done by pure Christian precepts
faithfully inculcated, and pure Christian examples on the part of
those who have been favored to receive and embrace the highest
truths."[106]

The Mennonites believed that man was essentially depraved; Ballou
believed that he was perfectible.[107]

FOOTNOTES:

[102] Allen, _Fight for Peace_, 696.

[103] Ballou, _Christian Non-Resistance_, 3.

[104] _Ibid._, 2-25.

[105] _Ibid._, 18.

[106] _Ibid._, 223-224.

[107] Perhaps this is the point at which to insert a footnote on Henry
Thoreau, whose essay on "Civil Disobedience" is said to have influenced
Gandhi. Although he lived in the same intellectual climate that produced
Garrison and Ballou, he was not a non-resistant on principle. For
instance, he supported the violent attack upon slave holders by John
Brown just before the Civil War. He did come to substantially the same
conclusions, however, on government. He refused even to pay a tax to a
government which carried on activities which he considered immoral, such
as supporting slavery, or carrying on war. On one occasion he said,
"They are the lovers of law and order who observe the law when the
government breaks it." Essentially, Thoreau was a philosophical
anarchist, who placed his faith entirely in the individual, rather than
in any sort of organized social action. See the essay on him in
Parrington, II, 400-413; and his own essay on "Civil Disobedience" in
_The Writings of Henry David Thoreau_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906),
IV, 356-387.

Tolstoy

Many people regard the writings of Count Leo Tolstoy as the epitome of
the doctrine of non-resistance. Tolstoy arrived at his convictions after
a long period of inner turmoil, and published them in _My Religion_ in
1884. In the years that followed, his wide correspondence introduced him
to many others who had held the same views. He was especially impressed
with the 1838 statement of Garrison, and with the writings of Ballou,
with whom he entered into correspondence directly.[108]

However, he went further than Ballou, and even further than the
Mennonites in his theory, which he formulated fully in _The Kingdom of
God is Within You_, published in 1893. He renounced the use of physical
force completely even in dealing with the insane or with children.[109]
He severed all rela