lent, and, in
which they expose both his body and soul to destruction, is to make
themselves, in their own judgments, virtually guilty of theft and
murder.

Thus it is in the case of a national war, waged for conquest. Christians
have taken part in it; and, because they were blinded by a wrong
education, and were acting in the name of their country and under the
impulses of patriotism, they never suspected that they were doing the
devil, instead of "God, service." But when, in the kind providence of
God, one of these butchers of their fellow beings is brought to pause
and consider his ways, and to resolve his enormous and compound sin into
its elements of wickedness,--into the lies, theft, covetousness,
adultery, murder, and what not of crime, which enter into it,--he is
amazed that he has been so "slow of heart to believe," and abandon the
iniquity of his deeds.

What I have said to show that Christians, even in enlightened and
gospelized lands, may be blind to the great wickedness of certain
customs and institutions, serves to introduce the remark; that there
were probably some customs and institutions, in the time of the
Apostles, on which it would have been even worse than lost labor for
them to make direct attacks. Take, for example, the kind of war of which
we have been speaking. If there are reasons why the modern Christian can
be insensible to the sin of it, there are far stronger reasons why the
primitive Christian could be. If the light and instruction which have
been accumulating for eighteen centuries, are scarcely sufficient to
convince Christians of its wickedness, is it reasonable to suppose that,
at the commencement of this long period, they could have been
successfully taught it? Consider, that at that time the literature and
sentiment of the world were wholly on the side of war; and especially,
consider how emphatically the authority of civil government and of human
law was in favor of its rightfulness. Now, to how great an extent such
authority covers over and sanctifies sin, may be inferred from the fact,
that there are many, who, notwithstanding they believe slavery to be a
most Heaven-daring sin, yet, because it is legalized and under the wing
of civil government, would not have it spoken against. Even Rev. Dr.
Miller, in certain resolutions which he submitted to the last General
Assembly, indicated his similar reverence for human laws; and the
lamented Dr. Rice distinctly recognises, in his lett