Famous and Historical Sermon by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
Plymouth Church Brooklyn, NY - Sunday Morning July 17, 1870
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Warring Turbulence of Man
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| George Villiers, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1625 |
“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 dormant 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 grime and dirt. “Because ye ask not.” Because the spiritual 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 passions. Only now and then, and less and less frequently as we go backward on the path of time, have wars represented principles; and even the principles that they have represented are the lowest of any, that which is nearest to the carnal desires.
Governing by Force
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| New York City Policeman, 1896 |
The law of Christian philosophy in regard to the use of force to govern the masses 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. The most wholesome in this world, to those who least want it and most need it.
Now let's ask ourselves, has the time come in the history of this world in which force can be laid aside? 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 it can be laid aside yet. I do not think the time will come in even the next hundred years, when we can lay aside the power to use force in the government of individuals, of communities, of nations, or of correlated nations - the globe.
Let's ask ourselves about governing the of law in the absence of force. There are many men living here to whom law has no relevance. They have gone so far above the law that they spontaneously do 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.
Men can therefore determine what they will be governed by determining what their character shall be. Nations will be governed, in the long run, not so much by any external court ordered decree, as by the out workings of the state of mind in which the nation is living, and by which they are acting.
Religion and War
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| Christ with Sword - Fresko in Visoki Dečani church, Kosovo - 14th Century |
England was one of the first nations to start disarming their military and naval force. But though it is true that England learned peace, she learned it from commerce, rather than from religion. It was with her as it was with all other nations, religion made her combative.
Thus said the prophet Jesus:
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be of his own household.” (Matthew 10:34)
Jesus came to divide houses against themselves; children against their parents; parents against their children; one against another, all the way through. And every word of this prophecy has been fulfilled. For wherever the Christian religion has been, there has been bitterness, hatred, persecutions, and the cruelest things that were ever done on the face of the earth, have been done in the name of religion. Done by men who were acting under a malignant conscience.
Peace by Commerce
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| Power Loom Weaving from Baines's History of the Cotton Manufacture, 1835 |
England did not learn peace from love. Her looms taught her the benefit of peace. When she desired the world to be her customer it was the political economy that led to peace. It was best, in her estimation, for the same reason that one kind of cotton is better than another, because it made up better, sold better, and yielded more benefits to her.
So England learned peace. England, one of the staunchest of fighters, one whose flag is all red, as if it had been baptized in nothing but wars from the beginning, and has on it the cross, to show that there was a touch of religion in her war.
However, we never shall have peace with an ignorant, impoverished population at the bottom, never! As long as men of education make a class of themselves, and separate themselves from their lower and less fortunate fellows; as long as society is divided as milk is, the cream being at the top and the skim-milk at the bottom, you will find communities unbalanced, unequal, and liable to be thrown into convulsions, out of which will spring wars.
Peace by Equality
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| Peace with a War Measure - Harper's Weekly - 1878 |
You cannot develop until you learn to take the whole mass of society along together; until the working men are relieved from a sense of injustice; until they are delivered from the irritation, the grinding, and the attrition of wrongs; until they are taught to be more than animals, and are treated as if they were more than animals; until they begin to feel the dignity of manhood. You cannot hope for peace when one half or two-thirds of your great nation is basilar. And the idea that men can be directed by dynasties, by the leading minds or ruling spirits of any form of government, or any civil polity, without restraint, is the height of infatuation and folly.
If you are going to have peace, it must be proclaimed by the common people. We shall not have peace till they understand that it is their interest as well as duty. When that time comes, we shall have peace guaranteed so that no tyrant can move it. Whatever, then, tends to the education of the whole people, must necessarily tend to the diminution of the chances of war.
Curing the Disease of War
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| Apostle Peter striking the High Priests' servant Malchus with a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane. Rama |
War is an acute disease which can be cured by special remedies. It is a constitutional disorder. It belongs to human nature. It is the remnant of that old fighting animal from which Mr. Darwin says we sprang. One might find some presumption in favor of his theory, from the fact that there is so much of the animal left in us yet.
It is for us, viewing the hideousness of these wars on other shores, to form in our minds a loftier ambition, and a clearer conception of what should be the ambition of every true statesman in America.
I pray that there may be such a spirit of Christianity among the people, that, great as it is, vast as its power is, it may stand and look abroad, Christlike, upon the nations, winning them to civilization; winning them to amenity of manners; winning them to true piety; winning them to that which shall redeem them from barbarism, that shall redeem the common people from oppression, and that shall make them strong in the Lord. And, until that bright and blessed day shall come, when we shall have no occasion to say to any man, “Know ye the Lord,” but when all shall know him from the least to the greatest. Godspeed that day.
Who is Rev. Henry Ward Beecher?
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| Rev. Henry Ward Beecher - Age, Mid 30's |
Henry Ward Beecher is a man who preached freedom for the slave, and whose words have electrified a continent and sent a thrill to the heart of the whole English-speaking race. A man who was so highly distinguished for originality of thought, who has been called the Shakespeare of the century, the advocate of universal liberty, the friend of the oppressed everywhere, and who converted the English public to a right view of the civil struggle in America, could only be fully and fairly appreciated wehn the grave had closed over hime, and the mighty voice with which he spoke had been hushed forever. (Preface by Thomas W. Knox from “Life and Work of Henry Ward Beecher”)