War is Inhuman | 3
3. War Is Inhuman,
As It Oppresses the Poor
To oppress the poor is everywhere in the Scriptures considered as a great sin:
“For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, says the Lord.”
“Whoso stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself and not be heard.”
“‘What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?’ says the Lord God of hosts.”
The threats against those who oppress the poor, and the blessings pronounced upon those who plead their cause, are very numerous in the Scriptures.
The threats are so tremendous and awful that all men ought to consider well before they are active in any step that has a natural tendency to oppress the poor and needy.
That war actually does oppress the poor may be heard from ten thousand wretched tongues that have felt its woe.
Very few, comparatively, who are instigators of war actually take the field of battle, and are seldom seen in the front of the fire.
It is usually those who are rioting on the labours of the poor that fan up the flame of war. The great majority of soldiers are generally from the poor of a country.
They must gird on the harness and for a few cents per day endure all the hardships of a camp and be led forward like sheep to the slaughter.
Though multitudes are bewitched to enlist by the intoxicating cup, the glitter of arms, the vainglory of heroes, and the empty sound of patriotism, yet many more are called away contrary to their wishes by the iron hand of despotic laws.
Perhaps a parent is enrolled whose daily labour was hardly sufficient to supply a scanty pittance for numerous offspring, who are in his absence crying for bread. And why is there all this sorrow in this poor and needy family?
Because the husband and father is gone, and probably gone forever, most likely to gratify the wishes of some ambitious men who care as little as they think of his anxious family.
Perhaps an only son is taken from old, decrepit parents, the only earthly prop of their declining years; and with cold poverty and sorrow their grey hairs are brought down to the dust.
War cannot be prosecuted without enormous expenses:
The money that has been expended the last twenty years in war would doubtless have been sufficient not only to have rendered every poor person on earth comfortable – so far as money could do it – during the same period, but, if the residue had been applied to cultivate the earth, it would have literally turned the desert into a fruitful field.
Only the interest of the money that has been expended in a few years by the European nations in prosecuting war would have been sufficient, under proper direction, to educate every poor child on earth in the common rudiments of learning, and to support missionaries in abundance to convey the gospel of peace to every creature.
What a noble employment, if those nations had exerted their powers for these objects as much as they have for injuring each other! And what a difference would have appeared in the world! Blessings would have fallen on millions ready to perish, instead of desolation, terror, and death.
The vast expenses of war must be met by corresponding taxes, whether by duties on merchandise or direct taxes on real estate; yet they fall most heavily on the poor.
Whatever duty the merchant pays to the customhouse, he adds the amount to the price of his goods, so that the consumer actually pays the tax. If a tax is levied on real estate, the product of that estate is raised to meet it, and whoever consumes the product pays the tax.
In times of war, the prices of the necessaries of life are generally very much increased, but the prices of the labour of the poor do not usually rise in the same proportion, therefore it falls very heavily on them.
When the honest labourers are suddenly called from the plough to take the sword and leave the tilling of the ground, either its seed is but sparingly sown or its fruit but partially gathered,
scarcity ensues, high prices are the consequence, and the difficulty greatly increased for the poor to obtain the necessaries of life, especially if they were dependent on the product of a scanty farm which they are now deprived of cultivating.
Many a poor widow, who has been able in times of peace to support her fatherless children, has been obliged in times of war in a great measure to depend on the cold hand of charity to supply their wants.
The calamities of war necessarily fall more on the poor than on the rich, because the poor of a country are generally a large majority of its inhabitants.
These are some of the evils of war at a distance,
but when it comes to their doors, if they are favoured personally to escape the ferocity of the soldiers, they fly from their habitations, leaving their little all to the fire and pillage, glad to escape with their lives, though destitute and dependent;
and when they cast round their eyes for relief, they only meet a fellow-sufferer, who can sympathize with them but not supply their wants. Thus does war not only oppress the poor, but it also adds multitudes to their number who before were comfortable.
If war actually does oppress the poor, then we may infer that in its nature and tendency it is very unlike the genius of the gospel, and not right for Christians to engage in it.