War is Inhuman | 6

6. War Is Inhuman,
As It Destroys the Youth and Cuts off The Hope of the Aged

All of mankind are speedily hastening into eternity, and it might be supposed sufficiently fast without the aid of all the ingenuity and strength of man to hurry them forward;

yet it is a melancholy truth that a great proportion of the wealth, talents, and labours of men are actually employed in inventing and using means for the premature destruction of their fellow-beings.

One generation passes away, and another follows in quick succession. The young are always the stay and hope of the aged:

parents labour and toil for their children to supply their wants and to educate them to be happy, respectable, and useful, and then depend upon them to be their stay and comfort in their declining years.

Alas, how many expectations of fond parents are blasted! Their sons are taken away from them and hurried into the field of slaughter.

In times of war the youth – the flower, strength, and beauty of the country – are called from their sober, honest, and useful employments to the field of battle;

and if they do not lose their lives or limbs, they generally lose their habits of morality and industry. Alas! Few ever return again to the bosom of their friends.

Though from their mistaken and fascinating views of a soldier’s life and honour they may be delighted in enlisting, and merry in their departure from their peaceful homes, yet their joy is soon turned into pain and sorrow.

Unthinking youth, like the horse, rushes thoughtlessly into the battle. Repentance is then too late; to shrink back is death, and to go forward is only a faint hope of life.

Here on the dreadful field are thousands and hundreds of thousands driven together to slaughter each other by a few ambitious men, perhaps none of whom are present.

A large number are probably the youth of their country, the delight and comfort of their parents.

All these opposing numbers are most likely persons who never knew or heard of each other, having no personal ill-will,

most of whom would in any other circumstances not only not injure each other but be ready to aid in any kind office; yet by the act of war they are ranged against each other in all the hellish rage of revenge and slaughter.

No pen, much less that of the writer, can describe the inhumanity and horrors of a battle:

All is confusion and dismay, dust and smoke arising, horses running, trumpets blasting, cannon roaring, bullets whistling, and the shrieks of the wounded and dying vibrating from every quarter.

Column after column of men charge upon each other in furious onset, with the awful crash of bayonets and sabres, with eyes flashing and visages frightfully distorted with rage, rushing upon each other with the violence of brutish monsters;

and when these are literally cut to pieces others march in quick succession, only to share the same cruel and bloody tragedy.

Hundreds are parrying the blows; hundreds more are thrusting their bayonets into the bowels of their fellow-mortals, and many, while extricating them, have their own heads cleft asunder by swords and sabres;

and all are hurried together before the tribunal of their Judge, with hearts full of rage and hands dyed in the blood of their brethren.

O horrid and debasing scene! My heart melts at the contemplation, and I forbear to dwell upon the inhuman employment.