This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
28
LETTERS ON WAR

To man is given another guide, and that an unfailing one,—the guide of his conscience, following which he indubitably knows that he is doing what he should do. Therefore, all considerations of the danger that threatens every individual who refuses military service, as well as of what menaces the world in consequence of such refusals—all these are but a particle of that enormous and monstrous deceit in which Christian mankind is enmeshed, and which is being carefully maintained] by the governments who exist by the power of this deceit.

If man act in accordance with what is dictated to him by his reason, his conscience, and his God, only the very best can result for himself as well as for the world.

People complain of the evil conditions of life in our Christian world. But is it possible for it to be otherwise, when all of us acknowledge not only that fundamental Divine law proclaimed some thousands of years ago, "Thou shalt not kill," but also the law of love and brotherhood of all men, and yet, notwithstanding this, every man in our European world practically disavows this fundamental Divine law acknowledged by him, and at the command of President, Emperor, or Minister, of Nicholas or William, arrays himself in a ridiculous costume, takes an instrument of murder, and says, "Here I am, ready to injure, ruin, or kill anyone I am ordered to"?

What must a society be like which is