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LETTERS ON WAR

disappear like owls before the daylight, and then those new, human, brotherly conditions of life would be establish for which Christendom—weary of suffering, exhausted by deceit, and lost in insolvable contradictions—is longing. Only let every man without any intricate or sophisticated arguments accomplish that which to-day his conscience unfailingly bids him do, and he will recognise the truth of the gospel words: "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself" (St. John vii. 17).

(First issued in Westminster Gazette. Revised with original.)


To a Non-Commissioned Officer

(Translated by Aylmer Maude)

You are surprised that soldiers are taught that it is right to kill people in certain cases and in war, while in the books admitted to be holy by those who so teach, there is nothing like such a permission, but, on the contrary, not only is all murder forbidden, but all insulting of others is forbidden also, and we are told not to do to others what we do not wish done to us. And you ask, is not this a fraud? And if it is a fraud, then for whose sake is it done?

Yes, it is a fraud, committed for the sake of those accustomed to live on the sweat and blood of other men, and who