p. 3 | WHAT WAR IS by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 16, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 49.

WHAT WAR IS.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

IT is a most singular thing, yet it is a fact, that the loudest calls for war that have been heard within the last two or three years, have come from the ministers of the Gospel. From thousands of pulpits appeals have been made for any or all of the Powers to proceed to annihilate the Turks, in the interest of the Armenians; later, the Cretans have been encouraged in their efforts to throw off Turkish rule, and Greece has been applauded for taking the part of Crete in order that she might get the whole; while many of the same preachers unsparingly berated the English Government for not joining the Greeks in their war with Turkey.

What a strange spectacle,—professed ministers of the Gospel of peace, to say nothing of thousands of church-members, clamoring for war! Do you know what war is? Let us just take the barest glance at it, as it really is. One of the war correspondents with the Turkish army, in the course of his description of the battle of Mati, says:—

"The guns were already clouded in smoke and dust. Now and again a dot came traveling up towards us with painful slowness—a wounded artilleryman; now moaning convulsively; now silent, and swallowing an invisible lump, with twitching eyes."

Who can not see the picture of the strong man striving to repress any expression of the pain that was nevertheless overmastering him? Later on, the correspondent says:—

"The ambulances drove forward to pick up our wounded, and Edhem Pasha pushed on behind his victorious troops. I passed a Turkish soldier who lay with both legs broken, sobbing piteously with pain. And then I hated war."

And who would not? For war means those same scenes magnified, and multiplied a thousand times. It means men helpless and suffering with wounds, lying in some spot for hours and even days, in the heat and cold, famishing for water. In short, it means wholesale murder, aggravated by the fact that many of the victims are not killed outright.

We are charitable enough to believe that most of this call for war, from the lips of professed Christians, would cease if those who do the calling could be placed for a season in the front ranks. Not that they are cowards, but that they do not stop to think what they are talking about. The fact is that every man who shouts for war is simply an aider and abettor of murder. One famous general declared that "war is hell," and it is a fact that the spirit of war is the spirit of Satan. An officer in the Franco-Prussian war said that if he had led a regiment of angels into the battle they would have come back devils. How can Christians be in any way whatever accessories to such fiendish work?

It is for the purpose of warning, not of condemning, that we write. We know that there are thousands of sincere Christians who "know not what manner of spirit they are of" when they call for war, to avenge wounded honor or even outrage; and some with whom we have talked have been shocked, on having their attention called to the matter, to find that they were unconsciously being inspired by the spirit of the devil; for it is the spirits of devils that go about to stir up war. See Rev. 16:14. The man who shouts for and applauds murder is at heart a murderer. In this time when the nations are preparing war, "great plainness of speech" is necessary, in order that some at least may be awakened to their danger, and may forever break loose from the fierce, murderous, Satanic spirit that is benumbing the senses of the world's millions, and carrying them to everlasting destruction. E. J. W.