[To nu EMPON ON PRO n firramoel Sus,—Your correspondent "X.
H. X." fails to understand, I am afraid, the Quaker attitude towards' war by reason of a lack of knowledge of the history of our Society. To bear arms or to engage in military service cannot be reconciled, we believe, with the teaching of Christ, and since 1660 we have proclaimed this belief to the world. We do not classify wars; our controversy is with war itself. We regard the Means as sinful, and therefore abstain, regardless of consequences. The Society has been tested many times upon this question, and has evidenced again and again that it is the man defence- less outwardly who is alone safe. In the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Quakers, without arms, at the mercy of loyalist and rebel alike, trusting in God alone, passed unscathed through that terrible war, not one being lost. The war of 1798 was a fiery ordeal for the Quaker belief, when we consider the character of it, as to which we get a clear idea from a letter written by the Hon. William Wellesley-Pole to the Marquis Wellesley, brother of the Duke of Wellington. Writing at the time, he said "In this horrible rebellion the King's troops never gave quarter to the rebels: hundreds and thousands of wretches were butchered while unarmed on their knees begging mercy, and it is difficult to say whether soldiers, Yeomen, or Militia-men took most delight in this bloody work. Numbers of innocent persons were also put to death. In the action I was concerned in the rebels in their flight took shelter in the houses of the country as they found them, and the soldiers (with anomaly any exception) followed the wretches and killed every inan in the houses they Arent into--frequently the man of the house, who had taken no part in the dispute. . . . The number of the rebels and inhabitants killed by these means is, by the lowest calculation, computed at twenty-three thousand, and Lord Cornwallis wisely and justly felt that if he suffered the war to go on it could only end in the depopulation of the country."
It would be matter for wonderment indeed, not that we held fast to our peace testimony in this twentieth century, but that we should have abandoned it after so many 'roofs of Divine protection afforded us. Allow me to conalnee with a recent striking tribute to the truth of our belief on this question. A member of our Society, now a civilian prisoner of war at
the great camp at Ruhleben, writing to relatives in England on April 30th, says : "I informed the authorities that I am a Friend, and it had a beneficial effect for me." We are a feeble folk as to numbers, yet our peace testimony is not unknown in military-ridden Germany; founded upon love, it carries every- where; it knows not nationality, but is universal, and ever finds a response in the hearts of all mankind.—I am, Sir, Ste, CHARLES EDWARDS GREGORY. 27 Northwick Road, Evesham.
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