"THE GOD OF BATTLES."
[TO TIIS EDITOR OF rue "SPROTATOR.1 Sun,—Without venturing to maintain in your columns that to ta: really Christian nation war can never be a necessary evil, I yet cannot help objecting to an appeal to " the God of Battles " in the mouth of a professed minister of Christ. For the phrase to be appropriate there must be one of two things ; either a belief, with, the ancient Greeks and Romans, in a specific God of War ; or else- a belief, with the ancient Israelites, that God specially interposes is battle to cause victory to be on the side of justioe,—a belief, how- ever, which is naively belied by the historian when he records. (Judges i. 19.), " And the Lord was with Judah ; and he Brave out the inhabitants of the mountain ; but could not drive oat the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of Cromwell shared this latter belief, or at all events used language- implying it, at the battle of Dunbar, when, on seeing the infatua- tion of Leslie, the Scottish General, in descending with his army to the plain from his secure and well-chosen position on the heights,. ho exclaimed, " The Lord hath delivered them into our hands."
And had Cromwell been in the place of Wellington at Salamanoa, when his eagle glance detected that Marmont had separated his right wing too far from his centre ; or in the place of Von Moltke, when the fatally false move of the French opened the way for the disaster of Sedan, he would probably have used the same expres- eion. But it would be monstrous to maintain that victory in- variably proves that God is on the side of the victor in the sense that his cause is just. War is essentially an appeal to force; might, not right, decides the question at issue: Victory is on the side of the General who makes the fewest mistakes and has the largest force at his command, quite irrespectively of the merits of his cause. " The God of Battles " might be an appropriate ex- pression for a nation that placed such implicit trust in the special protection of God as to be able in all simplicity to offer the prayer And response of our Liturgy, " Give us peace in our time, good Lord. For there is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, .0 God." But as the matter stands, it seems to me that for a nation to appeal to " the God of Battles " is much the same thing as for a railway engineer in constructing a viaduct to appeal to 4' the God of Bridges" for its stability ; nay, or even for an Assassin to appeal (like the Thugs) to " the God of Murder " for
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