Chapter 1

THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE HAS BEEN PROFESSED
BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

Of the Book "What I Believe"--The Correspondence Evoked by it--
Letters from Quakers--Garrison's Declaration--Adin Ballou, his
Works, his Catechism--Helchitsky's "Net of Faith"--The Attitude
of the World to Works Elucidating Christ's Teaching--Dymond's
Book "On War"--Musser's "Non-resistance Asserted"--Attitude of
the Government in 1818 to Men who Refused to Serve in the Army
--Hostile Attitude of Governments Generally and of Liberals to
Those who Refuse to Assist in Acts of State Violence, and their
Conscious Efforts to Silence and Suppress these Manifestations
of Christian Non-resistance.

Among the first responses some letters called forth by my book
were some letters from American Quakers. In these letters,
expressing their sympathy with my views on the unlawfulness for a
Christian of war and the use of force of any kind, the Quakers
gave me details of their own so-called sect, which for more than
two hundred years has actually professed the teaching of Christ on
non-resistance to evil by force, and does not make use of weapons
in self-defense. The Quakers sent me books, from which I learnt
how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a
Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by
force, and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in
allowing war and capital punishment.

In a whole series of arguments and texts showing that war--that
is, the wounding and killing of men--is inconsistent with a
religion founded on peace and good will toward men, the Quakers
maintain and prove that nothing has contributed so much to the
obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the heathen, and has
hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world,
as the disregard of this command by men calling themselves
Christians, and the permission of war and violence to Christians.

"Christ's teaching, which came to be known to men, not by means of
violence and the sword," they say, "but by means of non-resistance
to evil, gentleness, meekness, and peaceableness, can only be
diffused through the world by the example of peace, harmony, and
love among its followers."

"A Christian, according to the teaching of God himself, can act
only peaceably toward all men, and therefore there can be no
authority able to force the Christian to act in opposition to the
teaching of God and to the principal virtue of the Christian in
his relation with his neighbors."

"The law of state necessity," they say, "can force only those to
change