Chapter 10 - Page 2

Antagonistic to the New Truth, to Accept it--And
therefore all Men may Quickly be Brought to Renounce the use of
Violence when once a Christian Public Opinion is Established--The
Conviction of Force being Necessary Hinders the Establishment of a
Christian Public Opinion--The Use of Violence Leads Men to
Distrust the Spiritual Force which is the Only Force by which they
Advance--Neither Nations nor Individuals have been really
Subjugated by Force, but only by Public Opinion, which no Force
can Resist--Savage Nations and Savage Men can only be Subdued by
the Diffusion of a Christian Standard among them, while actually
Christian Nations in order to Subdue them do all they can to
Destroy a Christian Standard--These Fruitless Attempts to Civilize
Savages Cannot be Adduced as Proofs that Men Cannot be Subdued by
Christianity--Violence by Corrupting Public Opinion, only Hinders
the Social Organization from being What it Ought to Be--And by the
Use of Violence being Suppressed, a Christian Public Opinion would
be Established--Whatever might be the Result of the Suppression of
Use of Force, this Unknown Future could not be Worse than the
Present Condition, and so there is no Need to Dread it--To Attain
Knowledge of the Unknown, and to Move Toward it, is the Essence of
Life.

Christianity in its true sense puts an end to government. So it
was understood at its very commencement; it was for that cause
that Christ was crucified. So it has always been understood by
people who were not under the necessity of justifying a Christian
government. Only from the time that the heads of government
assumed an external and nominal Christianity, men began to invent
all the impossible, cunningly devised theories by means of which
Christianity can be reconciled with government. But no honest and
serious-minded man of our day can help seeing the incompatibility
of true Christianity--the doctrine of meekness, forgiveness of
injuries, and love--with government, with its pomp, acts of
violence, executions, and wars. The profession of true
Christianity not only excludes the possibility of recognizing
government, but even destroys its very foundations.

But if it is so, and we are right in saying that Christianity is
incompatible with government, then the question naturally presents
itself: which is more necessary to the good of humanity, in which
way is men's happiness best to be secured, by maintaining the
organization of government or by destroying it and replacing it by
Christianity?

Some people maintain that government is more necessary for
humanity, that the destruction of the state organization would
involve the destruction of all that humanity has gained, that the
state has been and still is the only form in