It is because men see War, in the darkness of prejudice, only as an agency of attack or defence, or as a desperate sally of wickedness, that they fail to recognize it as a form of judgment, sanctioned and _legalized_ by Public Authority. Regarding it in its true character, as an _establishment_ of the Commonwealth of Nations, and one of the "liberties" accorded to independent nations, it is no longer the expression merely of lawless or hasty passion, no longer the necessary incident of imperfect human nature, no longer an unavoidable, uncontrollable volcanic eruption of rage, of _vengeances and counter-vengeances_, knowing no bound; but it becomes a gigantic and monstrous Institution for the adjudication of international rights,--as if an earthquake, or other visitation of God, with its uncounted woes, and without its attendant charities, were legally invoked as Arbiter of Justice. Surely all must unite in condemning the Arbitrament of War. The simplest may read and comprehend its enormity. Can we yet hesitate? But if War be thus odious, if it be the Duel of Nations, if it be the old surviving Trial by Battle, then must its unquestionable barbarism affect all its incidents, all its machinery, all its enginery, together with all who sanction it, and all who have any part or lot in it,--in fine, the whole vast System. It is impossible, by any discrimination, to separate the component parts. We must regard it as a whole, in its entirety. But half our work is done, if we confine ourselves to a condemnation of the Institution merely. There are all its instruments and agencies, all its adjuncts and accessaries, all its furniture and equipage, all its armaments and operations, the whole apparatus of forts, navies, armies, military display, military chaplains, and military sermons,--all together constituting, in connection with the Institution of War, what may be called the WAR SYSTEM. This System we would abolish, believing that religion, humanity, and policy require the establishment of some peaceful means for the administration of international justice, and also _the general disarming of the Christian nations_, to the end that the prodigious expenditures now absorbed by the War System may be applied to purposes of usefulness and beneficence, and that the _business_ of the soldier may cease forever.