Every sentiment for the improvement of men, for human justice, for the uplifting of the poor, is at once stifled by the wild, hoarse shout for blood. The lowest standard of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow man. In youth he may have learned the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor’s heart,—and this unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word. It is not the privilege of the common soldier to ask questions, to consider right and wrong, to think of the misery and suffering his act entails upon others innocent of crime. He may be told to point his gun at his neighbor and his friend, even at his brother or father; if so he must obey commands. Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die, represents the code of ethics that governs a soldier’s life. And yet from men who believe in these ideals, men who sacrifice their right of private judgment in the holiest matter that can weigh upon the conscience and the intellect, the taking of human life,—men who place their lives, their consciences, their destinies, without question or hesitation, into another’s keeping, men whose trade is slaughter and whose cunning consists in their ability to kill their fellows,—from such men it is expected to build great states and rear a noble humanity! These teachings lead to destruction and death; the destruction of the body and the destruction of the soul. Even on the plea of physical evolution in the long sweep of time, these men must give way to the patient, peaceful, non-resistants, who love their brothers and believe in the sacredness of life. Long ago it was written down that “He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.” CHAPTER III THE PURPOSE OF ARMIES