The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies — John Shaqi
The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / MiscellaniesTolstoy, Leo, graf
Religion
The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Russian literature -- Translations into English
This "Declaration" by Garrison, which so powerfully and so
beautifully expressed such an important profession of faith, ought,
it seems, to have startled men and to have become universally known
and a subject of wide discussion. But nothing of the kind happened.
It is not only unknown in Europe, but even among the Americans,
who so highly esteem Garrison's memory, this declaration is almost
unknown.
The same ingloriousness has fallen to the share of another champion
of non-resistance to evil, the American Adin Ballou, who lately
died, and who preached this doctrine for fifty years. How little is
known of what refers to the question of non-resistance may be seen
from the fact that Garrison's son, who has written an excellent
biography of his father in four volumes, this son of Garrison, in
reply to my question whether the society of non-resistance was
still in existence, and whether there were any followers of it,
answered me that so far as he knew the society had fallen to pieces,
and there existed no followers of this doctrine, whereas at the time
of his writing, there lived in Hopedale, Massachusetts, Adin Ballou,
who had taken part in Garrison's labours and had devoted fifty years
of his life to the oral and printed propaganda of the doctrine of
non-resistance. Later on I received a letter from Wilson, a disciple
and assistant of Ballou, and entered into direct communication with
Ballou himself. I wrote to Ballou, and he answered me and sent me
his writings. Here are a few extracts from them:
"Jesus Christ is my Lord and Master," says Ballou in one of
the articles,[1] in which he arraigns the inconsistency of the
Christians who recognize the right of defence and war. "I have
covenanted to forsake all and follow Him, through good and evil
report, until death. But I am nevertheless a Democratic-Republican
citizen of the United States, implicitly sworn to bear true
allegiance to my country, and to support its Constitution, if need
be, with my life. Jesus Christ requires me to do unto others as I
would that others should do unto me. The Constitution of the United
States requires me to do unto twenty-seven hundred slaves" (there
were slaves then, now we may put the working people in their place)
"the very contrary of what I would have them do unto me, viz.,
assist to keep them in a grievous bondage.... But I am quite easy.
I vote on. I help govern on. I am willing to hold any office I may
be elected to under the Constitution. And I am still a Christian.
I profess on. I find no difficulty in keeping covenant both with
Christ and the Constitution....
[1] In _The Non-Resistant_, Vol. i., No. 4, Hopedale, Milford,
Mass., Feb. 15, 1845.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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