On this subject, there is a brilliant passage in the fourth book to Herennius, where it is said, "It was an admirable resolution of our ancestors, never to deprive a captive prince of his life. For it would be truly a violation of common justice to abuse, by wanton cruelty and rigour, the power over those, whom fortune has put into our hands, by reducing them from the high condition, in which she had placed them before; their former enmity is forgotten. Because it is the characteristic of bravery to esteem opponents as enemies, while contending for victory, and to treat them as men, when conquered, in order to soften the calamities of war, and improve the terms and relations of peace. But it may be asked, if the enemy now treated with this indulgence would have shewn the same lenity himself. To which a reply may be made, that he is not an object of imitation in what he WOULD have done, so much as in what he OUGHT to have done." VIII. Though there may be circumstances, in which absolute justice will not condemn the sacrifice of lives in war, yet humanity will require that the greatest precaution should be used against involving the innocent in danger, except in cases of extreme urgency and utility. IX. After establishing these general principles, it will not be difficult to decide upon particular cases. Seneca says, that "in the calamities of war children are exempted and spared, on the score of their age, and women from respect to their sex." In the wars of the Hebrews, even after the offers of peace have been rejected, God commands the women and children to be spared. Thus when the Ninevites were threatened with utter destruction, on account of their grievous crimes, a mitigation of the sentence was allowed, in compassion to the many thousands, who were of an age incapable of making a distinction between right and wrong. If God, from whose supreme gift the life of man proceeds, and on whose supreme disposal it depends, prescribes to himself a rule like this, it is surely incumbent upon men, who have no commission, but for the welfare and preservation of the lives of men, to act by the same rule. Thus age and sex are equally spared, except where the latter have departed from this privilege by taking arms, or performing the part of men. X. The same rule may be laid down too with respect to males, whose modes of life are entirely remote from the use of arms. And in the first class of this description may be placed the ministers of religion, who, among all nations, from times of the most remote antiquity have been exempted from bearing arms.--Thus, as may be seen in sacred history, the Philistines, being enemies of the Jews, forbore doing harm to the company of prophets, that was at Gaba: and David fled with Samuel to another place, which the presence of a prophetic company protected from all molestation and injury.