The habits and manners of a soldier's life are calculated, as we have already seen, to demoralize them, to obliterate all early serious impressions, to introduce and confirm them in the most daring wickedness and fit them for everlasting destruction. And notwithstanding God may have occasionally, to display his sovereign power, snatched some soldiers from the ranks of rebellion and made them the heirs of his grace, yet no sober Christian will say that the army is a likely place to promote their salvation; but, on the contrary, must acknowledge that it is a dangerous place for the souls of men. It may be assumed as an undeniable fact that the great mass of soldiers are notoriously depraved and wicked. With but few exceptions their impiety grows more daring the longer they practice war; and when it is considered that thousands and thousands of such are hurried by war prematurely into eternity, with all their sins unpardoned, what an amazing sacrifice appears only for some supposed temporal good. But when it is remembered that this infinite sacrifice is made merely for the chance of obtaining some temporal advantage, the folly of war appears in more glaring colors, as the battle is not always to the strong. Those who are contending for their rights, and are least in the wrong, are about as often unsuccessful as otherwise, and then they very much increase their evils in a temporal point of view. A wise man would not engage in a lawsuit to recover a cent, admitting that it was his just due, if the trial put to the hazard his whole estate. But this bears no comparison with _one soul_ in competition with all temporal things; and yet men, professing to be _wise_, not only put one soul at hazard but millions, not for the _chance_ of defending all temporal good, but often for a mere bubble, the hollow sound of honor; and many of those who are watching for souls, and must give an account, instead of sounding the alarm, approve of it. All who engage in war, either in the field or otherwise, practically regard _time_ more than eternity, and _temporal_ more than _eternal_ things. If souls are of more value than temporal things, and eternity of more consequence than time, it must be _unwise_ to engage in a war and put souls to immediate hazard of everlasting ruin, and totally wrong for Christians to engage in it. VIII. WAR IS UNWISE, AS IT DOES NOT ANSWER THE PROFESSED END FOR WHICH IT IS INTENDED The professed object of war generally is to preserve liberty and produce a lasting peace; but war never did and never will preserve liberty and produce a lasting peace, for it is a divine decree that all nations who take the sword shall perish with the sword. War is no more adapted to preserve liberty and produce a lasting peace than midnight darkness is to produce noonday light.