" I have evidence here which may interest you,
Mr. Molser," said Frederick, " of the position as-
sumed by an army officer of the seventeenth cen-
tury, as justification of the view that war is derived
from the Bible. You can judge of the advance
you have made. It appears to me somewhat ex-
travagant."

He opened his desk and drew out a paper from
which he read:

" War was the invention of God and by him taught to
men. God set the first soldier with a flaming, two-edged
sword at the gate of the Garden of Eden in order to pun-
ish the first rebel, Adam. In Deuteronomy we read that
God, through Moses, encouraged his people to victory
and gave them his priests as an advance guard.
" The first stratagem was against the city of Hai, and
during this war the sun stood still in the heavens in order
that victory might be assured and many thousands slaugh-
tered.
"GROUND ARMSr 219

" All the horrors of war are tolerated by God, for the
Hc<y Scripture is full of the account of them, and this
also indicates that as wars were approved by him every
honest man can with a good conscience take part in
them.
" The story of Deborah and Sisera; of Gibeon and of
David, who invented the most horrible tortures for the
children of Ammon and "

" But this is outrageous," exclaimed the clergy-
man. " No one but a rough mercenary soldier of
the Thirty Years' War could so malevolently distort
examples given in the Bible for the purpose of ex-
cusing the fiendishness of his own era. We now
proclaim a far different doctrine. In war we can
now only do enough to render the enemy harmless.
