What I have said to show that Christians, even in enlightened and gospelized lands, may be blind to the great wickedness of certain customs and institutions, serves to introduce the remark; that there were probably some customs and institutions, in the time of the Apostles, on which it would have been even worse than lost labor for them to make direct attacks.  Take, for example, the kind of war of which we have been speaking.  If there are reasons why the modern Christian can be insensible to the sin of it, there are far stronger reasons why the primitive Christian could be.  If the light and instruction which have been accumulating for eighteen centuries, are scarcely sufficient to convince Christians of its wickedness, is it reasonable to suppose that, at the commencement of this long period, they could have been successfully taught it?  Consider, that at that time the literature and sentiment of the world were wholly on the side of war; and especially, consider how emphatically the authority of civil government and of human law was in favor of its rightfulness.  Now, to how great an extent such authority covers over and sanctifies sin, may be inferred from the fact, that there are many, who, notwithstanding they believe slavery to be a most Heaven-daring sin, yet, because it is legalized and under the wing of civil government, would not have it spoken against.  Even Rev. Dr. Miller, in certain resolutions which he submitted to the last General Assembly, indicated his similar reverence for human laws; and the lamented Dr. Rice distinctly recognises, in his letter to Mr. Maxwell, the doctrine that the Church is bound to be quiet about every sin which the civil government adopts and whitewashes.  That the Christian Spectator should indorse the Doctor’s sentiments on this point is still more worthy of remark than that he should utter them.  Indeed, I judge from what you say on the 68th and 69th pages of your book, that you are yourself opposed to calling in question the morality of that which civil government approves.  But, to doubt the infallibility of civil government,—­to speak against Caesar,—­was manifestly held to be quite as presumptuous in the time of the Apostles as it is now.

Another reason why an Apostle would probably have deemed it hopeless to attempt to persuade his disciples, immediately and directly, of the sin of war, is to be found in the fact of their feeble and distorted perception of truth and duty.  We, whose advantage it is to have lived all our days in the light of the gospel, and whose ancestors, from time immemorial, had the like precious advantage, can hardly conceive how very feeble and distorted was that perception.  But, consider for a moment who those disciples were.  They had, most of them, but just been taken out of the gross darkness and filth of heathenism.  In reading accounts which missionaries give of converted heathen—­of such, even, as have for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, been reputed to be pious—­you