God is firmly established. All the ordinary objections to the doctrine of non-resistance from the Old and New Testaments are brought forward, such as the expulsion of the moneychangers from the Temple, and so on, and arguments follow in disproof of them

God is firmly established.  All the ordinary objections to the

doctrine of non-resistance from the Old and New Testaments are

brought forward, such as the expulsion of the moneychangers from

the Temple, and so on, and arguments follow in disproof of them

all.  The practical reasonableness of this rule of conduct is

shown independently of Scripture, and all the objections

ordinarily made against its practicability are stated and refuted.

Thus one chapter in a book of his treats of non-resistance in

exceptional cases, and he owns in this connection that if there

were cases in which the rule of non-resistance were impossible of

application, it would prove that the law was not universally

authoritative.  Quoting these cases, he shows that it is precisely

in them that the application of the rule is both necessary and

reasonable.  There is no aspect of the question, either on his

side or on his opponents', which he has not followed up in his

writings.  I mention all this to show the unmistakable interest

which such works ought to have for men who make a profession of

Christianity, and because one would have thought Ballou's work

would have been well known, and the ideas expressed by him would

lave been either accepted or refuted; but such has not been the

case.

The work of Garrison, the father, in his foundation of the Society

of Non-resistants and his Declaration, even more than my

correspondence with the Quakers, convinced me of the fact that the

departure of the ruling form of Christianity from the law of

Christ on non-resistance by force is an error that has long been

observed and pointed out, and that men have labored, and are still

laboring, to correct.  Ballou's work confirmed me still more in

this view.  But the fate of Garrison, still more that of Ballou,

in being completely unrecognized in spite of fifty years of

obstinate and persistent work in the same direction, confirmed me

in the idea that there exists a kind of tacit but steadfast

conspiracy of silence about all such efforts.

Ballou died in August, 1890, and there was as obituary notice of

him in an American journal of Christian views (RELIGIO-

PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, August 23).  In this laudatory notice it is

recorded that Ballou was the spiritual director of a parish, that

he delivered from eight to nine thousand sermons, married one

thousand couples, and wrote about five hundred articles; but there

is not a single word said of the object to which he devoted his

life; even the word "non-resistance" is not mentioned.  Precisely

as it was with all the preaching of the Quakers for two hundred

years and, too, with the efforts of Garrison the father, the

foundation of his society and journal, and his Declaration, so it

is with the life-work of Ballou.  It seems just as though it did

not exist and never had existed.

We have an astounding example of the obscurity of works which aim

at expounding the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force, and

at confuting those who do not recognize this commandment, in the

book of the Tsech Helchitsky, which has only lately been noticed

and has not hitherto been printed.

Soon after the appearance of my book in German, I received a

letter from Prague, from a professor of the university there,

informing me of the existence of a work, never yet printed, by

Helchitsky, a Tsech of the fifteenth century, entitled "The Net of

Faith."  In this work, the professor told me, Helchitsky expressed

precisely the same view as to true and false Christianity as I had

expressed in my book "What I Believe."  The professor wrote to me

that Helchitsky's work was to be published for the first time in

the Tsech language in the JOURNAL OF THE PETERSBURG ACADEMY OF

SILENCE.  Since I could not obtain the book itself, I tried to

make myself acquainted with what was known of Helchitsky, and I

gained the following information from a German book sent me by the

Prague professor and from Pypin's history of Tsech literature.

This was Pypin's account:

   "'The Net of Faith' is Christ's teaching, which ought to draw

   man up out of the dark depths of the sea of worldliness and his

   own iniquity.  True faith consists in believing God's Word; but

   now a time has come when men mistake the true faith for heresy,

   and therefore it is for the reason to point out what the true

   faith consists in, if anyone does not know this.  It is hidden

   in darkness from men, and they do not recognize the true law of

   Christ.

   "To make this law plain, Helchitsky points to the primitive

   organization of Christian society--the organization which, he

   says, is now regarded in the Roman Church as an abominable

   heresy. This Primitive Church was his special ideal of social

   organization, founded on equality, liberty, and fraternity.

   Christianity, in Helchitsky's view, still preserves these

   elements, and it is only necessary for society to return to its

   pure doctrine to render unnecessary every other form of social

   order in which kings and popes are essential; the law of love

   would alone be sufficient in every case.

   "Historically, Helchitsky attributes the degeneration of

   Christianity to the times of Constantine the Great, whom he

   Pope Sylvester admitted into the Christian Church with all his

   heathen morals and life.  Constantine, in his turn, endowed the

   Pope with worldly riches and power.  From that time forward

   these two ruling powers were constantly aiding one another to

   strive for nothing but outward glory.  Divines and

   ecclesiastical dignitaries began to concern themselves only

   about subduing the whole world to their authority, incited men

   against one another to murder and plunder, and in creed and

   life reduced Christianity to a nullity. Helchitsky denies

   completely the right to make war and to inflict the punishment

   of death; every soldier, even the 'knight,' is only a violent

   evil doer--a murderer."

The same account is given by the German book, with the addition of

a few biographical details and some extracts from Helchitsky's

writings.

Having learnt the drift of Helchitsky's teaching in this way, I

awaited all the more impatiently the appearance of "The Net of

Faith" in the journal of the Academy.  But one year passed, then

two and three, and still the book did appear.  It was only in 1888

that I learned that the printing of the book, which had been

begun, was stopped.  I obtained the proofs of what had been

printed and read them through.  It is a marvelous book from every

point of view.

Its general tenor is given with perfect accuracy by Pypin.

Helchitsky's fundamental idea is that Christianity, by allying

itself with temporal power in the days of Constantine, and by

continuing to develop in such conditions, has become completely

distorted, and has ceased to be Christian altogether.  Helchitsky

gave the title "The Net of Faith" to his book, taking as his motto

the verse of the Gospel about the calling of the disciples to be

fishers of men; and, developing this metaphor, he says:

   "Christ, by means of his disciples, would have caught all the

   world in his net of faith, but the greater fishes broke the net

   and escaped out of it, and all the rest have slipped through

   the holes made by the greater fishes, so that the net has

   remained quite empty.  The greater fishes who broke the net are

   the rulers, emperors, popes, kings, who have not renounced

   power, and instead of true Christianity have put on what is

   simply a mask of it."

Helchitsky teaches precisely what has been and is taught in these

days by the non-resistant Mennonites and Quakers, and in former

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