It is a lamentable fact, when we consider that we live in an age,
removed above eighteen hundred years from the first promulgation of
Christianity, one of the great objects of which was to insist upon the
subjugation of the passions, that our children should not have been
better instructed, than that we should now have to behold men, of
apparently good education, settling their disputes by an appeal to arms.
It is difficult to conceive what preposterous principles can actuate
men, to induce them to such a mode of decision. Justice is the ultimate
wish of every reasonable man in the termination of his casual
differences with others, But, in the determination of cases by the
sword, the injured man not unfrequently falls, while the aggressor
sometimes adds to his offence, by making a widow or an orphan, and by
the murder of of a fellow-creature. But it is possible the duellist may
conceive that he adds to his reputation by decisions of this sanguinary
nature. But surely he has no other reputation with good men, than that
of a weak, or a savage, or an infatuated creature; and, if he fells, he
is pitied by these on no other motive than that of his folly and of his
crime. What philosopher can extol his courage, who, knowing the bondage
of the mind while under the dominion of fashion, believes that more
courage is necessary in refusing a challenge, than in going into the
field? What legislator can applaud his patriotism, when he sees him
violate the laws of his country? What Christian his religion, when he
reflects on the relative duties of man, on the law of lore and
benevolence that should have guided him, on the principle that it is
more noble to suffer than to resist, and on the circumstance, that he
may put himself into the doubly criminal situation of a murderer and a
suicide by the same act?
George Fox, in his doctrine of the influence of the spirit as a divine
teacher, and in that of the necessity of the subjugation of the passions
in order that the inward man might be in a fit state to receive its
admonitions, left to the society a system of education, which, if acted
upon, could not fail of producing peaceable and quiet characters; but
foreseeing that among the best men differences would unavoidably arise
from their intercourse in business and other causes, it, was his desire
that these should be settled in a Christian manner.
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