when it is plainly a duty--a rare circumstance,
indeed--is without doubt a sin.

Obedience to orders is the alpha and omega of army discipline; without
it a cause is lost from the beginning. Numbers are nothing compared to
order; a mob is not a fighting machine; it is only a fair target. The
issue of a battle, or even of a whole war, may depend on obedience to
orders. Army men know this so well that death is not infrequently the
penalty of disobedience. Consequently, a violation of discipline is
usually a serious offense; it may easily be a mortal sin.

War being slaughter, the soldier's business is to kill or rather to
disable, as many of the enemy as possible on the field of battle. This
disabling process means, of course, and necessarily, the maiming unto
death of many. Such killing is not only lawful, but obligatory. War,
like the surgeon's knife, must often lop off much in order to save the
whole. The best soldier is he who inflicts most damage on the enemy.

But the desire and intention of the soldier should not be primarily to
kill, but only to put the enemy beyond the possibility of doing further
harm. Death will be the result of his efforts in many cases, and this
he suffers to occur rather than desires and intends. He has no right to
slay outside of battle or without the express command of a superior
officer; if he does so, he is guilty of murder. Neither must there be
hate behind the aim that singles out a foe for destruction; the general
hatred which he bestows on the opposing cause must respect the
individual enemy.

It is not lawful to wantonly torture or maim an enemy, whoever or
whatever he may be, however great his crime. Not even the express
command of a superior officer can justify such doings, because it is
barbarity, pure and unmitigated. In war these things are morally just
what they would be if they were perpetrated in the heart of peace and
civilization by a gang of thugs. These are abominations that, not only
disgrace the flag under which they are committed, but even cry to
Heaven for vengeance.

CHAPTER LXXIII.
THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.

HEROD, the Bloody, slew all under two. A modern Moloch, a creature of
lust and blood, disguised often under the cloak of respectability,
stalks through a Christian land denying the babe the right to be born
at all, demanding that it be crushed as soon as conceived. There is
murder and murder; but this is the most heartless, cowardly and brutal