government. If he so much as voted for its officials, he had to share
the moral responsibility for the wars, capital punishment, and other
personal injuries which were carried out in its name. He insisted:


"There is no escape from this terrible moral responsibility but by
a conscientious withdrawal from such government, and an
uncompromising protest against so much of its fundamental creed and
constitutional law, as is decidedly anti-Christian. He must cease
to be its pledged supporter, and approving dependent."[105]


Like the Mennonites, he saw that the reason that governments were
unchristian was that the people themselves were not Christian; but
unlike the Mennonites he maintained that they might eventually become
so, and that it was the duty of the Christian to hasten the day of their
complete conversion. "This," he said,


"is not to be done by voting at the polls, by seeking influential
offices in the government and binding ourselves to anti-Christian
political compacts. It is to be done by pure Christian precepts
faithfully inculcated, and pure Christian examples on the part of
those who have been favored to receive and embrace the highest
truths."[106]


The Mennonites believed that man was essentially depraved; Ballou
believed that he was perfectible.[107]