The practice of positive goodwill is open to the individual as well as to the group. Since he does what he believes to be right regardless of the consequences, he will act before there are enough who share his opinion to create any chance of victory over the well organized forces of the state or other institutions which are responsible for evil. The history of the martyrs of all ages presents us with innumerable examples of men who have acted in this way. Socrates is of their number, as well as the early Christians who insisted upon practicing their religion despite the edicts of the Roman empire. Jesus himself is the outstanding example of one who was willing to die rather than to surrender principle. It cannot be said of these martyrs that they acted in order to bring about reforms in society. They suffered because under the compulsion of their faith they could act in no other way, and at the time of their deaths it always looked as though they had been defeated. But in the end their sacrifices had unsought results. The proof of their effectiveness is declared in the old adage that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

If we seek examples from relatively recent times, we may find them in the annals of many of the pacifist sects of our own day. Robert Barclay, the Quaker apologist of the late seventeenth century, stated the position which the members of the Society of Friends so often put to the test:

"But the true, faithful and Christian suffering is for men to profess what they are persuaded is right, and so practise and perform their worship towards God, as being their true right so to do; and neither to do more than that, because of outward encouragement from men; nor any whit less, because of the fear of their laws and acts against it."[112]

The early Quakers suffered severely under the laws of England in a day when religious toleration was virtually unheard of. George Fox himself had sixty encounters with magistrates and was imprisoned on eight occasions; yet he was not diverted from his task of preaching truth. It has been estimated that 15,000 Quakers "suffered" under the various religious acts of the Restoration.[113] But they continued to hold the principles which had been stated by twelve of their leaders, including Fox, to King Charles shortly after his return to England:

"Our principle is, and our practice always has been, to seek peace and ensue it; to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God; seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all.

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"When we have been wronged, we have not sought to revenge ourselves; we have not made resistance against authority; but whenever we could not obey for conscience sake, we have suffered the most of any people in the nation...."[114]

These sufferings did not go unheeded. Even the wordly Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary concerning Quakers on their way to prison: "They go like lambs without any resistance I would to God they would either conform or be more wise and not be catched."[115]

In Massachusetts, where the Puritans hoped to establish the true garden of the Lord, the lot of the Quakers was even more severe. Despite warnings and imprisonments, Friends kept encroaching upon the Puritan preserve until the Massachusetts zealots, in their desperation over the failure of the gentler means of quenching Quaker ardor, condemned and executed three men and a woman. Even Charles II was revolted by such extreme measures, and ordered the colony to desist. After a long struggle the Quakers, along with other advocates of liberty of conscience, won their struggle for religious liberty even in Massachusetts. There can be little doubt that their sufferings played an important part in the establishment of religious liberty as an American principle.[116]

In our own day the conscientious objector to military service, whatever his motivation and philosophy, faces a social situation very similar to that which confronted these early supporters of a new faith. For the moment there is little chance that his insistence upon following the highest values which his conscience recognizes will bring an end to war, because there are not enough others who share his convictions. He takes his individual stand without regard for outward consequences to himself, because his conviction leaves him no other alternative. But even though his "sufferings" do not at once make possible the universal practice of goodwill towards all men, they may in the end have the result of helping to banish war from the world.