Military service

My view is that you must be brought under a system, and there must be a uniform scheme for receiving public money and for performing necessary services.

Because I think that, as the principle that all citizens should serve for pay is displeasing to some people, and yet the advantage of organization and equipment is approved by all, you ought to begin the business at this point, giving everyone a chance of stating his views on the subject.

Now if you so organize the receipt of money that it is associated with the performance of duties, so far from injuring, you will actually confer on the State and on yourselves the greatest benefit;

In a word, without increasing or lessening our expenditure by more than a trifle, I claim to have removed anomalies and introduced order into the state, establishing a uniform system of pay and of service, whether in the field or in the law-courts or wherever each man finds a task suited to his own age and to the needs of the occasion.

In plain language I mean the laws for administering the Theoric Fund, and also some of the service regulations.

Surely it is not like men of sense and spirit to shirk your military duty because the pay is not forthcoming, thinking lightly of the shame of it all;

whether a believer may turn to military service, and whether military service may be admitted to the faith—even the common soldier's, or any lower rank, for which there is no necessity of sacrifices or of capital judgments.