committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously." "Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his;" so also if he imitates not the example of Christ, he is none of his. Were the Saviour's example universally followed, wars would be no more. “If Christian nations were nations of Christians, all wars would be impossible, and unknown among them." How important that all men should imitate the example of Christ, the great pattern of excellence, that wars may cease unto the ends of the earth, and peace universally be established! 4. The evil effects of war is another reason why it should be abolished. Nothing less than the Divine Intelligence, who alone is able to comprehend the worth of the soul, and the tendency of war to destroy it, can fully estimate the extent of this evil. The human mind takes knowledge of the temporal evils of war only, and of these in a partial degree. One of these evils is an immense waste of treasure. The following account of English wars, taken from the London Weekly Review, is awfully affecting. "Of one hundred and twenty-seven years, terminating in 1815, England spent sixty-five in war, and sixty-two in peace. The war of 1688, after lasting nine years, and raising our expenditure in that period to thirty-six millions, was ended by the treaty of Ryswick in 1697. Then came the war of the Spanish succession, which began in 1702, concluded in 1713, and absorbed sixty-two and a half millions of our money. Next was the Spanish war of 1739, settled finally at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, after costing us nearly sixty-four millions. Then came the Seven Years' war of 1756, which terminated with the treaty of Paris in 1763, in the course of which we spent one hundred and twelve millions. The next was the American war of 1775, which lasted eight years. Our national expenditure in this time was one hundred and thirty-six millions. The French Revolutionary war began in 1793, lasted nine years, and exhibited an expenditure of four hundred and sixty-four millions. The war against Buonaparte began in 1808, and ended in 1815. During those twelve years, we spent one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine millions; seven hundred and seventy-one of which were raised by taxes, three hundred and eighty by loans. In the Revolutionary war, we borrowed two hundred and one millions; in the American, one hundred and four millions; in the Seven Years' war, sixty millions; in the Spanish war of 1739, twenty-nine millions; in the war of the Spanish succession, thirty-two millions and a half; in the war of 1688, twenty millions;-total borrowed in the seven wars, during 65 years, about eight hundred and thirty-four millions. In the same time we raised by taxes one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine millions; thus forming a total expenditure of two thousand and twenty-three millions." What an enormous amount of money expended in the destruction of human life, and for the gratification of ambitious or selfish purposes ! The expenses of the last war of the United States, is supposed to have amounted to at least forty millions of dollars a year. The military and naval expenses of Great Britain, in the war for the year 1815, amounted to forty-five millions three hundred and sixty-two thousand six hundred and seventyseven pounds. This fact is ascertained by consulting authentic documents. From official papers it appears, that the whole expense of her armies cost France for the year 1819, seven hundred fifty-eight millions and five hundred thousand francs.-To impress the mind more fully with the vast expense, consequent on war, we will just compare the expenditure occasioned in this way, with the civil expenditures in the same governments. In the Treasurer's Report for the year 1818, the civil expenses of the United States were estimated at three millions eight hundred and nine thousand eight hundred and six dollars; the annual expense of the late war is computed at forty millions of dollars. The expenses of the war were ten times more than the expenses of civil government. The civil expenditure of the government of Great Britain during the year 1815, was four millions four hundred and sixty-one thousand and eighty-seven pounds. The expenses for war in the same year were forty-five millions three hundred sixtytwo thousand six hundred and seventy-seven pounds. In the British nation the expenses of the war were ten fold greater than the expenses of civil government. France spent thirty-seven millions seven hundred thousand francs for her civil expenses in the year ending 1817, and her expenses for war during the year 1809 were computed at seven hundred fifty-eight millions and five hundred thousand francs, a sum of money twenty times as large as her annual civil expenses. Will this expenditure be deemed incredible, when we take into account military and naval armaments, fortifications, marches, encampments, seiges, and battles? "The cost of building and equipping for service a single ship of the line, even in time of peace, when every thing can be done leisurely and at the best advantage, would erect the buildings of a university, and furnish them with ample apparatus; and the expense of manning the ship, and keeping it afloat from year to year, even without battles, would supply gratuitous instruction at the university for a thousand students." Such is the expense of war, of peril and battle, of victory and defeat. And in this it should be recollected, that the waste of property by conflagration, pillage, and other ways of destruction, is not included; neither is reference had to ancient days in recounting the millions of their armies and the treasure requisite for their equipment and support. Another of the evils of war is the bloodshed and slaugh ter it occasions. "No one," said Croesus to Cyrus, can be so infatuated as not to prefer peace to war. In peace, children inter their parents. War violates the order of nature, and causes parents to inter their children." "A soldier," said Dean Swift, "is a being hired to kill in cold blood, as many of his own species who have never offended him, as he possibly can." How true the passage of inspiration, "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword." It is stated on good authority, that there were wounded and slaughtered, on the field of Austerlitz, twenty thousand; on the field of Bautzen, twenty-five thousand; at Dresden, thirty thousand; at Waterloo, forty thousand; Eylau, fifty thousand; at Borodino, eighty thousand. It is supposed, that not less than fourteen thousand millions of human beings have fallen the victims of war, a number about eighteen times greater than the population of the whole globe at the present time. In the Revolutionary war of this country, England, it is said, lost two hundred thousand lives. Cæsar, in the fifty battles fought by him, slew, according to the statements of Dr. Prideaux, one million one hundred and ninety-two thousand of his opposers. O, what battle fields have been drenched in blood by the armies of Alexander, Cæsar and Napoleon! If a Persian king, a heathen, on reviewing his army was affected to weeping, at the consideration, that in one hundred years from that time, every human being he then saw would be numbered with the dead; what should be the emotions of every Christian, when reflecting on the thousands of millions, that have been brought to an untimely end by sanguinary contests! War has a pernicious effect on the morals and happiness of man. Nothing can be more promotive of vice and immorality. "War makes thieves," says Machiavel," and peace brings them to the gallows." The habits of soldiers, who have been for any considerable time quartered or encamped, become dissolute. The miseries of war are incalculable. "Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn." Lamentation and wo are inscribed in letters of blood on every warlike scene. Awful is the catastrophe of a martial contest. Man, horse, car, lie in undistinguished ruin. In some, life is extinct. In others, blood is gushing from dissevered arteries. Shrieks of expiring nature arise from every quarter. Then are heard the Lingering groan, the faintly uttered prayer, What heart-rending anguish has this evil produced in the quiet domestic circle! The dearest ties it has severed forever. Families happy in the enjoyment of each other's society, are called to part with a tender father, or beloved brother, who leave their peaceful home, perhaps never to return. What hours of painful anxiety are endured by those who remain behind! How many desolate widows, and helpless orphans, has this scourge of man produced! O, could we realize in its full extent the magnitude of suffering it has occasioned, we should indeed deprecate it, as one of the most fearful judgments of Heaven! When a treaty of peace at the close of the Revolutionary war had been signed at Paris, Dr. Franklin wrote a letter to Josiah Quincy of Braintree, in which he says, " May we never see another war; for in my opinion there never was a good war or a bad peace." II. How shall wars be abolished, and peace be promoted? To accomplish this object, every lawful and practicable method should be adopted. |