THE HEDGEHOG LETTERS.

CONTAINING THE OPINIONS AND ADVENTURES OF JUNIper hedgehOG, CABMAN, LONDON; AND WRITTEN ΤΟ HIS RELATIVES AND ACQUAINTANCE, IN

VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD.

LETTER XXVIII.-TO JOHN ROBINSON, PRIVATE OF THE 91ST FOOT, INDIA. DEAR JOHN,-When this letter may find you it isn't for me to say; but wherever you are, it will no doubt find you upon a bed of laurels; though, for my own part, I do think a bed of good honest goose feathers the more comfortable lying. Mind, I don't for a moment want to think light of what you've done and what you 've suffered. Not a bit of it. Terrible work it must be ; and a bold heart a man must needs have to go through it: you've earned your share of glory-(though what may be your share as a full private I can't say)—and I should think have got your bellyful of it for life. It's my hope, however, that you'll never get any more. No, having cleaned the blood from your bayonet, and once more polished up your firelock, it's my hope that they 'll never know service again. I do hope, whatever you may think, that you 've had enough of the sport; now sticking cold iron into the bowels of a screeching man, and now knocking in his skull as though it was no more than a pumpkin. When the guns are firing, and the blood's up, of course you think nothing of the work, going at it as though you were an engine of brass made to shoot and stab. But, I should say, it can't be pleasant to think of when it's over. That field of glory, as it's called, must go nigh to make a man heart-sick; must make him a little out of sorts with himself: 'tis so different a field to a field of cut corn. For my part, John, I would much sooner cultivate turnips than laurels. A turnip 's a nice thing for men and cattle, and so easily grown. Now, laureleven a sprig of it, must be raised in the devil's hothouse, and be manured with human blood. Still, according to some folks, there's some human blood that Providence thinks no more of than ditchwater. Of course, there's been a pretty hurrah here in England about your putting down the Sikhs. One quiet gentleman with a goose

quill is very pious indeed upon the matter; and thinks that the war was expressly ordered to destroy "the scum of Asia," Providence having employed the British army for no other purpose than to sweep from the earth so much of its own offal. It's droll to think of your pious Christian in his easy chair, with his foot on a soft stool, his rent and taxes paid, and his pew at the parish church newly cushioned-it's something more than droll, isn't it, to think of him lifting his pious eyes to his ceiling, and talking of some twenty thousand slaughtered men as the "scum," the refuse of creatures; as animals just a little above apes, of no account at all to the God who made 'em. He-good John!-thinks of 'em as no more than the vermin that once or twice a-year is cleaned out of his bedsteads, that decent respectable people may take their rest all the cosier for the cleaning. Easy Christianity, isn't it?

And then the demand there's been for religion in this matter. A score of pious people-all hot from their Bibles-day after day write to the papers to know when they were to be comforted, by being authorized by Her Majesty, to return thanks for the slaughter. "Are we to shut up in our own breasts"-writes one very much afraid of bursting" the grateful emotion? Was there to be no safety-valve, as I believe they call it-ordered by the Government? "Are we even to content ourselves with talking to one another, as individuals, of this our great deliverance!" This Christian writes from Brighton, and with, no doubt, tears as big as marbles in his eyes, wants to know when he is-according to a Government order, as if he couldn't offer up a private prayer on his own account -when he is to be allowed to return thanks to "HIM, who is the God of Battles." Perhaps I am very wicked, but for my part I never can bring myself to think of HIM as the God of Battles. The God of Love the God of Mercy-the God of Goodness-but I cannot say the God of Fire-the God of Blood -the God of every Horror, committed upon man, woman, and child, in the madness of fight. Looking at a field of clover, I could thankfully say the field of God; but the words stick in my throat when I think of a field of glory; a field soaked with blood, a field with thousands of dead and dying creatures on it, sent into the world by God. But, then, I'm only an ignorant cabman.

However, some folks are as glad that the Sikhs are slaughtered as though they'd been no more than so many locusts. It's a great day for Christianity, they cry; never forgetting gunpowder in their religion. One gentleman-I think he's an India Director

sees a good deal of likeness between the dispatches of your general and the Bible. The Sikhs are the worshippers of Moloch, he says,-and like them have been destroyed by the true believers. Indeed, I've no doubt that these very religious folks would go from Genesis to Malachi, and find a resemblance in every chapter to every fight and movement in a whole campaign. And I dare say then they 're quite sincere and honest in what they mean, -but then why don't they go on to the New Testament? Why do they stop short at that? And if they do stop short, and take all their examples of bloodshed from the Bible-and none of their teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, why-I must ask it, though I know I'm nothing but a foolish cabman-why don't they, so to speak, undo their Christianity? Why don't they turn Jews at once; and return thanks, not according to the Testament in a Christian Church, but as the Bible directs, in a synagogue?

Το

Nevertheless, John Robinson, we have returned thanks that all of you, with your muskets, and your shells, and your bayonets and cannon, have killed thousands of the Sikhs. be sure, they struck the first blow-that I can't deny. For all that, I do think that in the prayer that was made by the Archbishop, we did crow over 'em a little too much. For my part, I should have liked it better if the prayer had said something, regretting like, the causes of the dreadful slaughter. Whereas, it accounted no more of the Sikhs-poor things!-is it their fault if they're not believers in Scripture?-than if they'd been so many mad dogs, knocked on the head, for peace and safety.

It was quite a holiday in our parish; and I do assure you many of the people looked as they went to and from the church, quite as proud as if they'd handled sword and musket on their own account, and were returning thanks for their own courage. There was Snaps, the shoemaker and churchwarden. He had, I know, all the battle at his fingers' ends,—and looked as if he felt himself quite a soldier all the service. And his wife had a bran-new gown for the ceremony, and his daughters new bonnets. Indeed, I could run over fifty people who went to church that day, as if they were going to parade; and after they'd heard the Archbishop's prayer, they looked about 'em quite proud and satisfied, as much as to say-" See what we can do in the defence of our country!" For myself (but then I'm only a cabman) I must say it-I did

feel it a melancholy business. I couldn't, do all I could, get the horrors of the battle out of my head. When the organ began to play, I only thought of the roaring of the guns and the groans of the dying. There was one part in the printed account of the fight that I could not forget. It was this:

"This battle had begun at six, and was over at eleven o'clock; the handto-hand combat commenced at nine, and lasted scarcely two hours. The river was full of sinking men. For two hours volley after volley was poured in upon the human mass-the stream being literally red with blood, and covered with the bodies of the slain. At last the musket ammunition becoming exhausted, the infantry fell to rear; the horse artillery plying grape, till not a man was visible within range. No COMPASSION WAS FELT, OR MERCY SHOWN.

And

Yes, John: "no compassion was felt, or mercy shown!" we, as Christians, were called upon to give thanks for it! Well, our clergyman-he 's a kind, good creature as ever prayed in a pulpit-he preached upon the text, (I've no doubt he'd some meaning in it,) "But I say unto you, Love your enemies." A beautiful discourse he made; though I do assure you, a good many of the people, all tucked out in their best feathers (quite a church review, I can tell you) in compliment to your guns and bayonets, did look a little glum as the good gentleman went on; for all the world as if they thought such a discourse wasn't for that day-any how. Nevertheless, he preached as he always does, real, everyday religion-religion to be worn like an every-day coat in the working-day world, and not the religion that's put on to come to church in. He worked the text in all manner of beautiful ways. It did sound cold to be sure, after we'd been thanking God for helping us to slaughter thousands of barbarians-thanking God in the words of an archbishop-to hear the words of HIM who tells us to "love our enemies,"—and not to kill 'em. "No compassion was felt, or mercy shown," says the account of the battle. "Love your enemies, says Christ.

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'Yes, all that's very well," said Collops, the butcher, to whom I was talking after this fashion-Collops had mounted an entire new suit for the Thanksgiving-"that's all very well, Mister Hedgehog; but it won't do such things are not to be taken in a straightfor❜ard sense. Christianity is a beautiful thing, not a doubt on it, but to be a Christian every day in the week, I must shut up my shop. It was never intended. It's quite enough if a

man attends his church and is an earnest Christian once in seven days." And there's a good many folks like Collops in our parish; and I'm afeard in every other parish too.

However, John, I hope it's our last thanksgiving for gunpowder. Let us only keep peace for an odd ten or fifteen years more, and you may bid good bye to war for good. The young lads of our time will be brought up in a better school than their poor fathers, and won't have the same relish for blood. They won't cackle about glory like their parent ganders-it's the young uns that I put my hope upon; for it's no easy matter-in fact it's not to be done to send middle-aged and old men to school again to unlearn all the stupidity and trumpery of all their lives. And so, John, I do hope you'll never fire another shot. Not but what you 'll be pleased to hear that there's quite a stir among us just now-get the Quarterly Review if there's a circulating library at Lahorequite a stir about educating the private soldier. They're going to make him quite a moral, scientific gentleman. They're going to have libraries for him, though they say nothing about taking away the halberds. And whether the soldier is still to have the cat-o'-nine-tails or no, I can't tell; but certainly they do say he's to have books.

We're to have no fighting, John, about America. And even if a war was to be declared, there's heaps of New Englandersas I've heard-who would not enlist for the defence of the southern States. And the slaveholders seem to have an inkling of this, and so wouldn't like to risk the loss of their propertytheir black brothers—in a skrimmage; for the good men of the north swear they will not pull a trigger in defence of slavery. And so, if the quarrel was ever so right upon the side of America, the wrong that is in her must work its vengeance. And so no more from

Your affectionate friend,

JUNIPER HEDGEHOG.