ing immortal spirits by hundreds and thousands into perdition; and that responsibility what mortal man or men shall dare to take ! Is there any interest so sacred, any right so dear, as to outweigh the worth of a single human soul? Can we be so deeply wounded or insulted, as to make it fitting that the destruction of the immortal interests, not of one, but of many souls, should atone for the wrong? If not, then is all war unjustifiable.

We have now shown, we trust to the satisfaction of our readers, that the practice of war is entirely opposed to the precepts of the Gospel, the example of its Founder, and the spirit of his religion. It remains to answer one or two objections to the general view of the subject of war, which we have advocated.

It is said; "Great principles are sometimes at stake, principles, which may promote the happiness and improvement of countless generations, and which can be established only by war. Is it not right to fight in defence of such principles?" We answer unhesitatingly, No. What right have we to take the lives, the souls, of our brethren, and offer them up, even on the altar of happiness and improvement ? What right have we to do evil that good may come? Moreover, God, who certainly desires the well-being of his children, has given us the New Testament, full of unqualified precepts of peace, non-resistance, forgiveness, as our safest guide to happiness, our surest means of improvement. What do we say, then, when we assert the expediency of war? Simply this, that we know, better than God, what is good for us,

- that

we are wiser than our divine Master. This is the error of Paley, and of all those moralists who adopt expediency as their standard of right; they first show, that war is necessary and expedient, then assert, that it cannot therefore be forbidden in the Scriptures, and then make the most ludicrous distortions of the sacred text, in order to prove that it is not forbidden. The contrary would seem the more modest process of reasoning for finite beings, to make the first appeal to revelation; then, if war be forbidden there, to determine at once, that it cannot be either expedient or necessary; and finally to corroborate, by collateral arguments, the doctrine of its inexpediency and uselessness. We would rather have no Bible, than to have one which we are obliged to correct at every step by our own notions of expediency and right.

But, leaving Scripture out of the question, and resting the case entirely on expediency, we still would deny the justifiableness of war, even for the establishment of great principles. No principle or possession can do a nation good, unless the nation be virtuous; and war has always proved fatal to the moral character of the nations engaged in it, of the victorious no less than of the vanquished.

If ever a war was justified by the principles in defence of which it was waged, it was the war of our Revolution. Let us cursorily examine the objects and results of that war. It is stated in every Fourth-of-July oration, that it was not for the security of individual rights or property, not to obtain new means of prosperity, not to throw off a yoke of iron, but simply by throwing off a comparatively light yoke to obtain. entire freedom, that our ancestors commenced hostilities. They were increasing in numbers and wealth with unexampled rapidity. They enjoyed good laws, (indeed, in all important particulars, the same laws under which we are now living,) and generally a judicious administration of them. The burden of taxation was much lighter than it is under our present form of government. Until symptoms of rebellion appeared, there was no military occupation of the country. And, after troops had been stationed to keep the peace in the head-quarters of rebellion, they most religiously refrained from acts of personal violence and outrage; and, indeed, the first blood that was shed in the quarrel was shed by British soldiers in defending themselves from the fury of a Boston mob. Moreover, the institutions of learning and religion were firmly established,- those of religion much more firmly than at present. Now all these blessings were cut off for a time by the war of the Revolution, even our colleges converted into barracks, and our churches into riding-schools; and it may be fairly doubted whether the elements of national prosperity have yet settled upon a more durable foundation, than that on which they stood before the first revolutionary movements. But unless it bring solid advantages with it, national independence is but a name. That name indeed we have, we have a union too, which has been on the brink of dissolution ever since it was formed, — rulers also of our own choice, about whose respective claims the country is kept in ceaseless commotion, towns, neighbourhoods, and families distracted by party broils, and the public prints filled with

calumny. We would not assert that these are all the fruits that we have reaped from the revolutionary struggle; much less would we deny that he, who makes even the wrath of man to praise him, may yet educe great and increasing good from the events of that decisive period. But we do believe, that, had the war for independence never taken place, our country would have been much more prosperous, virtuous, and happy, than at present. Nor need we have remained for ever in subjection to British power. We might perhaps have purchased the right of self-government and independence, or gained it ere this, by free concession, or by outgrowing the mother country, and becoming too strongly a preponderant weight on this side the Atlantic for her to poize on the other; or, had we still retained our connexion with Great Britain, we should long since have obtained our right of representation in Parliament, in favor of granting which there was at the time of the war a large and constantly increasing party, particularly in the House of Commons.

But, whatever might have been our present condition had not the war taken place, it is very certain that the war introduced many sources of moral corruption previously unknown. Infidelity was, up to that date, exceedingly rare ; nor had there been any instance, in which a man who openly scorned his Saviour had obtained ascendency in the land. But Thomas Paine, at once a drunkard and a deist, was deemed a man well fitted to help on the work of war, was advised to come to this country by Dr. Franklin, was the confidential friend of Jefferson, received a largess from the poverty-stricken Congress, and numerous honors and emoluments from the governments of New York and Pennsylvania ; and yet it is very certain, that, ten years previously, a man of his character would have found nothing in this country but merited obscurity and ignominy. The popularity of his political works gave his "Age of Reason" an early and extensive circulation throughout the country. Several of the civil and military heads of the nation, during the war, were avowed or well-known unbelievers; the poison of infidelity was in various ways infused into the army, and has been working its way deeper and deeper into the body politic ever since. Then again, it is certain, that, prior to the war of the Revolution, intemperance was a rare and dreaded evil, and comparatively little use was made of ardent spirits. The exposure

and fatigue of a military life led the soldiers to the habit of drinking freely, while multiplied public meetings of various kinds, the unsettled habits generated by war, and the danger, anxiety, and loss connected with it, led to the formation of similar habits by those at home. Thus the close of the war found our nation one of the most intemperate nations, perhaps, in the world; and thousands of the soldiers, who won the victory for us, have been cast by this vice alone upon the reluctant charity of the public. The Sabbath, too, was universally reverenced prior to the Revolution. War does not, cannot recognise a Sabbath. The whole nation were then too deeply interested in, and too closely connected with the military operations and movements, to observe any day as strictly a day of calm and holy rest; and the "vulgar Protestant prejudice," (as one of our distinguished naval commanders has seen fit to call it,*) that the Sabbath ought to be religiously observed, has been losing ground in the community ever since. Time would fail us to enumerate the evils which war has brought upon our country, the in which it ways has fitted many times as many souls for perdition as it has stretched bodies on the field of battle. We leave our readers to judge, whether a war fraught with consequences so direful, (and yet with less direful consequences than almost any other war on record,) was justifiable on the mere score of expediency.

But, in illustrating the disastrous moral effects directly resulting from war, we have exhibited but a part of the picture. The practice of war, requiring naval and military establishments in time of peace, perpetuates military tastes and feelings in the community, and keeps open a perennial source of evil influences. Neither the navy nor the army has ever been a school of morality and piety; our navy and army cannot claim to be so. We speak not of private characters; did we, we should speak in terms of unqualified commendation of the intelligence, generosity, and moral purity of many of the officers, with whom it has been our happiness to be acquainted; nay more, we should mention those whom we have known as being examples and models of Christian piety. But, leaving individual characters out of the question, we would speak only of general features, and of public measures

* Commodore Porter, in the Journal of his Cruise in the Pacific.

and transactions. We would refer to the almost entire destitution of religious instruction and influence, to which the army and the navy are abandoned; the army having no chaplains, and the navy very few, while most of the military posts and the navy yards are so situated, that their inhabitants cannot enjoy the means of religion in company with their fellowcitizens. We would refer to the infidelity and immorality which some of its best friends acknowledge as existing in the Military Academy at West Point, where the cadets are left without any religious service or instruction except a single attendance upon public worship on Sabbath morning; where the Sabbath is officially recognised as a day of study, and is often selected as a season for special military parade or duty; where young men, formed for distinguished places in the community, are entirely excluded from all the humanizing, elevating, purifying influences of domestic and social life. We would refer to the general regulations of the army and navy, which recognise none of the institutions and ordinances of religion, and not unfrequently demand their violation. We would remind some of our readers of the naval salutes that have startled them at the very hour of public worship. We would not have it forgotten, till such abuses be remedied, that the present bishop of Ohio, when chaplain at West Point, remonstrated in vain against the military entrée of the Inspector on the Sabbath, and, immediately after the unholy parade, the roll of drums, and roar of artillery, took for his text, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy"; and that the chaplain's dismissal or resignation was so nearly consequent upon this act of moral courage, as fully to authorize the supposition, that they stood in the relation of cause and effect. These statements may suffice to illustrate the deleterious moral tendency of peace establishments, which ought in fairness to be taken into the account in every argument upon the expediency of

war.

Now, if these things be so, the immediate and forced establishment even of principles of prime importance cannot be worth the tremendous sacrifices incurred by war and by every military institution and custom.

But some of our readers, who admit the unlawfulness of aggressive war, may yet advocate what they call defensive war, on the ground that self-defence is a divinely implanted instinct of human nature. So are hunger and thirst divinely