youth, at the fireside, and especially in our Sabbath schools. Surely, the child who has been wont to bow the knee at the family altar, and to hear the voice of prayer from a parent's lips, surely, the pupil of the Sabbath school, who has been taught that there is a spirit in man which is priceless, and a salvation infinitely precious, will not be likely to love the blood and carnage of the field of battle.

Another obvious method of promoting the cause of peace is to urge upon the followers of Christ their obligation to practice the precepts of the gospel of peace. If they are the friends of war, we cannot expect the world at large to be the friends of peace. Another duty of Christians is to recognize an overruling providence. As individuals they may do it, but they are apt not to do it as members of the community. Perhaps there is no point in which men are more generally practical Atheists than in respect to the God of Nations. In him we live and move and have our being as individuals, but our national weal or woe is our own creation. But Jehovah is the moral governor of states and kingdoms. He hath destroyed nations, and he can and will protect the people that trust in him. The Christian then, who, when the cause of peace is urged upon his notice, hesitates, and doubts the expediency of incorporating its principles into our national policy, lest we be thereby exposed to scorn and insult from other nations, dishonours the God whom he professes to adore, the providence to which he gratefully ascribes his daily blessings. To those, however, who have felt this objection to our assuming a pacific attitude, as a nation, it may be said, that no views of policy can prevail in one nation without exerting a powerful influence on surrounding nations. There is a public sentiment in the community of states as in that of individuals. International law has no other foundation than this. Now this public sentiment of the world may be enlightened and directed. A Grotius, on topics of public concernment, has given the law to the world, and may do it again. It should be remarked also, that at the present day, the sympathy of feeling between the different nations is peculiarly active. Else why do the monarchical governments

of the old world manifest a marked jealousy and suspicion of a family of peaceful, unwarlike states, separated from them by an ocean of three thousand miles over? Else why have they created as it were a cordon sanitaire against the infection of liberal principles, and in some cases arrayed the whole power of their kingdoms for their suppression? Again, reflect that there are in the civilized world not more than ten or twelve leading powers, with each of which we exchange ambassadors, with each of which we are on terms of mutual friendship and respect. Now of as many individuals in a neighbourhood, if one should manifest a peaceful spirit, he would exert a great influence in diffusing such a spirit throughout the circle, and why may it not be so in this community of states? The united and persevering efforts of the friends of man, have changed the public sentiment of civilized nations in regard to slavery and other evils; why may it not do the same for the monstrous outrage on the reason and common sense of man, implied in the practice of war? As has been already stated, we perceive an evident tendency to this result. The disposition which has been so often manifested within a few years, to refer controverted questions between states, which would not long since have been decided by an array of armies and the loss of blood and treasure, to the calm consideration of embassies or umpires, is a decisive indication of it. And when we view this subject in the light of past ages, even obscured as that is by clouds and darkness, when we call to mind the Amphictyonic and Pannonian councils, and the Achæan league of antiquity, the German and Swiss confederacies, as well as that of the United States, and the forty Congresses which have been held in Europe, within the last two hundred years, for the purpose of settling various questions which had arisen between nations, we surely are not chargeable with a wild enthusiasm in anticipating the near approach of the period when national controversies will be uniformly settled in this way. Then shall wars cease, and man be the friend of man.

We shall mention another method by which every individual may array himself with the peace makers of the earth,

though we would not have him thus excuse himself from the duty of using a more direct agency. Let him contribute his iufluence to swell the stream of benevolence which is now visiting the nations with its life giving waters. That glorious cause, the object of which is to diffuse the blessings of civilized life and the joys of salvation over the world, directly tends to promote peace on earth and good will among men. It warms that chilling selfishness which regards our own land as the only worthy object of our love, and which has been the source of most of the wars which have spread desolation and woe around, into a generous, open hearted philanthropy, which extends our sympathies to all lands. It does not extinguish love of country, but it fosters love of mankind. A new bond of union is formed between Christian nations, who are leagued together in this fellowship of charity. We ourselves have recently had a most gratifying exemplification of the power of Christian sympathy between the disciples of Christ of different countries. The recent embassy of love, we may so call it,-the expression of fraternal interest and regard sent us from the churches of our father-land have doubtless kindled in our hearts, a deeper, livelier, and fresher interest for that land of our kindred in language, in social institutions, and religion. Praised be God for this commencement of an interchange of these messages of Christian love and fellowship between these two nations! May the same spirit extend to other lands, until we shall behold the spectacle of all the nations of christendom thus greeting each other in the love and peace of the Gospel! Thus it is, that the various associations which are formed to give union. and energy to the efforts of the wise and good, in their schemes of mercy, awakening the sympathies of men for each other throughout the world, are rapidly preparing the way for the coming of that period when the soldier shall have laid his helmet by, have forged his weapons of war into implements of peace, and have become

"A fellow man among his fellow men."

ARTICLE III.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

BY THE EDITOR.

1.-Influence of the Christian Religion on Poetry,-in the Christian Spectator for June 1834. Art. III.

The special object of this department of our work is the promotion of a pure and Christian literature, in respect to War and kindred subjects, by the application of just and Christian principles to the criticism of current publications. Still, however, as our readers will have observed, our notices have not been exclusively critical, in the strict sense of the term. It comes within our scope, and certainly gives us great pleasure, to mark the progress of just thinking to signalize the manifestations of a better spirit in literature-and to make our pages a repository of the choicest things that are scattered here and there in the various works that come out, so far as they can be transferred, and as our limits will permit. That the special efforts of the lovers of peace and humanity have not been without effect, and that their principles are silently but surely and increasingly gaining ground, must, we think, be obvious to any one who is observant of our literature, particularly those departments of it which most immediately influence and reflect the tone of the public mind. The cause of universal peace is unquestionably beginning to awaken more attention and to excite more interest. A juster and more Christian style of thinking and feeling in regard to the true character of war and its concomitants, begins to manifest itself decisively in various quarters of the wide field of general literature.

In the Christian Spectator for June, containing the article whose title we have given above, we find the following admirable and eloquent passage. After showing the influence of Christianity upon poetry in respect to mythology and machinery, the writer goes on to observe that:

"The influence of Christianity tends to destroy another great theme of poetry. Its spirit is peace. It breathes harmony and love, and aims to bring together in appropriate union, all the wild

1834.] Influence of the Christian Religion on Poetry. 139

and jarring elements of this world; and warrants the anticipation of that blessed future, when we shall no more hear the confused noise of battle, or behold garments rolled in blood. The object of poetry is to please, to instruct, and to deepen our social interest in existence. Is war, then, a fit subject for poetry? The muse may weep, she has often, like David, poured forth her bitter lamenta tions over the slain with inimitable pathos. But what theme of pleasurable poetry does the strife of war or a field of death present? We feel that there is an awful delusion on this subject, arising from early associations, and strengthened by the whole course of our education. We need only turn to Kames' Sketches of man, to learn the sentiments of thousands on this subject. War,' he says, 'is necessary for man, as the school of magnanimity, heroism, and every virtue that ennobles human nature. Without it, he would rival the hare in timidity!' We confess that we cannot read such sentiments without feeling a glow of indignation. War necessary for man! A sentiment, indeed, worthy of one who had learned his philosophy in the school of Racine and Voltaire, and which should place its author back a thousand years before the Christian How often, too, has the historian thrown his enchanting but deceptive colors over this subject; prostituting his noble talents, bowing before kings and warriors, while he has passed in silence some of the most splendid creations of genius! Volumes, for example, he has for the 'petty freaks and quarrels of Leicester and Essex, in the time of Elizabeth, but not a solitary page for Shakspeare.'

era.

"To many there seems something noble in 'the pomp and circumstance of glorious war;' something sublime in the onset of battles, as the contending legions meet and dash against each other; something generous and God-like in the ardor of that chivalrous feeling which glows in the hour of danger. We need not say that this feeling is powerfully invigorated by the glowing descriptions of the historian and the poet, in their apotheosis of the warrior. To us, however, there is no poetry in such scenes. There are too many painful associations connected with them. We cannot confine our imagination to the glories that encircle the individual hero; our minds revert to the scene where his ovation was purchased, the ensangnined plain,-and dwell upon the thousands that have fallen under his victorious car.

"Let us look at this subject in the light of sober, Christian philosophy. Let us survey thus the field of Waterloo, that Golgotha of nations.' There stood the mighty combatants, it is true, in awful array; the chivalrous legions of France opposed to the more determined hosts of Britain. They meet; and when that day's work is over, what do we behold of poetry there?—a field for a mile square covered with ghastly and disfigured forms, with the mutilated, the dying and the dead. Melancholy and terrific sounds are heard; the shouts of victory have given place to groans of anguish,